Gritty 'Power Rangers' Short Is Not Fair Use 255
"Power/Rangers", the 11-minute short directed by music video veteran Joseph Kahn, is still available on Youtube, where it was posted by the film's producer, Adi Shankar. Rival video site Vimeo removed the short film after receiving a copyright complaint from Haim Saban, the creator of the U.S. series, for using the characters without his permission.
The movie is OK. I think the people gushing about how amazing it is are mentally comparing it to the awful 1995 "Power Rangers" movie or the bland cartoon. But how are the director and his defenders arguing that the movie isn't a copyright violation?
The director said in one of a series of tweets: "Every image in POWER/RANGERS is original footage. Nothing was pre-existing. There is no copyrighted footage in the short." True, but this ignores the fact that characters themselves can be protected by copyright. Fan fiction sites can exist legally only to the extent that the character copyright owner grants permission (J.K. Rowling has explicitly given permission for the Harry Potter characters to be used in fan fiction; Anne Rice specifically prohibits fan fiction featuring her characters). Most obviously, when a studio like Warner Brothers produces their own gritty reboot of a character, they have to pay fees to the owner of that character, even if every frame of their movie is entirely the studio's own work. Why on Earth would the studio pay those fees, if they didn't have to?
The director also tweeted, "I am not making any money on it and I refuse to accept any from anyone." Well, everyone ought to know by now that that argument isn't going to fly if you put a copy of The Avengers on your personal home page. It's not obvious why that defense should work any better if you've violated someone's copyright by using their characters without permission, instead of just copying their movie.
Kahn also tweeted that the short film was not a copyright violation because it was "satire," and his supporters agreed, calling the film a "parody." (Copyright law holds that you can satirize or parody someone else's work without their permission; thus Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer do not have to pay licensing fees for the movies that they rip off in their awful "parodies.") But no English speaker would use the word "satire" or "parody" to describe Kahn's movie, precisely because of the qualities that people loved about it (dark, violent, almost completely humorless). Most tellingly, as far as I can tell nobody did call it a satire or parody until that started being raised as a defense against copyright claims -- they called it a dark, gritty remake or re-imagining, because that's what it was, and calling it a "satire" sounds jarringly wrong unless you're in on the wink-wink pseudo-legal strategy.
Kahn also invoked "fair use" multiple times, but that's just begging the question: since "fair use" is a catch-all for several scenarios in which you can legally use copyrighted content without the owner's permission (parody/satire, brief excerpt for the purpose of commentary/criticism, etc.), which defense applies here? One of the criteria for "fair use" is how much of the original work you re-used -- if your online review of The Dark Knight links to a 10-second clip that you posted to show that the fight scenes are kick-ass, that might be OK, but a 30-minute excerpt would not be. But if we apply that logic to the use of a copyrighted character, in a story you're either using someone else's copyrighted character, or you're not. Given that characters are protected by copyright at all, it doesn't make much sense to talk about "using 0.5% of a character", the way that a 30-second clip would constitute only 0.5% of a 100-minute movie. It certainly wouldn't make sense in the case of Kahn's remake, where the copyrighted Power Rangers characters are onscreen in every single scene.
The director's defenders rightly pointed out the absurdity of Vimeo removing the short film just hours after giving it a "Staff Pick" award, but the real absurdity runs in the opposite direction -- how did Vimeo's staff give an award to the film that they should have known was a knockoff? Presumably they had heard of the Power Rangers and knew that the movie was using the characters without permission.
Moreover, there's not just a legal argument against an unauthorized "gritty reboot" of the Power Rangers, there's a moral one as well. The short film shows that Joseph Kahn is a technically competent director -- but there are many, many competent directors out there, making gritty sci-fi films of short and feature length, all competing for people's attention. By using the "Power Rangers" name for his piece, Kahn got way more views than he would have gotten if he had released it as "just another dark sci-fi short film." And despite his protestations that he's not making money from the film, it's bringing him exposure and connections which are almost certainly monetizable somewhere down the road, opportunities which come at the expense of other similarly talented directors. Does that seem fair?
Remember, we welcome reader-submitted essays and opinion pieces, not just news snippets, through the Slashdot submissions form .
Parody (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe because it's a parody? I've not watched this movie and don't intent to, but a parody is allowed to use however much of the original work it wants to.
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Is it a parody? Is it intended to lampoon the original? Is it a giant Robot Chicken episode?
Re:Parody (Score:5, Insightful)
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I see the humor - but just because the idea is humorous doesn't mean that the production in and of itself can be labeled a parody. Look up some definitions of 'parody' as it pertains to fair use cases.
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Re:Parody (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Parody (Score:5, Insightful)
So what?
It was an interesting bit of film.
One that does NOT ONE DAMN THING to detract from the "actual" Power Rangers.
If our fucked up copyright laws forbid something as simple as this then that whole "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" shit that was intended is totally gone to hell.
If we can't stand on the shoulders of giants (or dudes in tacky suits) and create "new" interpretations, then we've lost the real reason for copyright anyway. I'm not saying that Power Rangers doesn't deserve copyright, but I am saying that reasonable copyright terms should have put it in the public domain by now.
I am currently boycotting all songs from Tom Petty because of his crappy copyright challenge to Sam Smith's "borrowing his song" I mean come on, if we compare every song with every other song and "alter the tempo", and "vary the pitch" then we're screwed. Music reuses all kinds of things all the time. Fuck, soon people will try to copyrighting fucking chords progressions and beats. Yeah Sam Smith's song resembles one of Petty's, but only if you torture it enough. What's next, syllable counts on choruses? That shit was ridiculous.
Copyright has become a farce that no longer does any good for the public. And since thats what it was supposed to be for, I'd say its high time we scrap the whole decrepit edifice of modern copyright law and start over.
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Did you just notice this? Copyright hasn't been about promoting progress for decades.
foundering father: (Score:3)
Re:Parody (Score:5, Insightful)
One that does NOT ONE DAMN THING to detract from the "actual" Power Rangers.
I'm incredibly anti-copyright law, but even to me that's obviously not true. Every time a certain fictional character is used, people's perception of that character changes. By showing the Power Rangers this way the video's creator is changing our perceptions of the Power Rangers.
All it takes is just a single person:
1) seeing the video
2) associating (subconsciously) the brand with darkness
3) deciding to buy a gift of Legos instead of a Power Rangers toy as a result
and then clearly the video has detracted from the "actual" Power Rangers (in the sense that their IP's owner will sell one less toy because of the video).
Don't believe me? Imagine if everyone was legally allowed to use Mickey Mouse. There would Mickey Mouse snuff films, Mickey Mouse versions of 50 Shades, Mickey Mouse promoting drug use, etc. If enough of that stuff exists kids would see it and would never look at Mickey Mouse the same way again. That absolutely detracts from Disney's ability to keep Mickey a wholesome character that they can make tons of money off.
Now, should Mickey be in the public domain by now? Absolutely (screw you Disney). But let's not pretend that if anyone can make any version of any famous character they want that it won't have any effect on how people see that character (and thus detract from the original author's vision of them).
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Peter Pan is in the public domain in the US. You can absolutely have Peter Pan promoting drug use ('fairy dust' can be the street name; a side effect might be paranoid hallucinations of ticking crocodiles, etc.), and publish it widely enough to detract from Disney's ability to keep Peter Pan a wholesome character that they can make tons of money off.
Go nuts.
But because people can ignore that -- In fact, I'm confident that there are bad porn versions of Peter Pan floating around -- it doesn't really detract
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copyrighting fucking chords progressions and beats
We're close. George Harrison was sued for 3 notes. What's worse, the case dragged on so many years and with ownership passed around so many times that by the time a verdict was reached, Harrison was both parties. Too bizarre to make it up!
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I don't think this is true. There's no requirement that the parody or satire adhere to specific conventions; what people find funny or ironic could be debated, I suppose, if someone wanted to push the legal boundaries, but just because you don't consider being "serious yet thought-provoking" capable of ALSO being satire doesn't mean you're legally correct.
"Tongue-in-cheek" humor goes out of its way to appear serious, but is intentionally satirical. I think this could easily classify. In fact, the referen
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I doesn't sound to me like it's specific enough in its references to be primarily a satire or parody. IMO If it isn't obviously and specifically satirical, then Kahn should have obtained permission before publishing. Failing that, leave the power rangers tie in an unwritten one that's strongly hinted at. A fair use(?) Austin Powers clip [youtube.com]: "It looks like Godzilla, but due to international copyright laws - it's not."
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The Austin Powers films stand on a lot of firm ground: they're a completely self-sustaining franchise (new work); they're a lampoon of James Bond films (parody); and a lot of their jokes are satirical references and shout-outs. You *are* allowed to say "McDonalds" instead of "McDougals"; Family Guy does the direct parody thing a lot, and Space Balls took it up to 11 with the Planet of the Apes reference.
Notice that Austin Powers wasn't "James Bond in: I am a Frozen Retard Popsicle." Likewise, the Godz
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.
Re:Parody (Score:4, Interesting)
Fair enough. But let me put on my lawyer hat (i.e., go to Wikipedia, try to find a pertinent precedent, find the actual opinion, and quote like hell) and see what I can do. ...
I reference Campbell, aka Skyywalker, et al. v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. from the United State Reports Volume 510: Cases Adjudged in The Supreme Court at October Term,1993 [supremecourt.gov] (PDF page 773).
Concerning the fair use defense of 2 Live Crew to parody Roy Orbison's song "Oh, Pretty Woman", to quote Justice Souter's opinion for a unanimous Court decision (pp. 782-783):
The first factor in a fair use enquiry is ... to see ... whether the new work merely "supersede[s] the objects" of the original ..., or instead adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning, or message; it asks, in other words, whether and to what extent the new work is "transformative."
I would argue, thought I'm sure not without debated, that POWER/RANGERS fulfills this transformative requirement of fair use.
Concerning the issue of parody, Justice Souter goes on to say (p.784):
For the purposes of copyright law, the nub of the definitions, and the heart of any parodist’s claim to quote from existing material, is the use of some elements of a prior author’s composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author’s works.
POWER/RANGERS offers the perspective, or critique, of teenagers being recruited to fight an intergalactic war with more actual war-like elements that stand in stark contrast to the light-hearted portrayal of the sampled work. It mimics the characters and world but does make a point: war isn't as fun as was shown.
Concerning the issue of excessive use of elements from the original work, the Justice says (p.792):
Parody presents a difficult case. Parody’s humor, or in any event its comment, necessarily springs from recognizable allusion to its object through distorted imitation. Its art lies in the tension between a known original and its parodic twin. When parody takes aim at a particular original work, the parody must be able to “conjure up” at least enough of that original to make the object of its critical wit recognizable.
I would argue that the author of the work in question took as many elements as needed to make the parody recognizable to the audience such that the parody would function. In taking those elements however, the author did transform a number of aspects to suite the intended parodic purpose of the piece (e.g., newly added machine guns, Bulk and Skull turning homicidal, the protagonists losing and dying).
Lastly, concerning the economic incentive, the Justice states (p.794):
[The fourth fair use factor] requires courts to consider not only the extent of market harm caused by the particular actions of the alleged infringer, but also "whether unrestricted and widespread conduct of the sort engaged in by the defendant . . . would result in a substantially adverse impact on the potential market" for the original.
Since the work is blatantly made without the desire of monetary feedback, is not intended to supersede or replace any of the extant or future productions of the original work or author, and has done nothing but bring attention to the original work through this parody, the fourth factor of fair use is satisfied.
But again, I'm no lawyer. I just play one on Slashdot.
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You're allowed to use copyrighted material to parody that specific material, but not to parody something else.
This is the oft-cited parody/satire dichotomy.
No seriously, some people really get into this stuff.
Anyway, it's not a bright line rule or anything, though some people like to pretend that it is. Satire is just as able to be a fair use as a parody can be, and a loss on the third fair use factor does not by itself prevent a use from being a fair use. There are no bright lines in fair use; it's all case-by-case analyses, utterly dependent on the specific facts at issue.
Re:Parody (Score:5, Insightful)
It could argue that it is a parody. The official Power Rangers are Anti-Gritty, clean cut one dimensional good guys (at least they were when I was a child). To make them a more complex and morally ambiguous to show off how clean cut the original is parodying the original.
I
Re:Parody (Score:4, Insightful)
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I think that this is getting into deciding whether or not something is 'art' type areas. Seeing as how I just had to take 'art appreciation' last semester, I have a little more appreciation for this.
Personally, I don't think pulling a toilet out of a dump, rinsing it off, then presenting it as your own art(without any modification) is actually art. If anything, it's the art of the designer of the toilet. But it was shown in a major art show none the less, and the community decided it was art. Some peopl
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The whole point of Duchamp's Fountain is that it forces the observer to ask the question "What is art?" Can something be art despite the fact that the object itself has no artistic merit at all, and only could be art as a result of being in an art show? Which satisfies the definition of art, the object's artistic merit, or the opinion of the community (of artists and museum curators and patrons)?
Re:Parody (Score:5, Insightful)
"Satire" doesn't mean "Different".
In a reddit AMA, Khan explained what he wanted to show was the nature of how society finds violence acceptable in a kids show versus what they consider adult themed. He said the major difference between his short and the original power rangers cartoon was that when characters get shot, red liquid spurts out. Plus he showed titties. Other than that, it's the same type of fighting, with people hurting or killing others. But one is a kid's show and the other is "gritty".
It absolutely fits as satire and valid commentary.
Re:Parody (Score:4, Informative)
Isn't satire supposed to be funny?
Actually, no. Satire can use humor, but it's not a requirement. It can use any other tools available, as long it is used to criticize a topic:
Satire: the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
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Never was a fan of the show, I strongly feel guys in suits destroying cities is best left to classic Godzilla movies.
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So it's a parody of the response that it would evoke by being an arguably infringing work? That's prescient! If this were actually enough to prove that it's non-infringing (it's not IMO) then maybe the parody fails and then makes the short infringing again on the original grounds, which ...
Sorry I tried to make a temporal paradox out of it. Best I could do.
Re:Parody (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Parody (Score:5, Interesting)
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I think the wind done gone [wikipedia.org] outta dat argumen'!
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a parody is allowed to use however much of the original work it wants to.
That's not quite right.
There's no special status for works which are parodies. Some parodies can be fair uses, but not all parodies are. And not all fair uses are parodies, though some fair uses are.
In any case, one factor in determining whether a use is fair or not is how much, and of that how substantial a part, of the original work is used. It's possible to have a fair use that uses all of a work, but also possible to have a use which uses very little of a work, but which is not fair.
While it all depends
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Re:Parody (Score:5, Insightful)
But in current copyright law, there is no longer a viable way to create a derivative work and benefit from it. In the past, when a new music or art style became popular, many people would start creating by copying each other. Even the last two major music styles to emerge, hip hop and edm, started by using existing samples and copying each other verbatim and not bothering other artists with royalty claims. This is now legally closed, the estates of deceased musicians will sue for use of specific words, a chord scheme or bass line and get rewarded. People are just too damn greedy. What happened to 'limited time' and 'public domain'?
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I don't think the parody exemption for copyrighed works applies to things protected by trademark, which I wouldn't be surprised if the Power Rangers are.
It does.
(Though the question of parodying a mark directly is different from parodying a work which happens to contain a mark. Parodying Star Wars, which includes X-Wings, and the Millennium Falcon, and Lightsabers, and so on is different from parodying the Star Wars logo all by itself)
Also, remember that trademarks are inferior to, and cannot be used as a substitute for, copyrights. And that trademarks themselves are subject to various limitations to allow for certain types of unauthorized use.
As long as it is not an official power rangers (Score:2)
I see nothing wrong with it, as long as it is not pretending to be an official power rangers movie. People base stories on other stories all the time.
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The fact that it's a piece of visual entertainment or related, and called "Power Rangers". Also, substantial similarity can hit trademark on characters, or even hit copyright by being a derivative work. Parody quickly distances you from these--hence the Axem Rangers, a humorous reference to the Power Rangers without using any of the scenario, names, or other assets, used as a large joke in an unrelated work--and derivation into unrelated works and unrelated scenarios is usually considered influence--such
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That means all of the Star Trek and Star Wars fan stuff also needs to go away.
Should Disney go after the Star Wars kid?
What about the people working on finishing a 5th season of Trek?
Saban got a lot of free publicity, and nobody thinks that it is low quality enough to have been made by Saban. They should take the free publicity and do something cool with a brand they aren't doing much with.
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If I recall a lot of those star trek fan fiction and even the season 5 had the go ahead from Gene's estate to continue them. Though I do believe Paramount still holds a lot of the copyright and trademark they seem to have given the approval as long as they don't make a profit. That's their call though, it's my understanding that Paramount could put its' foot down and end it at any time and they would have to just walk away.
So why do they allow it? Because it's good for the fan base. It helps breed a cul
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They should take the free publicity and do something cool with a brand they aren't doing much with.
Are you sure they're not doing much with it? I haven't kept track, but it seems like there's a new Power Rangers series every year. I'm pretty sure they're still milking it.
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I'm not a big fan of the notion that derivative works should be subject to copyright restriction. The Wind Done Gone was allowed even over the objections of Margaret Mitchell's estate. However, as it stands right now, characters *are* copyrighted.
The Star Wars Kid was posted involuntarily, and is short enough to be fair use in any case, but in the early days Lucasfilm went after fan films. Later on they allowed them. Disney might have a different take. Don't know about the owners of the Star Trek franc
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Fan fiction and other derivative works exist within a legal minefield.
Many rightsholders ignore fan fiction while others embrace it as long as the authors observe certain content guidelines (such as avoiding adult content).
Fair use? No. Copyright infringement? Not anymore. (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it fair use? Certainly not, but Saban eventually reversed course and gave permission for the thing to exist. So now it's back up.
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Because they didn't have a leg to stand on for how they went about it.
You can copyright a character after a fashion, but you can only trademark the look of the Rangers themselves- that would be trade dress, and you can ONLY Trademark it. Sorry, Copyright doesn't work that way. Now, they might've went after them over Trademark- but in the end, they'd have been in trouble. DMCA takedowns only cover Copyright , not trademark. The takedown wasn't legit. Now Trademark is a concern, but it appears that Saba
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Is it fair use? Certainly not, but Saban eventually reversed course and gave permission for the thing to exist. So now it's back up.
Really? They did? Then they're utterly mad, because Power Rangers is a brand still actively sold to kids. To have a video online using the Power Rangers name full of words like "motherfucker" and "cunt" has the potential to cause serious damage to their brand.
"Cartoon"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Power Rangers has always been a live action TV show.
Maybe you need an English lesson (Score:2, Insightful)
I would. Parody/satire humor. A dark, gritty send-up of ridiculous subject matter is every bit as much a satire as the inverse would be.
Forget fair use. Call it parody or commentary. (Score:5, Informative)
The original Power Rangers is campy and laughable. Showing gritty topics in a saccharine sweet, good guys always triumphant without any real struggle or doubt way that the children's shows often do is worth satirizing.
From Webster:
Please stop. (Score:5, Funny)
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In Bennett's case, I have to admit he has become a truly master-level troll, in that he has learned to write an opening paragraph that gets my attention but doesn't give away his essential Bennett-ness. By the third paragraph, though, I usually catch on, stop reading there, and just write the obligatory "fuck Bennett" post.
Not satire without Power Rangers mark (Score:2)
That's what makes it satire. The video itself was not funny, but the concept was hilarious. My jaw was on the floor when I watched this.
It would not have been funny or satire if it was not about the Power Rangers. I only watched half of the short before I ran out of attention but I agree, this was worthy of a "Staff Pick"
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"Staff pick" on a copyrighted film (Score:2)
The director's defenders rightly pointed out the absurdity of Vimeo removing the short film just hours after giving it a "Staff Pick" award, but the real absurdity runs in the opposite direction -- how did Vimeo's staff give an award to the film that they should have known was a knockoff? Presumably they had heard of the Power Rangers and knew that the movie was using the characters without permission.
Because knockoff videos happen every day and usually the copyright holder doesn't care. See "Mario Warfare", or any other group of people having fun with cosplay. The same thing goes with fan art.
What is Parody? (Score:5, Insightful)
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And just because a derivative work is entertaining, that doesn't mean it's a parody. If it isn't a spoof or a commentary on the original work, largely through irony and satire, it isn't parody. Changing the genre or style isn't enough. In fact, being similar in feel to the Galactica reboot, which certainly wasn't a parody, doesn't argue well
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Characters can be trademarked (Score:2)
Re:Characters can be trademarked (Score:4, Informative)
You are not a lawyer, you are right about that. The character of Mickey Mouse is copyrighted, in addition to being protected by Trademark.
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The character of Mickey Mouse is copyrighted, in addition to being protected by Trademark.
Sorry but you are wrong. Look it up. It's both.
http://www.trademarkandcopyrig... [trademarka...awblog.com]
http://copyright.uslegal.com/c... [uslegal.com]
http://dearauthor.com/features... [dearauthor.com]
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http://artlawjournal.com/micke... [artlawjournal.com]
The jury is still out, I guess. This article and others would seem to indicate the actual character of Mickey Mouse is protected by copyright. I tend to agree.
I know that Mickey is also protected by trademark, and I can't find a source that says Mickey (the character) is being actively protected by copyright, or that a court has ever ruled that Mickey is specifically protected by copyright, so I'll back down on that specific statement. It's possible that likenesses of Mic
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What about Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which is an actual fan work (and IMO surprisingly good)? It's funny in that it twists the characters into something different, but parody is not the *purpose* of the work as far as I can tell, especially because it's long as hell. It stands on its own as a creative effort, but the world and characters are derived from the original. Which sounds...actually pretty similar to this short, if this short was extended into a series.
The fact that the Power
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Characters can not be copyrighted.
But characters can be trademarked.
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Character copyright (Score:2)
Well, everyone ought to know by now that that argument isn't going to fly if you put a copy of The Avengers on your personal home page. It's not obvious why that defense should work any better if you've violated someone's copyright by using their characters without permission, instead of just copying their movie.
It should be obvious that there is a difference. Putting The Avengers on your site for people to freely download is the same as distributing copies of a work without permission, which can result in a significant loss of income to the copyright holder. Copying the names of characters and their spirit (well, here even that is a bit of a stretch) does not result in loss of potential income. If damages are considered, the latter can be shown to have significantly less, or no, actual damages.
Whole areas of art and music (Score:3)
wouldn't exist if it weren't for copyright or "IP" violation.
Traditional music, folk music, jazz, blues. And what about the second and subsequent painter working in any characterizable style/genre.
Greed vs Art is about what it amounts to.
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But what you're saying would be equivalent to somebody else making their own show where kids turn into ninjas and attack warriors, not just somebody making their own Power Rangers mini-movie.
Similarly, there's a difference between being inspired by a band, and just re-doing their song without permission.
Would the owners produce this? (Score:2)
The question of what is parody / satire cannot be easy to answer. I would suggest a simple test: "Are the copyright owners likely to produce a similar work?" alongside the Trademark question ("Are people confused?")
What I recall of the Power Rangers is cheezy, plasticy schlock aimed at kids. This seems very different, so may qualify as parody/satire.
Satire *and* Parody (Score:5, Insightful)
Parody of Power Rangers. No one is mistaking this for an actual official Power Rangers movie. (Compare with Hustler v. Falwell.) The difference in fan fiction is that when looking at an excerpt of text, there is the potential that a reader might mistake a piece with officially sanctioned/published material. Non-commercial work faces a lower bar for being judged as fair use. (Thus firms are more likely to obtain permission/licensing when making a product or film.)
Satire of grimdark and remakes/reboots. "In the grim future of Hello Kitty, there is only war". http://onastick.net/sitz/image... [onastick.net]
The video was interesting in spots; this article wasn't.
Bennet is wrong (as usual) (Score:2)
If there is no original footage, there can be no copyright violation on the original works.
Fan-fiction, whether the author allows it or not, is not part of the original author's copyright. The author has legally no say in what other people can and cannot write (and any legal decision that says they do is unconstitutional).
A fictional character can be copyrighted only if they are very well-defined (usually written) and non-generic, it can also be trademarked but that does not exempt them from parody and a wh
Because it's so different (Score:2)
but the real absurdity runs in the opposite direction -- how did Vimeo's staff give an award to the film that they should have known was a knockoff?
Probably because it's so different, it doesn't feel like anything even semi-official. At it's core, the idea behind copyright is that if a consumer is faced with a choice between content from the creator, or some knock off content from somebody who's standing on the shoulders of the creator, and to consumer picks the knock off, it hurts the original creator. This 'movie' is short enough, and despairingly different enough from the original, anyone looking to spend money on Power Rangers style entertainment,
Hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Haim Saban's "creation" consists of dubbed versions of the characters from Super Sentai, which you can see on the Wiki page for one installment, Kagaku Sentai Dynaman - scroll down.
As a derivative work, Saban doesn't own squat, and ownership, if there is any, probably belongs to Toei Company. However, as the same characters have appeared in many works *as different characters*, the argument might also be made that they are generic.
So this is basically yet another example of someone claiming ownership of something they never owned, which is precisely why copyright is such a farce in general.
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Saban legally had a license to create Power Rangers using the footage from Super Sentai shows. The derived work is owned by Saban. This isn't the first time this has happened either. Voltron is a reimagining of "Go Lion". Card Captors deviated quite a bit from Card Captor Sakura.
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That depends entirely on the licensing agreement between Saban and Toei, no "probably" about it - that's how the law works.
That argument only makes sense if you've downed a fifth of Jack and snorted a couple of grams a coke - or if you're completely a
There is no moral ground in copyright law (Score:2, Troll)
Copyright law was created to "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", not to grand a monopoly right for the creator. The limited monopoly right is just the means to promote art, not the desired outcome. The current law of 150+ years (or is it now 300 years?) is absolutely not proportional. With better technology the copyright terms should be shortened and not extended. With our current digital technology, the term should be 5 years or even shorter. Almost everything today should be fair use, so
Clearly Parody, and Summary Has False Information (Score:2)
Four factor analysis for fair use (Score:2)
Parody is protected (Score:4, Informative)
Parody is protected; satire is not. Parody uses the objects of an artistic creation to criticize, lampoon, or make fun of the original creation. Satire uses the objects of one artistic creation to criticize, lampoon, or make fun of other creations. Using A to mock A is fair game in copyright law. Using A to mock B is seen as a violation of the copyright holder of A's rights.
As an example: Demolition Man used commercial jingles and Taco Bell to satirize modern American life and where it was headed, but they weren't really holding up the Oscar-Meyer Company or Taco Bell up for ridicule. The laughs were aimed elsewhere. As a result, they had to get permission from the Oscar-Meyer company to use the Oscar-Meyer wiener jingle, and permission from Taco Bell to use the Taco Bell logo. That's satire.
The Power Rangers fan film is pretty much straight-up parody. They're not scoring points about anything outside the Power Rangers franchise: they're just holding it up for brutal mocking. That's parody, and that means the people who made it were A-OK.
TOTALLY fair use (Score:5, Informative)
The poster has no clue about how fair use works. There are four factors that get considered in deciding whether something is fair use:
1. Is it noncommercial? Yes it is.
2. Is it transformative? That is, does it use the original work as raw material to create something new, rather than just copying it for the sake of copying it? Yes it is.
3. Does it compete with the original work in the marketplace? It would be pretty hard to claim that.
4. How much of the original work does it copy? In this case, very little. Just the appearance of the characters. All the footage is original.
So it scores highly on all four criteria. This is absolutely fair use.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
But, the general legal consensus seems to be that character copyrights are enforceable, i.e., you are not free to create works using someone else's characters even meeting criteria 1-4 above.
Sigh...clickbait (Score:3)
Not even bothering to read the whole article, let alone the comments. Until a court decides whether the work is or is not in the fair-use domain, all else is speculation and hot air.
What the hell is up with the bias? (Score:2)
Sounds like a parody to me (Score:2)
By virtue of the fact that anti-humor is one of my favorite kinds of humor - by taking a super-cheesy show and *removing* all the cheese, making it dark as frack, that sounds like a brilliant parody of the original. (Obviously, I am not a lawyer, but I do want to watch this now, and I hated Power Rangers as a kid (and now.))
Is Badanalogyguy helping Bennett? (Score:2)
Because I believe in freedom (Score:2)
in this case, how could anyone argue the short film doesn't violate the rights of the franchise creator
Because I don't believe that content creators should have rights that violate anybody else's rights to do whatever they want with the content.
It's fair to use the influences of your childhood (Score:2)
look to the nature and objects of the selections made, the quantity and value of the materials used, and the degree in which the use may prejudice the sale, or diminish the profits, or supersede the objects, of the original work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The first factor is regarding whether the use in question helps fulfill the intention of copyright law to stimulate creativity for the enrichment of the general public, or whether it aims to only "supersede the objects" of the original for reasons of personal profit. To justify the use as fair, one must demonstrate how it either advances knowledge or the progress of the arts through the addition of something new. A key consideration is the extent to which the use is interpreted as transformative, as opposed to merely derivative.
This isn't passing itself off as the very sought-after Power Rangers short movie everyone's dying to buy; this is a new work that takes the premise of an old work and does something new, with criticism about the whole "child soldier" angle.
Totally fair use.
Uh Batman is usually pretty gritty (Score:2)
....when a studio like Warner Brothers produces their own gritty reboot of a character,
Batman is the story of a boy who witnessed his parent's murders and then decided to dress up like a bat in order to punish criminals. Other than the 60s live action TV show and the 80s Superfriends cartoon when wasn't Batman gritty? Have you read The Dark Knight Returns? Or The Killing Joke? Or the original Detective Comics stories? Even Burton had Batman kill at least a dozen henchman in 1989. FFS Bats was blowing guys away with a pistol in 1939. Are you aware of the Batman mythos at all? Who sub
Is this Clickbait? (Score:2)
Far too often I've been seeing asinine articles written about arbitrary asides and I've come to the conclusion that editors only post these meaningless, incomprehensible, rants because of the amount of discussion (in this case, complaints) they generate.
No one with half a brain would think these ideas are sound. In fact, they read like a Buzzfeed article. 5 insane tricks to troll SlashDot! 1 way to make your audience hate you (and comment more!).
Can anyone think of a reason why these tirades get posted, oth
Author of post doesn't understand Fair Use... (Score:2)
Given that the video in question is a work of fan fiction, the following seems relevant:
Re: (Score:2)
No, it's not a trademark issue unless you attempted to sell merchandising. You need to be engaged in a trade in order to violate a trademark. Then, the marks which are owned by original Power Rangers must only not be confusingly similar to be unprotected.
Mickey Mouse the character is copyrighted and you cannot market Mickey Mouse cartoons or goods without Disney's say-so. This is entirely because of copyright. They may also have trademarks that mean you can't make a cartoon and call it Mickey Mouse, eve
Re: (Score:2)
That's not 100% correct either, but I like your middle-ground better than anyone else I've seen posting on this thread.
Characters can be covered by copyright. It is not established that these characters are covered by copyright, and characters are not always automatically covered by copyright, but when they are sufficiently developed, and if the courts decide to rule in your favor, characters in and of themselves can be protected by copyright.
Circuit courts have ruled both ways.
Re: (Score:2)