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from the that's-my-word-you-can't-use-it dept.
Columbia Pictures, the studio behind the recent Adam Sandler film "Pixels," has gone on the warpath, targeting independent films on Vimeo that use the word "pixels" in the title, TorrentFreak reports.
According to a DMCA complaint lodged with Vimeo by anti-piracy organisation Entura International on behalf of Columbia Pictures, with which Vimeo has complied, 10 videos were targeted by the production company.
These include: "Pixels -- Life Buoy," filmmaker Dragos Bardac's project for his degree at the National University of Arts in Bucharest, Romania, uploaded in 2010; a dance music video called "Detuned Pixels -- Choco" uploaded in 2014; a short film called Pantone Pixels, uploaded in 2011; a video by graphic designer Franz Jeitz, announcing that he'll be speaking at the 2015 Pixels Festival; and, ironically, the award-winning short film "Pixels" by Patrick Jean which served as the inspiration for the Sandler film.
While Jean's film has been removed from his own account, it remains untouched on the account of One More Productions, which produced it.
The sweep also caught two unofficially uploaded copies of the Columbia Pictures film's trailer. A search for the word "pixels" on Vimeo reveals that some targeting may have been applied, returning some 9,050 results still live on the site at time of writing.
According to a complaint by NGO NeMe, which uploaded a video called "Pixels" in 2006, video creators are also being issued "strikes" along with the takedown. When a content creator receives three of these strikes, their channel will be suspended from the site.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday August 11 2015, @05:06PM
The creators of the taken-down films have standing to sue.
One can trademark titles but only if they use the mark of some other product or service that has been used in trade. That is, Mattel could trademark "Barbie(TM): Longer, Harder and Uncut".
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Francis on Tuesday August 11 2015, @05:12PM
One of the big problems here is that while they have standing to sue, I'm sure many of those cases wouldn't get to court as the plaintiff doesn't have the pockets necessary to take it to court.
Cases like this really need to be prosecuted as a criminal matter rather than being treated as a civil affair. It's pretty clear after all these years that companies have no problem filing fraudulent claims, it's about time people started to go to prison for it.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @05:34PM
doesn't have the pockets necessary to take it to court.
Considering the scope of what has happened I smell a class action lawsuit where only lawyers make money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @06:01PM
> I smell a class action lawsuit where only lawyers make money.
That's the inevitable result of a legal system based on capitalism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @06:10PM
And a possibility for me to be snarky and make a dumb joke ;)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday August 11 2015, @07:30PM
I recently received two plainly fraudulent Robo Calls.
Automated recorded telephone calls other than from political campaigns are a Federal civil offense. I don't know that I have the headspace to deal with it but I contemplate suing the ignorant mother fuckers.
However I could not use Small Claims Court; that's a State thing. I don't think there's a Federal Small Claims Court so I'd have to sue in Big Claims Court. That's a huge pain in the ass.
The win is that the attorneys don't get any money; I would act Pro Per.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @02:20AM
Politicians exempted themselves from robocall laws, just like they exempted themselves from insider trading laws.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday August 12 2015, @02:30AM
Insider trading?
How many elected officials would be willing to sign a sworn statement that itemized all their trades?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday August 11 2015, @07:26PM
My friend Thomas Leavitt [880itservices.com] was sued by right-wing talk show host Michael Savage, over Thomas' "Savage Stupidity" site. Savage was concerned that his advertising revenues were not up to scratch.
Thomas found a Washington DC public interest law firm that agreed to represent him Pro Bono. Thomas prevailed.
There are some public interest attorneys that have lots of money; Larry Lessig for example.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 11 2015, @06:46PM
Of all the movies mentioned so far, yours sounds:
1) Most likely to make a profit
2) Most appealing for me to watch as a guy with mostly stereotypical preferences
I mean, if the business model is to shovel out brainless exploitative formulaic dreck videos, at least make it a media with appeal, like pr0n. I had a weird argument about pr0n movies with this woman a long while back where she ranted at me for like ten minutes about exploitation of young women and unfair relationship expectations and unrealistic female body shapes and she just rambled on and on, and I finally shut her up with something like "OK so we've agreed we both don't like Disney Princess movies, now you claimed you'd lecture me about pr0n so lets switch to that". If you're not going to output stuff with cinematic integrity, why not at least shovel out stuff guys like to look at? Like what is the point of the failing movie industry?
Can anyone talk me out of thinking MDCs movie suggestion would be the best movie mentioned so far in the article? I mean we're not talking "Star Wars: A New Pixel" or "LOTR: The fellowship of the pixel" here.
Now if I'm missing something culturally and MDCs movie title means its an educational video where Barbie hosts the kids visit to a undersea fiber optic cable factory, well then clearly I'm missing out on some classy cinema, and in that case, whoops. I'm sure "Ken loves eating sausage" is all about his visit to the bratwurst factory, admittedly a site best unseen, much like software development.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday August 11 2015, @07:24PM
Mainstream media has demonstrated its reluctance to protect its trademarks when infringed by our friends in Chatsworth.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]