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For the last decade, Marjorie Carvalho and her husband have produced Star Wars Action News, a podcast dedicated to Star Wars collectibles of all sorts. Predictably, they've had a lot to talk about, as waves of action figures and other collectibles have been launched in the run-up to the much-anticipated release next week of Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens.
On Tuesday, a Star Wars Action News staffer saw something he shouldn't have—and bought it. A 3 3/4" action figure of "Rey," a female character from The Force Awakens, was on display in a Walmart in Iowa, apparently earlier than it should have been. The staff member bought it for $6.94 plus tax, no questions asked. The following day, he posted pictures of the Rey figure on Star Wars Action News' Facebook page.
"Have we known this figure was coming?" the staffer, named Justin, asked in the post. "I just found her at Walmart—no new other figures."
A short time later, Carvalho got a surprising message.
"A friend texted my husband saying, hey, are you getting sued?" said Carvalho in an interview with Ars Technica. The image from the Facebook post was gone. "We looked and noticed we'd gotten a notice from Facebook saying our image violated copyright. It was confusing because our staff member, Justin, he took the photo."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Saturday December 12 2015, @01:52AM
Perhaps, but that's not what happened.
This was not just fair use, it was 1,000,000,000,000,000% fair use. I suggest he takes a few million dollars off Lucasfilm's hands if he can, which is fairly easy with the bad will this generates.
Seriously. Why the fuck would you buy their product, if being excited, and using social networking and podcasts to communicate your excitement, somehow violates somebody's copyrights?
I realize a lot of people don't understand IP at all, which isn't surprising with a propaganda campaigning trying to legitimize the ownership of something intangible as if it was a basic human right. We gave Disney certain specific rights to protect their IP, but we never intended for one second for them to have control over the personal lives of people. That's exactly what IP is morphing into.
You want to not violate copyright? Then you better enjoy your products in the fucking dark, anonymously, and never tell anyone. If you dare even openly express pleasure in your fucking property, be prepared to pay extra for the rights to do so.
George Lucas can suck a cock. He's already made billions from the rest of us for his trilogy, but he needs to behave as terrible as the Imperials in real life for some reason. Asshole. I haven't seen the movie, and now, have absolutely zero intentions of doing so. It's not worth supporting their actions.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Informative) by http on Saturday December 12 2015, @02:00AM
While I laud the notion of Lucasfilms being taken to the cleaners for this, it's pretty clear the propaganda is working - because you yourself are using the confounding term, "IP", in exactly the way copyright maximalists want you to use it, conflating property with copyright, and hopefully presenting trademark law and copyright law as if they were one and the same.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday December 12 2015, @03:21AM
...it's pretty clear the propaganda is working - because you yourself are using the confounding term, "IP", in exactly the way copyright maximalists want you to use it...
I really can't see a problem with abbreviating the term "Imaginary Property"...
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2015, @06:34AM
The problem with a blanket term is that it pre-supposes that Trademarks, Patents, copyright, Trade secrets, Plant Breeder's rights, Integrated circuit topographies, and database rights are all very similar.
In fact they are not.
All that said, I sort of find the "Industrial Protectionism" term acceptable. While it conflates many different aspects of law, it does so while explicitly explaining what they all have in common.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2015, @08:30AM
I am not familiar with Plant Breeder's rights.
Of course you are not, corn fucker!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2015, @07:56AM
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday December 12 2015, @02:04AM
This is one of the many problems with Whites. While a non-White would laugh off the early-sale gaffe and be thankful for the free publicity (note that this would be one of the most honest examples of the "accidental leak"), Whites would be (and were!) stirred to anger in an instant because of their greedy and hateful short-sightedness.
This is why Whites have caused all of the world's problems on a planet where they were plenty of other peaceful men who were born civilized and robbed of their riches, freedom, and pride.
If modern civilization ends with nuclear war, chances are that Whites will have been behind it.
Around Whites, eternal copyrights.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2015, @02:31AM
You can't fool us, Ethanol-fueled! We all know you're talkin' 'bout the jews.
Besides, Whites don't have negative stereotypes. That's why it's okay to chant "Black power!" but not "White power!"
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2015, @02:37AM
Of course whites have negative stereotypes. Chanting "white power" is one of them.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday December 12 2015, @02:21AM
George Lucas really has little to do with running Lucasfilm. It was sold to Disney in 2912. Disney has most likely farmed out copyright enforcement to some slimy, sleazy scam operation.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday December 12 2015, @02:34AM
George Lucas has actually referred to the involvement with his former franchise as a "divorce," [reuters.com] although since he was behind episodes I-III he threw away a lot of his own credibility and so doesn't speak with much authority in these matters.
Mister Lucas - Just because you grow older and have kids doesn't mean that your movies have to be "goo goo-ga ga poo-poo papa" Teletubbies for adults.
So now instead of wooden acting and infantile dialogue we're stuck with lens-flares and race-mixing propaganda.
I'm no fan of Abrams' work, but there is one core tenet of which the both of us hold dear: Whites are the bad guys.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2015, @04:05AM
(same AC)
I never saw the Facebook page; did you? My comment was based only on what the story says: that photos were posted. It doesn't say there was any commentary, parody or criticism going on. Any of those would have solidly made this fair use. When you write "that's not what happened" do you mean that there was no accompanying article?
You might want to look at Ty, Inc. v. Publications International, Ltd. [harvard.edu]. Someone wrote books about Beanie Babies that were illustrated with photos of the toys. The federal district court said that was copyright infringement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:32PM
If you own it you should be able to take pictures of it and distribute them. And even if you don't own it, if the owner puts it in a prominent public place, then the owner should not be allowed to prevent people from taking, keeping and distributing photos of it.
Now if you don't own something you bought.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday December 13 2015, @03:27AM
Yep. If anyone is at fault here, it's Walmart, who may have violated the terms of their contract for carrying these toys by having one on the shelf outside of the contract's parameters. Tho Disney would be insane to chase away a market of that volume over one mistakenly sold toy.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.