Pepe the Frog's Creator Is Sending Takedown Notices To Far-Right Sites (vice.com) 332
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Pepe the Frog creator Matt Furie has made good on his threat to "aggressively enforce his intellectual property." The artist's lawyers have taken legal action against the alt-right. They have served cease and desist orders to several alt-right personalities and websites including Richard Spencer, Mike Cernovich, and the r/the_Donald subreddit. In addition, they have issued Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown requests to Reddit and Amazon, notifying them that use of Pepe by the alt-right on their platforms is copyright infringement. The message is to the alt-right is clear -- stop using Pepe the Frog or prepare for legal consequences. Furie originally created Pepe as a non-political character for his Boy's Club comic, but Pepe later became an internet meme and during the 2016 U.S. presidential election the alt-right movement appropriated the frog in various grotesque and hateful memes.
Sorry (Score:4, Informative)
Parody (Score:3, Informative)
Also, in nearly all of the renditions I've seen, it's been used in a satirical sense, mostly to poke fun at anti-fascists, and, even more hilariously, at fascists themselves.
That didn't work for Penny Arcade (Score:5, Insightful)
Parody is only fair use when the thing you're using is what you're making fun of. Otherwise you're just borrowing other folks work/art/ideas because you couldn't get your point across with your own. Either try harder or come to terms with the thought that your ideas don't have a strong enough foundation to stand on their own.
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> when they tried it with "American McGee's Strawberry Shortcake" and it won't work here
IIRC Penny Arcade didn't actually go to court in any fashion.
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Nah, user pays. You don't pay to have you work validated as having social worth or making that claim for copyright protection, than you don't get it. There is simply too much content out there to bother protecting at enormous tax payer expense, especially when the content industry is renowned for cheating on taxes to the nth degree. Don't pay for copyright and prove worth, than you don't get it.
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That's Parody, not Satire (in the legal sense).
Parody, using a piece to make fun of something else, is less protected than people realize
https://www.techdirt.com/artic... [techdirt.com] (discusses a 1997 ruling).
Re:Parody (Score:5, Informative)
Also, in nearly all of the renditions I've seen, it's been used in a satirical sense, mostly to poke fun at anti-fascists, and, even more hilariously, at fascists themselves.
Ironically, your post includes the answer to why this is irrelevant. Notice how your subject line was "parody", but in the body, you say "satire" (well, "satirical")? Those are different things under copyright law. [americanbar.org]
The short version is that:
(i) parody makes fun of the thing it's copying. Think Weird Al's "Smells like Nirvana", which explicitly makes fun of Nirvana and Smells Like Teen Spirit, or his "Perform That Way" which makes fun of Lady Gaga and Born that Way. Parody falls under fair use because, since you're making fun of the thing you're copying, there's no way to do so without copying it.
(ii) satire makes fun of something else.Think Weird Al's "Eat it" or "I'm fat", which make fun of obesity, but do not make fun of Michael Jackson or those songs, except stylistically. He could have made fun of obesity with countless other songs, so the copyright on those songs do not limit his expressive rights. That's why satire does not fall under fair use.
So, if those renditions you've seen are making fun of, say anti-fascists or Hillary Clinton or what not, they're satires. They are not parodies of Pepe the Frog, and therefore are not protected by fair use, unlike if they had actually been parodies.
As an aside, Weird Al always gets permission from artists before he copies their songs, and while it's primarily because he's such a nice guy, the above satire/parody divide is another significant reason.
Disclaimer: I am an IP lawyer. I am not your IP lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
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So I googled the original art (Score:2)
Won't someone PLEASE think of the Kekistanis? (Score:5, Funny)
Haven't those poor people been through enough already without you taking their memes away too?!?
Kekistan (Score:2)
Lets just hope the Kekistani [wikia.com] that have come here to anonymously maintain their cultural practice of shitposting aren't too traumatized by the ordeal.
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Hmmmm...maybe we should raise the voting age.
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Hmmmm...maybe we should raise the voting age.
Maybe we should cap it. Then open it to children as young as, say speaking age loaded up with all the responsibility for running society that you can't escape until about 40, maybe 50 years old at which time you are subjected to all of the consequences of your own decisions for the rest of your life.
It sounds crazy however that's how the free Kekistanis promote the values in their society. What most don't realize is because frogs can change their sex, not using an individual's gender pro-noun is consider
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I hope you look deep in your heart and find Kek to help you with your troubled life.
Kek be with you.
Cernovich is a Lawyer (Score:2)
Probably not a good idea to send a legal threat to someone who is a trained and bar'd attorney. Furie is going to quickly discover the mistake he made.
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There's no accounting for taste (Score:2)
That said, I can understand why the creator is upset. Bill Watterson was pretty pissed off about "peeing Calvin", but I don't know offhand how his lawsuits turned out. In his case, people were selling counterfeit merchandise, so there's a financial aspect not present with Pepe.
Pepe for pres, but which Pepe? (Score:2)
Although it hasn't been to the Supreme Court yet, some lesser courts have forbidden the use of copyright law to forbid use by a disfavored faction. The reasoning is that copyright is in the context of earning money for the holder, and stopping that does the opposite.
Now theze cases were music being played at potical events, and music has ways to pay for its use in the matter of course, independent of who uses it. There is no such thing for Pepe here. Also, use by right wing could devalue the value, but o
Actually you can (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Actually you can (Score:4, Insightful)
I would wager pretty good money that most of the far-right renditions of pepe are not digital copies but instead new artwork.
Who is providing the funding behind this legal action? Pepe was never a particularly successful commercial endeavor. The artist musst have backing from somebody with a political axe to grind.
Re: Actually you can (Score:5, Informative)
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Big deal. The MPAA has billions of dollars in its war chest, and it never succeeded in keeping the AACS keys off of the internet, and ultimately gave up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: Actually you can (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't that because they were trying to enforce copyright on a number? Someone that's never been done before (and probably should never be done).
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It doesn't matter, either way they were trying to enforce copyright, and nobody actually challenged it in court. Furthermore, even if they couldn't copyright this, they still have the DMCA anti-circumvention clause on their side.
Sites like Digg and Reddit were trying to delete that number from their site, but the more they did it, the more people just kept posting it, so they just gave up. Digg made a public comment that they'll stop trying to delete them and that they'll just have to find a way to deal wit
Re: Actually you can (Score:2)
No, they were trying to stop the spread of a "circumvention" tool that bypasses a mechanism that "effectively controls access to" a copyrighted work. The DMCA made sharing such information effectively the same as direct copyright infringement. I don't think any court ever got around to pointing out that legitimate research into the mechanism would be protected by the First Amendment.
Re: Actually you can (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh? How is killing off a character in a storyline is not the same thing as relinquishing control of the (ugh, hate this term) intellectual property?
Believe me, Disney/Lucasfilm hasn't relinquished control of Han Solo. Oh, wait, spoiler alert.
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Re: Actually you can (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't take funding to send a copyright infringement letter and his case is pretty clear cut. He just doesn't want his character being appropriated by those groups. He has already said as much several times. No need for a conspiracy.
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> He just doesn't want his character being appropriated by those groups
With "parody" being a thing, he may or may not have a choice. Regardless, it will be interesting to see it play out in court.
Re: Actually you can (Score:5, Informative)
It's fairly [wikipedia.org] well-established [copyright.gov] that parody is only a valid defence if the thing itself is being parodied. If you're not making a parody of Boy's Club or Pepe, then you can't validly claim fair-use parody.
What you're talking about is "satire" (i.e. using the work to criticise something else), which is on shakier grounds, legally, and an active topic of discussion [americanbar.org].
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Al Yankovich uses other works for satire all the time; take for example his "bought it on ebay" song.
Even if your argument held true, at all, I doubt it would make any difference. I haven't read the comic at all, but my guess is that they could defend it on the grounds of saying that pepe is a nazi, or something like that, based on events in the comic.
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Or Mr. Yankovic could have written "eBay" as a parody about buying Backstreet Boys CDs [ebay.com].
Re: Actually you can (Score:4, Informative)
Weird Al also clears his songs with the original artist first...
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Re: Actually you can (Score:4, Insightful)
The entire idea of using Pepe as a racist symbol was itself a parody orchestrated by 4chan to show how fucking stupid the media is.
The media reported on it because they fell for some fake 4chan tweets. They media reported on it a lot.
Then people started using it to mock the media. I have no idea whether or not actual racists use it now, or what it means if they actually do use it.
Either way, it's clearly parody and political expression. He won't win a copyright lawsuit if the defendant has a competent lawyer.
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It does take funding to get this sort of firm (Score:2)
Mike Cernovich is one of the parties being sued [medium.com], and he pointed out that it's a rather big law firm that charges an arm and a leg that is suing him.
Now let's be serious. Do you honestly think a partner at such a firm wouldn't automatically fire someone for pursuing cases like this without a source of funding? This is damn near SLAPP territory (and probably will be in the case of Cernovich, who is based in CA). There's money behind this because big law firms don't just pursue for altruistic reasons Daily Sto
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IANAL etc etc.
I suspect it would be tough to sustain a SLAPP challenge in this case. Unless an authorised use of Pepe is to parody or comment on Pepe, Boy's Club, Matt Furie, or something else related, the parody defence is not available. Using Pepe to comment on something else is not, legally speaking, "parody". There may be some other fair use defence available, but not that one.
The stupid part is that Cernovich admits this in the piece: "What’s weird is that I don’t even care about Pepe and h
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Why do you think "his case is pretty clear cut"? What facts and case law do you rely on in that judgment? Are you aware that determining whether something is copyright infringement "can be maddeningly complex, and frustratingly (or entertainingly) fact specific" [lemoinefirm.com]?
Did Furie's targets copy an image to the extent that his Pepe "really constitutes the story being told" [cbldf.org] by their uses? Has he defeated the fair use factors that supported 2 Live Crew when they were sued over Pretty Woman [wikipedia.org]?
If Furie was bringing a
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Appeal to the stone.
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Irony is not your strong suit, I see.
I just pointed out that the poster didn't actually refute anything.
That still doesn't matter (Score:5, Interesting)
As for the funding, thanks to the DMCA it's trivial to send take down notices. And yes, the artist probably does have an Ax to grind. His character's been made into a symbol for a group of at best Nazi sympathizers and at worst actual Swastika flag flying Nazi's. A character he intended for childrend's books. Any sane person would be furious.
If they'd done it to the Coca-Cola polar bear or Mickey mouse what do you think the reaction would be? Would you still be writing the phrase "an axe to grind" or questioning the artist's motives?
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> if I freehand copy an X-Men comic book that doesn't give me copyright to it.
At least half of each major publishers characters are shameless knock offs of the others.
Re:That still doesn't matter (Score:4, Funny)
I think we saw at the "Mother of All Rallies" (#MOAR) that it's more like 120 people than it is "tens of millions".
Re:That still doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all, I doubt it's even a million. Second of all racism is hardly merely a "political opinion".
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
1) It's a few thousand nationwide if you're lucky, and 2) Slapping the label "racism" on something you don't like doesn't invalidate it. Border security isn't "racist". Deporting illegal immigrants isn't "racist". Wearing high heels on a rainy day isn't "racist". Your team losing the big game isn't "racist". A bird crapping on your windshield isn't "racist"....The left really fucking needs to learn a new tactic of persuasion other than bullying people into submission by calling them "racist".
Furthermor
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In and of itself, no. But if you're for increased border security and deporting illegal immigrants specifically because you don't want people of latino persuasion in the country, then yes, that is racist. And from the people I've met, they aren't really concerned about people from Ireland overstaying their visas. They're specifically worried about people of European descent becoming a minority in the USA.
I don't know anything abo
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> Second of all racism is hardly merely a "political opinion".
Then what do you cal it? A scientific fact?
Re:That still doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't call them Nazis just because of their repugnant political opinions, we call them Nazis because they wear swastikas, give Nazi salutes, and chant Nazi slogans. You know, like Nazis.
Re:That still doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
This is how they gaslight you. They claim the Kekistan flag isn't related to the Nazi swastika flag at all, but they know that it really is and use it as a signal to each other. If you point this out they accuse you of wild conspiracy theories and of calling everyone a Nazi.
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This is how they gaslight you. They claim the Kekistan flag isn't related to the Nazi swastika flag at all, but they know that it really is and use it as a signal to each other. If you point this out they accuse you of wild conspiracy theories and of calling everyone a Nazi.
This is how you prove you have no understanding of internet culture in one easy step. While at the same time, failing to understand that the entire basis of the meme is reflecting identity politics back at the left. Eg: "You get special privileges because *insert gender/race/sex here*, thus you can't be *insert thing here*" Kekistani memes do the same, by creating a fictional front and turning that identity politics back on it's source. Since kekistani's are "true" in the oppositions eyes, as seen by you
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That's the other part of the gaslighting. They go on 4chan's /pol and Reddit and post far-right, literal Nazi stuff, and then when called out on it claim that it's all a joke and you can't take a joke and why are you such a sensitive snowflake kek
What is your deal Mashiki? Are you part of it, are you trying to gaslight me, or are you just an idiot? You fell for Pizzagate... So it's hard to know if you are just gullible or deliberately putting this stuff out.
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The actual Nazis at the Charlottesville rally didn't seem too bothered by the Kekistan flags that you think were mocking them.
Don't fall for it.
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Oh you're talking about the people with the "flags on their shirt" aren't you? FYI those weren't kekistani flags. Those were actual "white supremacy" flags on their shirt, good job on showing that you like repeating false talking points though. Maybe you can get together with Charles Johnson of LGF, and also claim the Tennessee state flag is a sub-group flag of the KKK.
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Considering that the Nazis at Charlottesville were firing their guns at and even murdering counter-protesters, their reaction to being openly mocked by Kekistan flags only metres away from their swastikas seems rather understated.
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1) the guy was arrested. http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/27/... [cnn.com]
2) the police were not doing their job separating the group allowing violence to happen. when that happens people take the law into their own hands
3) that doesn't answer the question, how many nazi's you think were there and how many in the us
4) how is Kekistan any different than Charley Chaplin in The dictator?
5) many sported the US flag, does that mean the US flag is a symbol of nazis?
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Technically the Nazi's lost and there are no more National Socialists parading that platform. We used to call them neo-nazi's to distinguish it but Neo changed all that.
Re: Actually you can (Score:5, Insightful)
... are not digital copies but instead new artwork.
Copyright law is based on protecting Mickey Mouse. Drawing any likeness of Mickey and trying to display it publicly can get the attention of Disney's lawyers and in most cases they'd have a very real stance with copyright laws to defend their case.
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You're thinking of trademarks, Mickey cartoons are copyrighted, Mickey is a trademarked character. Even if the copyrights ever expire, the trademark will remain. So long as it's worth buying out of the eventual bankruptcy(s).
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No, I'm thinking of Copyright. You will find it troublesome if you draw your own version of Steamboat Willy and try to publish it. Even though it's not an exact copy.
Copyright law is also why you can't publish fan-fict of your favorite series. Even though you think it's a brand new story, but using the characters and setting of the original story.
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> No, I'm thinking of Copyright. You will find it troublesome if you draw your own version of Steamboat Willy and try to publish it. Even though it's not an exact copy.
That sounds like an episode of Futurama that's still out there in the while being shown on TV and published in box sets despite the obvious "similaries".
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Perhaps. But there are multiple well known issues when dealing with the estates of authors when it comes to writing books based on their worlds and characters. The estates of Edgar Rice Burroughs and of J. R. R. Tolkien come out as examples where complete books were written and then ordered destroyed because of copyright issues.
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Well, if even if you won that wager it wouldn't make any difference. Copyright includes the right to control the creation of derivative work.
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But doesn't prevent parody.
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True, but you need to check the definition of "parody". It's not just *any* humorous or satirical use of the material. By its very nature, it requires the use of the specific source material in a way that no other material will do.
In other words there is no way to write a parody of Lord of the Rings without using Lord of the Rings. If what you're doing could be done with *other* materials, it's not parody.
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"Parody", in this sense, means using the thing to comment on the thing. It's clear that is not what is going on in most (all?) Pepe memes.
It's probably legally okay (sort of [wikipedia.org]) to use Mickey Mouse to parody Mickey Mouse, Disney, the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, the animation industry, Bob Eiger, etc. It probably isn't okay to use Mickey Mouse to parody Kim Jong-un. In that case, the thing being used is not the thing being parodied.
Re: Actually you can (Score:5, Interesting)
I would wager pretty good money that most of the far-right renditions of pepe are not digital copies but instead new artwork.
It doesn't matter if someone is making their own copy of Pepe the Frog. It's still Pepe the Frog and is not theirs to copy. This is why you don't see Tony the Tiger on your local store brand of frosted cornflakes; you might see a generic cartoon tiger, if that store brand is particularly small and feeling exceptionally lucky.
Who is providing the funding behind this legal action? Pepe was never a particularly successful commercial endeavor. The artist musst have backing from somebody with a political axe to grind.
Pepe is Matt Furie's creation. It doesn't matter if he hasn't earned a single penny from it; it's still his creation do do with as he pleases.
Matt Furie is getting pro bono legal support from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP. Pro bono means "for free".
As it turns out, there are lots of people who believe very strongly that the alt right is an active threat to civil society and antithetical to American values. Many of these people will happily donate their time, energy and money to shutting the alt-right down through legal action, political advocacy, and public outreach. There's nothing nefarious, illegal, or immoral about that in America. It's a free country.
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Were you as supportive of abusing the legal system for political reasons when Peter Thiel was suing Gawker into bankruptcy?
Gawker got sued into bankruptcy because a> nobody loved them and b> they engaged in unlawful activity while nobody loved them. And no fucks were given, because nothing of value was lost. Literally everything they ever posted was sensationalized clickbait. Even when they were right, they were insufferable.
It's a free country*
*unless you're a conservative, in which case NO PLATFORM FOR HATE!!!1
You're still trying to use someone else's soapbox, while ranting about pulling one's self up by one's bootstraps. You don't even know what you believe.
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You're still trying to use someone else's soapbox
Then why do we still allow nazi's to get phone lines? They can use that to call each other and organize or spread their hateful ideology!
Re: Actually you can (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's a pro bono tip for you, avoid sprinkling semicolons around if you don't know how to use them. Yes I know you do it in an attempt to look smarter, but it ends up having the opposite effect.
Mmmmmm nope. American AC used them correctly; semi-colons can be used to closely join two independent clauses to connect closely related ideas.
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I would wager pretty good money that most of the far-right renditions of pepe are not digital copies but instead new artwork.
You create 'new artwork' of Mickey Mouse and Disney can still go after you. Same deal here.
http://www.speakgif.com/wp-con... [speakgif.com]
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Pepe is a subversive meme used by people who getting an anti-authoritarian, anti-SJW as well (but to a far less degree) by the racist Alt-Right.
Legal action against pepe is only going to make it stronger - like the Streisand Affect on steroids.
If Matt Furie thinks this will stop the use of Pepe he's a fool. If he's doing this to separate himself from Kekistanis others who have adopt
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Yes, he can grant license to use it. But that requires either establishing something akin to the creative commons license with more restrictions in writing, or personally giving the go ahead to each individual work. Instead he not only has not done either of those things, but in an interview with the Daily Dot several years ago pretty explicitly abandoned copyright of Pepe.
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More than likely, by not pursuing, he has less financial damages (as he has pretty much been allowing it to be used license free for ages), but he can definitely send take downs and what not.
Just no willful infringement damages because "it was a meme everybody was using consequence free blah blah" should (though maybe not in reality) be a valid defense against knowing infringement.
Absolutely he can at any time ask any person to not post it, especially in the context of DMCA (which I assume will be the bulk
Re:Actually you can (Score:5, Insightful)
The relevant portion.
Thoughts on Pepe becoming the mascot for 4chan?
Pepe offers you complete support, attention, and embraces how capable you are of birthing your own Pepe. As your God, my hope is to enhance your Pepe birthing experience by empowering you through it. Obey Pepe. Obey Me. Bow down to your leader. Worship me. Give me genital love or non-genital love. Both are wonderful.
But 4chan went crazy for Pepe, yes?
I believe that the most important thing I can do as an artist is to protect the voices of anonymous people on the Internet and help ensure that that those voices are honored. It is my job to help 4chan have the experience that they want without judgment or criticism. In the end, I want 4chan to feel they were supported by being heard, respected, and part of the decision-making process. Instead of promoting my own agenda, it is my goal to promote 4chan. Different things work for different people. Let me support you in the way you choose to draw Pepe.
What about people profiting off of Pepe?
I believe in supporting people’s decisions to profit off of Pepe in order to provide them with the most positive business experience possible. I strive to be an advocate for Pepe in both love and enterprise and hope to help business people to have an empowering and joyful experience while making an ocean of profits as limitless as the universe.
While he still has control over his original Pepe works the idea that he maintains control over anything else after those statements is ludicrous.
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That was an obviously frivolous interview with the Daily Dot. I notice you didn't link to it, presumably so people can't see the context. [dailydot.com]
He has every right in law to control the use of his character. People are publishing far right anti-immigration comics using Pepe, and he has a right to ask Amazon to respect his copyright and their own rules on intellectual property.
Consider some if the silly statements that other artists have put out over the years. It doesn't invalidate their copyrights.
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While taken alone the interview might be frivolous when considered in combination with the fact that he went 11+ years without making any copyright claims over Pepe whatsoever including many instances of people making money off the property that he was aware of means that it could easily be considered binding
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Please come back when you learn the difference between trademark and copyright.
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In terms of copyright infringement you can. Hormel for example will have the lawyers send people approval to use their copyright logo of SPAM when it is used in a way they like, the lawyers send this approval because the people are actually violating copyright so they are approving it to protect they rights, without having to fight positive use of their IP. However if used in a way they don't like and the person is using the IP illegally then they can sue the heck out of them for damages.
Being the Alt-Rig
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That still implies the existence of a license and agreement. He is arguing that left-wingers can use his copyright while right-wingers can't, in both cases without any sort of agreement or explicit license. If he had an explicit license (eg. CC-NOT-THE-RIGHT), then you could potentially go ahead and invalidate the contract (depending on locality) for discriminatory business practices.
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You can choose to not enforce or go after every breach of the law.
So he can target right wing group because he can.
The law doesn’t accept look see the other guy is doing it, as much as your parents don’t.
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That still implies the existence of a license and agreement. He is arguing that left-wingers can use his copyright while right-wingers can't, in both cases without any sort of agreement or explicit license. If he had an explicit license (eg. CC-NOT-THE-RIGHT), then you could potentially go ahead and invalidate the contract (depending on locality) for discriminatory business practices.
Nope. It's his IP, he can do with it as he pleases, including letting some use it and other not. There is no legal requirement for a license and he is free to selectively enforce his IP rights as he sees fit.
Re: As a content creator (Score:5, Informative)
Again, that is trademark. Copyright has no such requirement.
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If it's not directly commentary on the character Pepe (satire), it likely isn't fair use.
Though the fact that they're not monetized does help the case.
Likely it will be too expensive to pursue a fair use case for each and every instance, so the DMCA will win out.
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For definitions of 'win out' equalling to 'play automated whack a mole against scripts'.
Have you been on youttube lately?
Re: Don't user created memes fall under fair use? (Score:2)
There is a bit of a difference between a full Disney movie and say... Fan art. https://www.plagiarismtoday.co... [plagiarismtoday.com]
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The relevant part from your link being:
"but always remember that your creations only exist through the good graces of the copyright holder and they can change their mind at any point"
Full fan movies and fan art fall into the same category legally speaking. The copyright holder has a large deal of freedom in choosing who, if anyone, to bring a case against.
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They can change their minds yes, but you missed the earlier part of the article:
Did you ever hear about the 'artist' who put together a gallery of screenshots of different peoples Instagram photos? [cnn.com] He's been in court previously for claims of copyright infringement wrt using someone elses work as the basis for his... and he won [hollywoodreporter.com].
The law on th
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It's definitely not clear cut, but Prince has at least a good legal argument, that his art comments on the original work. The Cariou case hinged on the fact that Prince never straight-up said he was commenting on the original photos, but the appeals court made it clear that any reasonable art-lover would know that he was.
Now fast forward to the Instagram photos. Remember, he's been through this before, and has found that appropriation art can be fair use if it comments on the original. In the case of the In
You can parody him all you want (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Informative)
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/ov... [stanford.edu]
In fact, his pursuing rigorous legal claims over such a stupid use makes him prone to parody or satire, which opens up fair use even further.
Well played!
From your link:
In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. In other words, fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use qualifies as a fair use, then it would not be considered an infringement.
Alt-right Pepe memes do not "comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work". They use his work to "comment upon, criticize, or parody" unrelated targets.
I can make a cartoon that parodies The Simpsons, Family Guy has an element of that.
But I can't make a cartoon parodying environmentalists staring Homer Simpson. Fox would sue me out of existence.
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Which is interesting because as technology and culture evolved it is obvious the law has not kept up. Are memes subject to fair use? By their nature they are limited and it can be argued that they are transformative. i.e. 'feelsbadman' is more about the sadness in the picture than Pepe. It just so happened that Pepe was chosen for that emotion for that meme.
If I post a "feelsbadman" pepe on a post explaining that I was dumped by my girlfriend, is that fair use? That is the real question at hand, do memes fa
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I suggest you go look up the terms "parody" and "satire". You clearly don't understand what they mean.
Hint: they don't mean "being funny, with someone else's copyrighted material" or "criticising something unrelated, with someone else's copyrighted material"
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Except you entirely missed my point. Now they CAN claim it's parodying someone chasing a stupid copyright claim.
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Things were headed in that direction, already. I've sure seen a lot less Pepes recently then I used to. Now that the lawsuit is getting fired up, I bet I'll be seeing a lot more of them again. Maybe that was the point. There's no such thing as bad publicity.
This will only serve to make the rare Pepes more valuable.
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That you're defending pepe as a meme of the alt-right when it's basically a mockery of them that they picked up as a result of refusing to admit they just don't get it says enough about you, but the idea that you can put a price on a rare Pepe should disqualify you from being your own legal guardian.
You never went to 4chan.
Also *whoosh*, that was the sound of irony flying over your head at great speed.
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I seem to remember reading somewhere [slashdot.org] that the creator voluntarily relinquished control of Pepe to the Internet at large. What of that?
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There is no leadership in the "alt-right" anymore than there is leadership in the ANTIFA movement. On purpose. They are mirror images of each other, both being Fascist in nature.
And by Fascist in nature, I mean in the "We don't like you, we are going to beat you up and shut you down" nature.The only difference is, there are more people who support the ANTIFA crybabies (those who need their "service animal" [youtube.com] to comfort themselves when they get arrested for rioting).
As for Pepe the Frog, and the Alt-Right, th