I have seen the future.

Regarding the Chick "parody": It was taken down because it's NOT perfectly legal to rip off someone's copyrighted art. It is, in fact, illegal.

I wish you people would actually fucking learn about this stuff.

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scifantasy.livejournal.com

it's NOT perfectly legal to rip off someone's copyrighted art. It is, in fact, illegal.

Three words for you: Fair Use Doctrine.

IANAL(Y), but I've done a bit of studying about this, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Cthulhu Tract constituted Fair Use.

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torrain.livejournal.com

Fair use does permit a fairly extensive use of the original work. I can't find a percentage definition.

I could go count panels, but it looks like about half of Chick's original makes up about half the parody, and the rest is new art (or at least, if they ripped it off, they ripped it off from somewhere else).

I think you'd need a lawyer to make the call of whether it constitutes fair use or not, and will withold personal opinions on the subject ATM.

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scifantasy.livejournal.com

There isn't a percentage definition; sometimes, entire works can be used fairly when minor slices can be considered unfair. There are other factors going into the DFU, and it's those (such as the purpose of the new one, education versus commercial verses other and how the parody will affect the market of the original) that make the difference the way I see it.

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Parody is a protected use (http://www.publaw.com/parody.html).
"We people" are quite aware of that much. "We people" have a vested interest in copyright law, and what is and is not allowed under it.

If I use Two Lumps art in a funny-cats comic strip of my own, I'm stealing your material and you're right to sue me and get me shut down. If I use Two Lumps art in a parody of Two Lumps that mocks the original, I've got legal protection to do so, both here and in the USA.

It's why you can (and people do) use Mickey Mouse to comment on Disney's business practices, but you can't just attach him to your product and say "Mickey loves it!"

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rimrunner.livejournal.com

Beat me to it.

See also: What the U.S. Copyright Office has to say.

On fair use:

“...quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.” (emphasis added)

Source: Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law, 1961.

No one has ever determined what exactly constitutes "some". Individuals concerned about potential infringement of their rights are explicitly advised to take it to court.

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All direct electronic reproduction without license is forbidden. This includes (but is not limited to) photocopying, ditto machines, and more recently debated in courts, the use of Paintshop/Photoshop.

The law is pretty fucking simple: If you want to parody someone's art, don't just erase their words and substitute your own. You can draw their characters, but you cannot use the original line drawings of the artist. Even for an artist as deplorable as the one behind Chick's tracts, that person spent time and energy making that art - to do what the "parody" did is lazy, uncreative and about as smart as a bag of wet tampons.

Frankly, I find your defense of this bullshit more than a little asinine.

Also, Trademark is pending on TL's cats. If you used them, I'd hit you with a wholly different lawsuit. Trademark infringement is NOT protected by the Fair Use act.

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All direct electronic reproduction without license is forbidden. This includes (but is not limited to) photocopying, ditto machines, and more recently debated in courts, the use of Paintshop/Photoshop.

Hook me up with a link to that? From what I see, reproduction, including directly photocopied reproduction, has been explicitly rules to *not* be forbidden under Fair Use, as long as the purpose that it is put to itself falls under Fair Use.

The law is pretty fucking simple: If you want to parody someone's art, don't just erase their words and substitute your own.

I am not aware of any such law. I cannot locate any reference to any such law on short notice at the moment, and I have not encountered any such law during any previous investigation into copyright and Fair Use. I would greatly appreciate a link to such a law, because, frankly, if I'm wrong about this, I want to know. I'm not interested in violating copyrights. I'm just also not interested in restricting perfectly legit parody, ever, of anything.

Trademark infringement is NOT protected by the Fair Use act.

True, but trademark infringement also requires "that the defendant's use of a mark has created a likelihood-of-confusion about the origin of the defendant's goods or services." Parody isn't that, unless it's extremely bad parody.

Again, same deal, you can use Mickey Mouse to mock Disney. You can't use Mickey Mouse to imply that your product might come from Disney.

This isn't meant to antagonise you or justify infringement in general. I just want to know where you're coming from, because I'm pretty sure you're wrong in the specific case of parody, especially given that the exact quote on the US Copyright Office's site permits "use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied" - meaning that you can use the work itself, not a redrawn or re-recorded version of it.

Also: Did you mean to respond to me, or to

rimrunner?

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I was responding to both of you.

It appears that we're approaching this from the wrong direction, folks. Have you read the copyright act of 1976? You don't go in here trying to prove solely the exception without first discussing the rule.

Get cracking. As the copyright holder of my work, it is my EXCLUSIVE RIGHT to reproduce my work. You can use my characters all day and all night for parody purposes, provided the art you're using is not a reproduction.

Secondly, and I'm going to get pretty angry here: Fuck you fucking retards right in your fucking asses. The Cthulhu "parody" wasn't funny. Erasing an artist's words and replacing them with your own, then putting that derivative work out as "your own" is theft of that artist's work, plain and simple. Yes, you have a right to defend your stance, and no, I don't have to respect your fucking asinine opinions. If this is the way you really feel, well... fuck ya.

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That document doesn't refer to parody at all, so I'm having trouble finding the relevent section.

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Anyway, even if that is valid in the US, I can still post this as much as I want, since I'm a Canadian using a Canadian server.

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You move your lips a lot when you read, right?

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No.

I'm starting to wonder if you do though.

I do agree though, it is appearing that trying to point out how you are rather blatantly wrong is possibly indicating something negative about my intellegence.

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Dude? "Berne convention".

Google it.

US copyright law applies up here, as does Canadian. They're nigh identical, and copyright in one is applied equally in both.

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Not exactly.

In Canada, Chick has the same rights as any Canadian does when it comes to his works. That's what the convention means, basicly.

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Wait, nevermind, if you just click on the link in what you provided labled sections 107 through 122 (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107) you would see that this is excempted (or at least can be excempted, the definitions are a little bit vague).

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You can use my characters all day and all night for parody purposes, provided the art you're using is not a reproduction.

Your exclusive rights of reproduction under Section 106 operate subject to Section 107. Section 107 (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107) says:
"the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright." The caselaw also includes parody as protected under fair use, even though it's not explicitly in the original law.

Nothing I see in the other sections would seem to contradict this. Section 113 comes closest, but appears to solely cover the reproduction of identical and derivative work on shirts, buildings, postcards, and other such items.

Erasing an artist's words and replacing them with your own, then putting that derivative work out as "your own" is theft of that artist's work, plain and simple.

Absolutely. Parody is not claiming the work as your own original work, it's claiming it to be a parody of the original.

I don't have to respect your fucking asinine opinions. If this is the way you really feel, well... fuck ya.

And I respect that. I'm not going to defend Chick tract mockeries as high art, and I'm not going to claim they're original. I'll even agree with you that the artist is a no-talent hack and that Chick should be allowed to stomp his fur-emblazoned spunk nuggets once for free for the use of his art in the parody, if it makes you happier. I'm good that way.

I just can't see how they might qualify as *illegal*, since the law clearly allows for direct reproduction for Fair Use in all the ways that are protected under section 106, and parody is Fair Use. I'm a big fan of the concept of parody in general, and I don't like to see *any* legal parodies shut down due to an inability to defend against a groundless lawsuit.

Seriously. I think you're wrong about it being illegal, regardless of how much you may hate the idea of how it was done, and if you're *right*, I don't see it in the law you've posted.

From:

jsbowden.livejournal.com

The Iran story yeilds:

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mightygodking does need to learn how graduated taxes work, which does make one of his points moot, but in general, $100/mo. towards daycare is a joke on either side of the border, and for the govt. to tax you on money it's handing you is just surreal.

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