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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: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Thursday January 25 2018, @03:42PM (3 children)
This is just the sort of case that seemingly shows the good side of copyright, and will be used as an example of why we should keep it.
Downloading a pirate copy for a private use is totally different than for a public use, and advertising is about as public as it gets. Downloading and copying don't have anything more to do with the issue than which road and model car a concert goer drove to a concert, or which device was used to play a recording. Two kids could meet anywhere and swap flash drives loaded with copyrighted data, and there's no practical way to detect, monetize, or forcibly prevent any violation of copyright that may occur. Nor should we want such activities criminalized, just the opposite. We want kids to use the library, not be threatened with punishment and inflicted with doubt that it's naughty or immoral or mean because it will cause artists to starve or whatever.
To shove this case under the umbrella of current copyright law serves only to confuse people, just as the MAFIAA wants. Need another term, maybe "public association" or "endorsement".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 25 2018, @08:49PM (1 child)
Copyright shouldn't be thrown out, but it shouldn't have such a long lifetime. I think 5-15 years after creation would be a reasonable range, after a decade and a half create something new!! I would be fine with having separate time frames for public domain vs. profit usage, though this is tricky ground with things like youtube advertisement payments.
I don't see the problem with this falling under copyright law, that is exactly where it should be. I guess you could add in nuances about licensing. Removing copyright 100% would cause many problems, although it would be an interesting experiment. Since that is very unlikely I say we start with reducing the copyright duration to a maximum of 20 years, preferably lower. Fuck Disney and anyone else that can't come up with anything new.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @05:05AM
Considering that nothing new being created outlasts a trend even 5 years is too long. 2-3 at most, maybe longer for things that have a longer profitable lifespan.
(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.