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Grumpy Cat wins $710,000 payout in copyright lawsuit
A cat made famous online because of its permanent scowl has been awarded $710,000 (£500,000) in a copyright case by a California federal court.
Grumpy Cat Limited sued the owners of US coffee company Grenade for exceeding an agreement over the cat's image. The company only had rights to use the cat to sell its "Grumppuccino" iced drink, but sold other Grumpy products.
The cat, real name Tardar Sauce, went viral in 2012 after photographs of her sour expression emerged online. Originally posted on the social website Reddit by the brother of the cat's owner, Tabatha Bundesen, the image of the cat quickly spread as a meme with funny text captions.
In 2013 Grenade Beverage, owned by father and son Nick and Paul Sandford, struck a $150,000 deal to market iced coffee beverages with the cat's scowl on its packaging.
[...] Grumpy Cat is thought to have earned millions in endorsement and advertising deals.
Also at Courthouse News.
(Score: 2) by MadTinfoilHatter on Friday January 26 2018, @09:41AM
I beg to differ. The only good side copyright even has in theory is that it would grant fair compensation for artistic performances / work.
In what universe is "millions of dollars" fair (rather than ridiculous) compensation for taking a few cat pics and having them go viral on the web? Maybe one where the dollar has been struck by Zimbabwean inflation and a million will buy you two Big Mac meals? One of the problems with copyrights and patents is that they make people think that you're somehow entitled to ridiculous amounts of money, because you did X, when you actually just got lucky. If you want to get rich by getting lucky, go play the lottery. Playing the lottery with imaginary property and laws creating artificial scarcity is in no way beneficial to society. So no - this case does not show off the "good" side of copyright. That side is virtually non-existent.