posted
It's strange. I don't normally much care (in the sense that I'm apathetic, not in the 'to hell with') about an author's stance on someone goofing off in their particular sandbox. If there's some really groovy story based off someone else's story (fanfiction ahoy, sometimes), I can dig it.
But I guess because I liked C&H so much (still do), and can guess something of Watterson's attitude particularly towards a comic continuation with his characters, for my part I found myself slightly irritated at it. It was interesting to me that I had that reaction.
I guess it stems out of what I feel is my own loyalty to the guy-but even as I felt that, I recognized it was silly. I'm never going to buy any merchandise associated with thus new comic, so it's not like my thoughts will ever be meaningful externally. And I'm not zealous about it-I don't think others should feel the way I do about it. I guess I just dig this particular story enough to wish that people would, like the guy wants, leave it alone.
Odd thoughts to encounter for a webcomic. Now, *as* for the webcomic I have to admit my obvious bias, but while the art was nice, the story so far-just a couple of strips-is a total rehash, 100%, with a slightly different coat of paint.
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Blayne Bradley
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I think Watterson unfortunately and unintentionally shot himself in the foot regarding merchandising to the point where arguably Calvin and Hobbes is de facto public domain.
My stance on fan fiction is its A-OK as long as its decently written and isn't slashy obscene or a hate fic of some kind.
Although to me effort counts for alot; most doujinshi for example I make an exception for as drawing is an order of magnitude more effort and time intensive than writing.
We need a "Miller Test of Fan Fiction" so to speak.
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Why on Earth would C&H be de facto public domain because of merchandising? He didn't want to merchandise because he felt it cheapened the characters.
That's not a decision I feel personally was very wise, but then I'm not a world-class cartoonist either. Obviously he knew he was principling himself out of a great deal of money, but took that stance anyway.
As for Robot Chicken, I guess for me brief one-off parodies occupy a different kind of space than a new comic with the same characters that-so far-seems committed to telling the same jokes. Hell, with almost the same artwork even.
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posted
"If you don't give us official merchandise, then we'll steal it and make our own and claim it's legal."
That's not what de facto means.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: "If you don't give us official merchandise, then we'll steal it and make our own and claim it's legal."
That's not what de facto means.
The way it was explained to me is that if Watterson doesn't have any official merchandise; then people who make their own merchandise can't effectively be sued because there's no proveable official merchandise that the claim can be made is having profit being taken from.
quote: Because there were no officially licensed decorations or clothing, the only official merchandising (the books) placed the unofficial goods well out of its genre. (While a car sticker could be said to compete for sales with, say, a poster, it's unlikely to compete with sales for a comic strip collection.) Trademark cases become more difficult to win the less it can be argued the infringement is taking sales away from the official goods and such cases would thus have been expensive and very uncertain, as well as providing him with little or no monetary gain. The courts have no problem ruling that you own the property and no one else can use it for profit, but unless you are doing merchandising, you don't gain much from suing.
Thus "de facto".
quote: If "Mars is Amazing" was okay, I don't see anything wrong with this.
posted
Even if we grant that for the sake of argument and not just lawsuit rewards-the part you quoted doesn't in fact say if you don't merchandise your stuff is de facto public domain-this is different than bumper stickers of a comic character. This is a comic of a comic character, and it isn't a parody either.
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Blayne Bradley
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Didn't I use the words arguably? Also doesn't de facto mean "pretty much practically public domain, so anyone at this point can pretty much use his characters for their own commercial use because the chances of a lawsuit are nonexistent." de jure would be if it had officially entered public domain and that isn't what I'm claiming.
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quote: Because there were no officially licensed decorations or clothing, the only official merchandising (the books) placed the unofficial goods well out of its genre. (While a car sticker could be said to compete for sales with, say, a poster, it's unlikely to compete with sales for a comic strip collection.) Trademark cases become more difficult to win the less it can be argued the infringement is taking sales away from the official goods and such cases would thus have been expensive and very uncertain, as well as providing him with little or no monetary gain. The courts have no problem ruling that you own the property and no one else can use it for profit, but unless you are doing merchandising, you don't gain much from suing.
Thus "de facto".
Your interpretation is mistaken. At best, it could be said that infringing upon the copyright is relatively safe from a financial point of view. The copyright stays in place, and the owner has the option to sue for infringement at any time. That is nowhere close to "de facto." "De Facto" would more properly involve a rights holder who expresses no interest in holding infringers accountable, rather than a simple lack of will or resources to do so effectively. He also maintains rights and protects rights to the reprinting of his works.
quote: Also doesn't de facto mean "pretty much practically public domain"
This is why I very often consult a dictionary:
quote: de facto |di ˈfaktō; dā| adverb in fact, whether by right or not : the island has been de facto divided into two countries. Often contrasted with de jure .
The failure of your argument lies in the assumption that a refuge in the audacity of blatant infringement places the work itself in the public domain in practice. It does not. If it did, for example, this would entail third-party unlicensed reprinting of the books and individual strips, which would be highly actionable and likely result in serious legal penalties.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Didn't I use the words arguably? Also doesn't de facto mean "pretty much practically public domain, so anyone at this point can pretty much use his characters for their own commercial use because the chances of a lawsuit are nonexistent." de jure would be if it had officially entered public domain and that isn't what I'm claiming.
Right, makes sense. Though as Rak pointed out, a comic might be the one case where this isn't true.
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posted
Blayne, while it's true that parody is protected speech, I think it's also true that "Mars is Amazing" is clearly a parody in a way that "Hobbes & Bacon" is not.
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posted
Based on what you've quoted Blayne, Hobbes and Bacon looks like pretty clear copyright infringement. It seems obviously aimed at people who want to read more Calvin and Hobbes comics an thus is in direct competition with Watterson's books.
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posted
Why bring this up here, directed at Blayne, and not on the comic's website? I don't know, sounds like another issue to pile up on Blayne about. Which is hilarious.
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posted
I'm imagining a de-evolution to: "well these actually *enhance* the sales of Watterson's books," or "only dedicated fans will really enjoy these." But that is why copyrights exist- because if you want the pleasure of using somebody else's ideas and work for your own gain (or theirs), you get to pay for the privilege. If they will let you.
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quote:Originally posted by manji: Why bring this up here, directed at Blayne, and not on the comic's website? I don't know, sounds like another issue to pile up on Blayne about. Which is hilarious.
He posted the thread. He is linking from this forum to copyright infringing material, if you want to get super hard nosed about it. There are very legitimate objections to that kind of thing.
Also the site's owner is probably blocking any negative feedback, judging from the comment stream.
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posted
You guys have a thread forwarding links to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality that's what, 18 pages long? How is this and that any different? Because of the differing stances of Bill Watterson and J.K. Rowling? Copyright infringement is copyright infringement, right?
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posted
I agree. I find those who participated in that thread without arguing a consistent stance on copyright infringement to be, well, inconsistent. I am not.
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Blayne Bradley
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Stop Having Fun Guys.
If the forum has no ToS-ish objection to people making threads or linking to copyinfringement then there is no reason for you to beat on that dead horse.
quote: Blayne, while it's true that parody is protected speech, I think it's also true that "Mars is Amazing" is clearly a parody in a way that "Hobbes & Bacon" is not.
When did I say it was? I was simply saying to Lisa that parody is protected speech, aka that 'mars is amazing' RC skit is automatically ok with no issue. I never claimed that because RC is protected than so is Hobbes and Bacon.
I never said it wasn't copy infringement, only that for all practical purposes its practically public domain as Watterson is unlikely to sue and the case itself would have an uncertain outcome.
I think there's been actual cases of published authors losing their trademark/copyright on their public works because they haven't actively protected their copyright so my thoughts on this are hardly without precedent.
quote: No statement on the legality of Fanfic has ever been given in American formal law or in its courts. Some argue that it's a form of copyright infringement; however, see "Legal Fictions: Copyright, Fan Fiction, and a New Common Law", and note the above precedents.
Authors often have conflicted reactions to fan fiction set in "their" universe, which sometimes leads to a Fanwork Ban. J. K. Rowling has largely embraced Harry Potter Fan Fic, albeit with certain limitations, for example. By contrast, George R. R. Martin, author of the epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, recently expressed his disdain for the practice, saying that "creating your own characters is a part of writing." He's even gone so far as to threaten legal action should he become aware of any fan fiction set in the Westeros universe.
Such authors do have reason to worry — as Mercedes Lackey had long taken pains to point out on her website, a fan writer was once able to wrest control (via a successful lawsuit) of part of Darkover away from its creator, Marion Zimmer Bradley. This is the ultimate nightmare of any writer, fan or professional, and drives some of the more draconian efforts to suppress fan creativity. (Lackey herself was once infamously on the draconian side of the divide in part because of this event, but in early 2010 reversed her stand on fanfiction thanks to an association with Cory Doctorow.)
Seems to be that the above fancomic (which would easily qualify as Doujinshi in Japan) is probably NOT copyright infringement depending on what sort of revenue the author may be aiming for. (money from google adds probably being legitimate otherwise fanfiction.net would be in alot of trouble, money from publishing said doujinshi outside of conventions would probably be where the line is crossed and in direct competition with the official published comic books).
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quote:You guys have a thread forwarding links to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality that's what, 18 pages long? How is this and that any different? Because of the differing stances of Bill Watterson and J.K. Rowling? Copyright infringement is copyright infringement, right?
Since my particular stand is that I dislike the OP's comic in question because of what I (pretty reasonably, I think) speculate to be the author's stance on it personally-that is, I don't think he'd like it-and JK Rowling has explictly said she's fine with it, so long as it's not, y'know, marketed or something along those lines. I forget what exactly. So...nice try, manji-no inconsistency here, on my part at least.
And as for piling on Blayne...well, I don't speak for anyone else (though I've been accused of it in the past;) ), but I'd be interested to hear what I said that was piling on him. Are people just not allowed to disagree with him at all now, is he an endangered species or something?
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Blayne Bradley
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*files for protection with the Endangered Species Act*
There's a good joke there, that it is.
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quote:He posted the thread. He is linking from this forum to copyright infringing material, if you want to get super hard nosed about it. There are very legitimate objections to that kind of thing.
Get real. Hard nosed or not the two comics at the site Blayne linked fall pretty clearly with in fair use of copyrighted material.
I should clarify that my earlier comment was with regard to the suggestions (on the linked site) that the author should produce and sell this comic -- that would violate Wattersons copyright. Two comics posted on the web pretty clearly do not.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: He posted the thread. He is linking from this forum to copyright infringing material, if you want to get super hard nosed about it. There are very legitimate objections to that kind of thing.
Not really. First of all, all you can say is that he's linking to material that might be viewed as copyright infringing by some people.
I happen to think that it's obviously fair use, just like when someone draws a Doonesbury character into their own comic strip, which has happened in the papers any number of times.
Since there's no reason why your opinion here is superior to mine or Blayne's or anyone else's, the bottom line is that if you don't like the link, don't click the link. If you don't like the content, post something there. Your rant here is only kind of funny. It reminds me of Robin Hobb's "Fan Fiction Rant".
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quote:He posted the thread. He is linking from this forum to copyright infringing material, if you want to get super hard nosed about it. There are very legitimate objections to that kind of thing.
Get real. Hard nosed or not the two comics at the site Blayne linked fall pretty clearly with in fair use of copyrighted material.
That is not in the least bit clear to me. In fact, I very strongly suspect you are wrong. Not being an IP lawyer, my judgement is purely amateur, but perhaps I'll ask my dad the next time I get him on the phone and see what he thinks. It occurs to me that there would be a significant difference between a one-off, which this is, and the prospect of a running series. The one-off being on much firmer ground.
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quote:He posted the thread. He is linking from this forum to copyright infringing material, if you want to get super hard nosed about it. There are very legitimate objections to that kind of thing.
Get real. Hard nosed or not the two comics at the site Blayne linked fall pretty clearly with in fair use of copyrighted material.
That is not in the least bit clear to me. In fact, I very strongly suspect you are wrong. Not being an IP lawyer, my judgement is purely amateur, but perhaps I'll ask my dad the next time I get him on the phone and see what he thinks.
Goodie. My brother is an IP attorney, too. Even if your father agrees with you, it's still only his opinion.
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posted
Of course. What's your point? Do you think I was trying to appeal to my father's authority in the matter, after I already said I hadn't asked him, and I'm not a lawyer?
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quote:It reminds me of Robin Hobb's "Fan Fiction Rant".
Is that, in your mind, a bad thing?
It's a very bad thing. In that rant, she was a jackass. And wrong, which is more forgivable.
Without you telling me so, I wouldn't have known.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:He posted the thread. He is linking from this forum to copyright infringing material, if you want to get super hard nosed about it. There are very legitimate objections to that kind of thing.
Get real. Hard nosed or not the two comics at the site Blayne linked fall pretty clearly with in fair use of copyrighted material.
That is not in the least bit clear to me. In fact, I very strongly suspect you are wrong. Not being an IP lawyer, my judgement is purely amateur, but perhaps I'll ask my dad the next time I get him on the phone and see what he thinks. It occurs to me that there would be a significant difference between a one-off, which this is, and the prospect of a running series. The one-off being on much firmer ground.
Hey look, a long running fancomic of 235 pages over quite o few years using characters from not just one Nickolodian series characters but all of them even from other non YTV cartoons! Dexter's Lab, Powerpuff Girls, Mega XLRS, Samurai Jack, Invader Zim etc etc etc.
Also a fairly serious Darker and Edgier Adaption as well that does clearly make the artist quite a bit of money apparently as well through advertising and commissions...
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posted
Someone doing something doesn't make it legal.
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Blayne Bradley
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I strongly suspect Snafu couldn't have done this for as long as he did with the popularity he currently has without some grounding upon legality within the country he is probably from.
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...or, y'know, copyright holders might not want to go to the trouble and expense of a lawsuit, particularly if you start throwing in the other countries angle. Or they might not individually disapprove of fancomics. Or the fancomic in question might not be as popular and profitable as you think.
None of which has anything to do with an author who has rejected any kind if merch or continuation of his work. We're not talking about snafu, and in any event you really have Bo idea what has gone on behind the scenes there between them and other cartoon creators, if anything. So it doesnt serve as weight either way.
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posted
I like this site's thoughts on what constitutes a derivative work and what constitutes copyright infringement. It's "maintained by the Stanford Center for Internet and Society," which sounds all kinds of impressive.
As for the work in question, I'm bothered by it. Like Rakeesh said, Watterson doesn't seem like the kind of guy to be happy about this comic, which makes it not alright with me. Not to say that it wasn't amusing.
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quote:for as drawing is an order of magnitude more effort and time intensive than writing
Ahem. I beg to differ! Not that drawing is easier, but that one doesn't require less effort and time than the other. For me, it's the reverse-- probably because I'm putting more effort into writing and less into drawing.
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posted
Something may be legal but still inappropriate. In commentated editions of Calvin and Hobbes (which I imagine no one is surprised to learn that I own) Waterson explains the various reasons why he did not merchandize his material. In my opinion this violates those reasons and makes me against it. He fought pretty hard for it too, not just refusing money but engaging in quite a battle with the syndicator over it and almost losing the strip entirely, so I'm inclined to follow his wishes.
posted
That's the attitude that explains the abundance of poor writing and dearth of good writing out there. Many people who don't write professionally (or seriously) tend to think that writing is easy and it's just a matter of luck whether you get famous. A well-written piece is a combination of natural talent and very hard work.
Of course, it takes a trained eye to distinguish mediocre writing from good writing, just as it takes a trained eye to distinguish good art from mediocre art (I can't tell the difference). Maybe there's not much of a difference, but it's enough to make one significantly preferable over the other and it's enough that it may take a year or two to write a piece that could have been shoveled out in a month at the expense of its quality--on that note, editing is also a tough business if done well.
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posted
Can this forum please put the words "de facto" in quotes from now on whenever someone tries to trot it out, because whenever we're talking about "de facto" it's seemingly always in an "informed" "legal" sense as opposed to an informed legal sense.
Whatever.
Watterson, as the nurturer and guardian of his franchise, felt he wanted to avoid merchandising or spinning off his work, regardless as to what he stood to lose personally in terms of immediate personal wealth. He explained himself, describing in what ways he felt this would cheapen it, and close off some of the wonder of the product. Time has vindicated his approach.
If you want to respect what Watterson has created with Calvin and Hobbes, respect his wishes for the franchise, which should be extremely easy to deduce without further input from him. Or don't, but don't pretend that you are, or that this is the perfect font to indulge your own personal postmodern theories on how this is really okay because of your own theories on intellectual property or that 'we should be allowed to do this anyway.'
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quote:Originally posted by Hobbes: Something may be legal but still inappropriate. In commentated editions of Calvin and Hobbes (which I imagine no one is surprised to learn that I own) Waterson explains the various reasons why he did not merchandize his material. In my opinion this violates those reasons and makes me against it. He fought pretty hard for it too, not just refusing money but engaging in quite a battle with the syndicator over it and almost losing the strip entirely, so I'm inclined to follow his wishes.
Hobbes
I agree. It's interesting to me, though not very surprising, how quickly this became a question of legality. Speaking for myself, from the beginning I was never very concerned with the legality-just that I felt pretty sure that the author whom I respect would be pretty unhappy with this.
But that shouldn't matter as long as it's not...slash of hate fic, which I interpret to mean some sort of character bashing? How does one arrive at that standard? "I've got no beef doing this stuff the author would dislike, unless it's gay or hatin' stuff. THAT'S not ok."
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: If you want to respect what Watterson has created with Calvin and Hobbes, respect his wishes for the franchise, which should be extremely easy to deduce without further input from him. Or don't, but don't pretend that you are, or that this is the perfect font to indulge your own personal postmodern theories on how this is really okay because of your own theories on intellectual property or that 'we should be allowed to do this anyway.'
This is what it seems to boil down to: the old question of whether people are allowed to do what they like with someone else's intangible creation regardless of the creator's wishes, and whether they can be said to be respectful of that creator if they defy those wishes.
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posted
Well, there's a few things that this thread can boil down to.
First, there's the "de facto" argument. Because a property is easier to get away with trespassing on, or because the property owner's never (or 'insufficiently') tried to profit off of it doesn't make it public property, and you're still trespassing if you walk on it without permission. Apply the same general theory of the thing with intellectual property to this whole de-facto thing. I can make a Calvin decal sticker, and it's still IP theft even if watterson never sold a calvin decal in his life, either through omission or intent not to. I can't claim that my stickers are okay because it's 'de facto' my right. I might as well admit it's theft.
Secondly, there's the fair use argument. Well, this isn't an argument so much as it is Lisa pleading complete relativity in interpretation of what fair use laws stipulate, when there's no such relativity and one's opinion can be stronger, weaker, or flat-out incorrect based on the precedent and application of IP law and fair use. Case in point: universal press syndicate or mcmeel (or Watterson's own estate, or whatever) could issue a cease or desist order on the site very successfully and, at very least, not have it thrown out as frivolous if it were contested. There's no 'obvious fair use' here.
Those two distractions out of the way, here's an odd personal analysis: it's a fairly confident assumption that this is distinctly disrespectful to Watterson and his wishes (you'd have to think so unless Watterson himself, in a rare move, decided to make a statement that he's okay with it). But that doesn't influence my interpretation of the comic because it seems like the person doing it is doing so out of ignorance as to Watterson's wishes for C&H. It doesn't seem to be intentional disrespect. That's in addition to being essentially apathetic towards the tug-of-war (legal and moral) between most IP holders and people who want to make derivative works using the characters of others, no matter for what intent.
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quote:Watterson, as the nurturer and guardian of his franchise, felt he wanted to avoid merchandising or spinning off his work, regardless as to what he stood to lose personally in terms of immediate personal wealth. He explained himself, describing in what ways he felt this would cheapen it, and close off some of the wonder of the product. Time has vindicated his approach.
I'm not so sure he's been vindicated. It's not like a fair bit of C&H merchandise hasn't been sold in one form or another. Would it really have cheapened the work to have some of that money end up in Watterson's pocket?
Even after reading his rationale in the Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary book, I've never felt that I fully understood it.
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posted
As I recall, he explained in that book that if he had chosen to license the property, he would have had great difficulty in controlling exactly *how* the property might be exploited. He was not dead set against all possible avenues, but disliked a fair number of them. For instance, I believe he *sort of* liked the idea of an animated cartoon, but knew that any agreement to make one would necessarily and unavoidably include the brand being attached to clothing, breakfast cereals, macaroni and cheese, candy, children's toys, posters, and other cheap merch. He is against advertising that targets children, and these products would be entirely directed at that market, so for him it was a clear case of right and wrong.
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posted
Right. I suppose that although Calvin did end up on a lot of t-shirts, the scope of the merchandising was at least somewhat curtailed.
Still, I have little sympathy for the point of view that marketing to children is wrong. Marketing bad or unhealthy things to children is wrong. On the other hand, the marketing of awesome stuff like He-Man, GI Joe and Transformers is a large part of what made my childhood so much fun.
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posted
Whatever your feelings on it, Watterson 's view was that most advertising aimed at children is designed to manipulate them into exploiting the buying power of their parents. He was not wrong in that assessment. He didn't feel it was morally conscionable to participate in such a market willingly, and for profit. I rather admire him for it.
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quote:Originally posted by Destineer: I'm not so sure he's been vindicated. It's not like a fair bit of C&H merchandise hasn't been sold in one form or another. Would it really have cheapened the work to have some of that money end up in Watterson's pocket?
We already would have had Calvin and Hobbes: the Horrible Mid-90's Sunday Cartoon, and Calvin and Hobbes, the mid-2000's ObligatoryCGIMovie chased out in spades, among a hundred other things, had Watterson not fought the syndicate to exhaustion on the point of merchandising and won.
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to the point where arguably Calvin and Hobbes is de facto public domain.
