OTW Fannews: Legal challenges

[otw_staff]

• Public Knowledge announced its inaugural artist-in-residence, Elisa Kreisinger. She is currently soliciting contributors to her project Fair User(s) which asks "If you know of someone who has experienced any removal or disabling of content due to copyright please direct them to this survey."


• Copyright attorney Timothy B. McCormack wrote about a recent lawsuit against the show Heroes of Cos-Play. "Cos-play costumes are derivative works because they are recasting the work their costume is based on into a new medium while still representing the original work of authorship. In some cases they might also be 'exact copies' 'strikingly similar' copies or 'substantially similar' copies. This means anyone who makes a costume based on an original work is required to obtain a copyright license from the owner if they do not want to commit copyright infringement. As a practical matter, however, it is unlikely cos-players will be sued unless they are trying to use their infringing costume to make a profit. The recent lawsuits involving NBC and the show 'Heroes of "Cos-Play,"' however, might beg to differ."


• While most people think of rights holders as those who control creative works, one set of cosplayers ran into legal problems with a commercial carpet company. "Apparently the carpet costumes were so popular that one of the original cosplayers offered a version of the Marriott carpet pattern for the presumably vast number of people who also wanted to dress up in carpet-themed camo gear. Seeing this, carpet designers Couristan Inc. sent cosplay suppliers Volpin Props a Cease & Desist letter."


• The proposed efforts in the U.K. to restrict online access to porn received worldwide attention, but less of it was paid to protests raised by users. At least one of them expressed fandom concerns about the legislation. "Another activist, Jess Palmer, was cheered by members after saying a pornography filter would have prevented her from discovering fan fiction with some adult themes and finding out about asexuality. Julian Huppert, MP for Cambridge, successfully asked for the motion to be 'referred back' to the party's policy committee for a rethink. He said there are some problems with children accessing internet pornography but this is not the solution."


• Author Misha Burnett talked about aspects of fanfiction and their legal implications. "Genres are largely influenced by a particular work. One could make the case that Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer was Phillip Marlowe fan fiction. As Charles points out, J R R Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings series has inspired the entire genre of Epic Fantasy." He also cites the many fiction and non-fiction works he has drawn on for his stories. "I don’t think that any author can be entirely free of the influence of other authors–what we read becomes a part of the experience that we draw upon to create our own work. The extent to which we are influenced by any one particular work is a matter of personal taste, however."

What legal discussions have you seen pertaining to fandom? Write about them in Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW. Mirrored from an original post on the OTW blog. Find related news by viewing our tag cloud.

Comments

[rivkat]

You might want to note that the cosplay article trivializes the fair use questions and is not fan-friendly; it suggests that a political use of a stormtrooper costume would be infringing and that Lucasfilm would be likely to assert infringement over such a use--two highly contestable and, I think, wrong claims. Although it's by an attorney, in simplifying for his audience he ended up misstating the holding of the Wizard of Oz case; the painter was not unauthorized, although the court ultimately found that she didn't have a copyright of her own on the plate. See Gracen v. Bradford Exchange, which incidentally has been largely gutted by a subsequent case from the same circuit, Schrock v. Learning Curve. As far as I can tell, he also is not presenting the actual issues in the current cosplay/TV lawsuit, which relate to allegedly unauthorized use of fans' photos of cosplayers by the TV show, rather than of the costumes themselves--to which there apparently no objections.

Anyway, this is not someplace I'd point anyone looking for a fan's perspective.

[otw_staff]

Thanks for adding this. The Fannews posts aren't solely about information from a fan's perspective but about topics fans may find relevant and which provide a range of coverage. While there were a few news reports about the suit at the time, this was one that provided a focus on legal issues by someone qualified to do so. As we note in our Fannews footers, linking to an article doesn't mean we endorse the viewpoints, however.