star wars – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Stories filed under: "star wars"

KOTOR 2 Released On Nintendo Switch In A State That Makes It Un-Finishable

from the neverending-story dept

Video games have always had bugs at the time of their release, though there has been a trend coinciding with the uptick in digital game sales in which games seem to be published in broken states far too often and are then “fixed” with a day-one patch or something of the like. Some of these bugs are on the more minor side, while some involve game releases that were very clearly pushed for way too early.

And then there is the Nintendo Switch port of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, which came out a few weeks back and, well…

Er, whoops. Aspyr, the developer/porter behind the recent release of Knights Of The Old Republic II on Nintendo Switch, has tweeted that it’s aware the game is currently impossible to finish. After some pressing from a customer, the studio acknowledged it’s aware the game is presently bugged such that it cannot be completed on Nintendo’s handheld.

Yeah I was one of the users who reported it before it was a known issue.

Just to be clear you're aware that there is no way to complete this game currently?

— Daniel Moore (@dizlexic) June 20, 2022

Aspyr’s Twitter account replied with a, “Yup, we know, we’ll get you a patch, thanks for all your patience.” Now, a couple of things on this. First, releasing a game that simply can’t be finished on a platform probably deserves a stronger mea culpa than Aspyr offered up. Buying a game and being unable to complete it is probably worse than paying money for no product at all. The point of video games, in large part, is to play and complete them. Imagine a release of Mike Tyson’s Punchout that just shut down every time you managed to get to the fight against Mike Tyson. That’s a bit like lying on the couch while someone sits at a piano and plays every single note on a major scale except the last one. It would absolutely drive you insane.

And I’ll admit to being a bit surprised that this would happen on a Nintendo console. Nintendo isn’t the developer here. It isn’t the one that worked on the game. Still, I have long criticized Nintendo’s practice of absurdly strict control over its consoles, IP, and platforms. One of the common responses to that criticism is that such strict control gives Nintendo the ability to do great quality control on anything that touches its systems. Whatever the process was for QC testing in this case, it appears to have completely failed.

It raises some rather significant questions about the QA on the game, that it could be certified and released in a form impossible to finish. There’s also the question of for how long Aspyr has been aware its product has a game-breaking bug that affects all players, but haven’t communicated this to potential and current customers. We’ve contacted Aspyr to ask these questions.

You have to think the refund requests are arriving in droves at the moment. And this is one of things that you probably can only do once, at most. Imagine Aspyr or Nintendo announcing that the bug has been patched and then asking the public to buy the game once more.

Filed Under: bugs, knights of the old republic, ports, star wars, video games
Companies: aspyr, nintendo

Disney (Disney!) Accused Of Trying To Lawyer Its Way Out Of Paying Royalties To Alan Dean Foster

from the the-maximalism-only-works-in-one-direction dept

Disney, of course, has quite the reputation as a copyright maximalist. It has been accused of being the leading company in always pushing for more draconian copyright laws. And then, of course, there’s the infamous Mickey Mouse curve, first designated a decade ago by Tom Bell, highlighting how copyright term extensions seemed to always happen just as Mickey Mouse was set to go into the public domain (though, hopefully that’s about to end):

Whether accurate or not, Disney is synonymous with maximizing copyright law, which the company and its lobbyists always justify with bullshit claims of how they do it “for the artist.”

Except that it appears that Disney is not paying artists. While the details are a bit fuzzy, yesterday the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and famed author Alan Dean Foster announced that Disney was no longer paying him royalties for the various Star Wars books he wrote (including the novelization of the very first film back in 1976), along with his novelizations of the Aliens movies. He claims he’d always received royalties before, but they suddenly disappeared.

Foster wrote a letter (amusingly addressed to “Mickey”) in which he lays out his side of the argument, more or less saying that as Disney has gobbled up various other companies and rights, it just stopped paying royalties:

When you purchased Lucasfilm you acquired the rights to some books I wrote. STAR WARS, the novelization of the very first film. SPLINTER OF THE MIND?S EYE, the first sequel novel. You owe me royalties on these books. You stopped paying them.

When you purchased 20th Century Fox, you eventually acquired the rights to other books I had written. The novelizations of ALIEN, ALIENS, and ALIEN 3. You?ve never paid royalties on any of these, or even issued royalty statements for them.

All these books are all still very much in print. They still earn money. For you. When one company buys another, they acquire its liabilities as well as its assets. You?re certainly reaping the benefits of the assets. I?d very much like my miniscule (though it?s not small to me) share.

You want me to sign an NDA (Non-disclosure agreement) before even talking. I?ve signed a lot of NDAs in my 50-year career. Never once did anyone ever ask me to sign one prior to negotiations. For the obvious reason that once you sign, you can no longer talk about the matter at hand. Every one of my representatives in this matter, with many, many decades of experience in such business, echo my bewilderment.

You continue to ignore requests from my agents. You continue to ignore queries from SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. You continue to ignore my legal representatives. I know this is what gargantuan corporations often do. Ignore requests and inquiries hoping the petitioner will simply go away. Or possibly die. But I?m still here, and I am still entitled to what you owe me. Including not to be ignored, just because I?m only one lone writer. How many other writers and artists out there are you similarly ignoring?

In a video press conference, Foster and SFWA (while admitting that no one on the call were lawyers) said that Disney is claiming that it purchased “the rights but not the obligations” to these works. That’s… weird. And I wish there was a lawyer on the call. Because that doesn’t make much sense.

As SFWA notes, if it is possible to purchase rights without the obligations, then any company could just do a sham sale of the rights without the obligations and get out of paying any royalties ever.

Of course, the details here matter, and we only have one side (and not their lawyers). There may be something very weird in these contracts (and this is, basically, a contract dispute, not a copyright one). But just at a fundamental facts of the situation look disgusting on Disney’s part. If you owe royalties, you pay the royalties. Considering how aggressive Disney is with its own copyrights, you’d think its lawyers would understand that.

Filed Under: alan dean foster, aliens, contracts, copyright, mickey mouse, obligations, rights, royalties, star wars
Companies: disney, sfwa

Disney Says If You Tweet #MayThe4th At It, You're Agreeing To A Disney Terms Of Use (You're Not)

from the seriously-guys? dept

A million and a half people are all sending this monstrosity to me. From patient zero of overly aggressive content ownership, the Twitter account of Disney+, the new streaming service from Disney, announced that everyone should share their favorite Star Wars memories using the #MayThe4th hashtag. As you probably know, “May the 4th” has become the semi-official Star Wars day, thanks to fans of the movies spreading the “May the force be with you”/”May the 4th be with you” puns on social media a little over a decade ago, leading to it being declared (unofficially) as “Star Wars Day” in 2011. Disney finally agreed to embrace it in 2013.

Anyway, after asking people to share their favorite Star Wars memory, Disney+ just had to Disney it all up by declaring that if you use that hashtag, you are agreeing to Disney’s very broad terms of use, which include a bunch of fun nonsense like “binding arbitration” and a “class action waiver.” All based on the use of a hashtag. After everyone started mocking them for this bullshit rights claim, five hours later they added a new “clause” by tweet, saying that “the above legal language only applies to replies” to Disney+. Of course, that still doesn’t make it legit.

In case you can’t read it, here is the three tweet sequence typed out:

7am PT: Celebrate the Saga! Reply with your favorite #StarWars memory and you may see it somewhere special on #MayThe4th.

7am PT: By sharing your message with us using #MayThe4th, you agree to our use of the message and your account name in all media and our terms of use here: http://disneytermsofuse.com

12:07pm PT: The above legal language applies ONLY to replies to this tweet using #MayThe4th and mentioning @DisneyPlus. These replies may appear in something special on May the 4th!

All of that remains ridiculous, even with the “clarification” that it only applies to replies. I get what Disney’s lawyers are trying to do. They want to put together “something special” for May the 4th and Disney lawyers are doing what Disney lawyers do, worrying about copyright. So they must have wanted some way to make it clear that they can use these tweets, and tweeting out a ridiculous “if you use this hashtag, we’ve made a contract” seemed like the easiest way to handle things — even as it’s totally ridiculous and unlikely to stand up in court. The later “clarification” doesn’t make things much better, other than to at least note that they’re limiting their bogus, over-aggressive rights claiming to a limited set of tweets.

But, man, if only Disney (whose biggest hits rely heavily on the public domain) hadn’t spent decades fighting against fair use and the public domain, its lawyers wouldn’t have to try to make bullshit claims like this. Wouldn’t that have been special?

Of course, if Disney can make a blanket claim like this, there’s nothing to stop others from making claims as well, like EFF lawyer Kurt Opsahl, who figured “why not?”

Either way, it’s just so Disney to take a concept that was fan-created, which was only later embraced, and then put its own special stamp of legalese and copyright over-claiming on it.

Filed Under: #maythe4th, contracts, hashtags, how does it work?, star wars, tweeting
Companies: disney

Lucasfilm Steps In After FanFilm That Tried To Follow The Rules Was Claimed By Disney Over Star Wars Music

from the the-light-side dept

When it comes to Star Wars, both Lucasfilm and Disney have shown themselves to be perfectly insane when it comes to IP protectionism. Examples of this are legion, and neither company has come out of them with a stellar or fan-friendly image, generally speaking. That is probably why when Toos, the guy behind the quite popular Star Wars Theory YouTube channel, decided to put out a Darth Vader fan-film, he went out of his way to attempt to follow all the rules.

When he first began to make the Vader film, he contacted Lucasfilm who gave him their blessing to make it, as long as he made it without crowd funding and left the video un-monetized, meaning that no ads would run on it, hence there would be no revenue to collect from it.

These rules themselves don’t make it easy for fan-films like this to exist. The production costs for Toos’ film ran in the six-figures. Without the ability to run ads on the film himself, or crowd-fund the production costs, Lucasfilm’s rules almost feel like a test of Toos’ personal fandom. If so, it was a test he passed with flying colors, having completed the film and releasing it in January. It has been viewed over seven million times at this point.

Which probably makes it really annoying that Disney claimed the video on YouTube due to the inclusion of a short cover of the Imperial March being in the film and then subsequently decided to layer its own advertising all over the video.

Earlier this week, Theory posted a video saying that Disney and their partner company Warner Chappell had claimed that because the custom score used in the film used a rendition of the Imperial March score, then it was in violation of their copyright policy. They used this copyright to claim that the entire film was now their intellectual property and were now going to run ads on it and collect the revenue themselves.

Now, Toos could have appealed the claim, of course, which would have kicked off a claim/counter-claim routine that perhaps would have ended in a federal court filing. Given the money Toos already sunk into all of this, he produced a video instead saying he was just going to lay low on the whole ordeal.

Which is when, somewhat unexpectedly, Lucasfilm decided to get involved.

Yesterday, on January 16, Star Wars Theory posted another update video on his channel regarding Disney’s copyright claim, but this time it was good news. According to him, after a backlash from Star Wars fans, Lucasfilm stepped in and told Disney that Theory made the film under a certain set of rules and that they needed to release the copyright claim that they placed on the Vader fan film.

Which, yes, brings all of this back to where it was before Disney decided to claim the entire work of a fan-film over one of the most recognizable and widely available songs in any musical score on the planet. And this was, by the way, after Disney initially refused to back down at the request of Toos.

So…welcome to the light side of the force, Lucasfilm?

Filed Under: contentid, copyright, copyright claim, fan films, fans, imperial march, star wars
Companies: disney, lucasfilm

from the phantom-menace dept

Warner/Chappell’s DMCA takedown arm is so damn proactive it can kill YouTube videos containing as little as 0% of its IP. A clip of Star Wars posted to YouTube sans overbearing John Williams soundtrack was targeted by Warner/Chappell, the owner of the rights to John Williams’ Star Wars compositions.

>

Here’s Jeremy Hsu of Wired with more details.

Fans of the YouTube channel Auralnauts, which posted the doctored Star Wars scene in 2014 as a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the emotional power of Williams’ score, loved it for that weirdness. But another set of viewers—those with the rights to the movie’s soundtrack—tuned in to these sounds of silence and heard something else: the ka-ching of a cash register.

That’s what the Auralnauts discovered earlier this summer when they received word that Warner/Chappell—the global music publishing arm of Warner Music Group—had filed a monetization claim on their “Star Wars Minus Williams” video through YouTube’s Content ID System. That’s right: The copyright holder was claiming ownership of something that wasn’t there.

There are several theories to what went wrong here, although Warner engaging in kneejerk copyright claims with zero pre-claim vetting doesn’t appear to be the frontrunner. First, a clip of music sounding a lot like a John Williams piece opens the video. But the piece is written and composed by Gustav Holt — and is “copyright-free” according to Wired. The studio behind Star Wars had no objection to the clip, so it’s not related to the visual content. That leaves Warner, possibly motivated by a faulty trigger in its Content ID auto-scanning. There’s also a four-second loop of Williams’ score appended to the end of the video, which may have pulled the Content ID trigger as well. But even if so, there are still problems with Warner and YouTube’s Content ID system because the wrong piece of music was named in Warner’s copyright claim.

[T]he Warner/Chappell claim incorrectly identified the “Star Wars Main Title” track as being present in the Auralnauts video. The single brief Williams excerpt used by the Auralnauts actually comes from a track titled “The Throne Room and End Title.”

Whatever the case is, the claim was obviously bogus. But it shows how fragile an ecosystem YouTube can be for those using it as a revenue stream. Even when wrong about pretty much everything, Warner was still able to siphon this video’s profits from the Auralnauts. The Auralnauts challenged Warner — which the article points out is something that happens in less than 1% of content claims — but it didn’t matter. In fact, it’s unlikely anyone at Warner even bothered to read the challenge before issuing a rejection.

That leaves the Auralnauts in the difficult position of risking their entire channel to continue disputing Warner’s obviously erroneous copyright claim.

[I]f a copyright claimant such as Warner/Chappell does not back down from its claim, the video is likely to get taken down from YouTube entirely—and in that event, the Auralnauts would also be penalized by the platform as a copyright scofflaw and barred from some privileges, such as linking to their own store. Three such takedowns and YouTube will delete your channel.

Despite the constant complaints about YouTube being some sort of infringement wonderland, the odds are stacked almost completely in favor of legacy industry copyright holders. Nothing happens to Warner if it continues to file bogus claims. But those targeted by claims are expected to just let the bogus claims happen because challenging claims is a great way to damage your own YouTube account.

Filed Under: audio, auralnauts, content id, copyright, john williams, monetization, star wars, youtube
Companies: warner/chappell, youtube

Lucasfilm Threatens And Threatens Non-Profit Over Lightsaber Battle Event

from the the-dark-side dept

While we’ve certainly seen a fair share of ridiculous intellectual property protectionism stemming from the Star Wars Franchise, including overreaches like trying to silence people from photographing legally purchased toys and keeping breweries from making beer-themed puns, one area where Lucasfilm was generally pretty good on was fan participation, at least before the acquisition of the Star Wars rights by Disney. This included fan-fiction and films, gatherings, and role-playing events. That’s what makes it so strange to see Lucasfilm decide to bully a non-profit group for daring to put together a “lightsaber battle” event.

Event company Newmindspace had organized the record-setting battles in December involving 9,951 combatants, with 2,000 in San Francisco. In January, it heard from lawyers for Lucasfilm, the San Francisco movie company that brought Star Wars to the world, and holds the rights to the characters, names and concepts within the Star Wars films.

“For three months we have been aggressively pursued by Lucasfilm over the use of the word ‘lightsaber’ in our events,” said Newmindspace co-founder Kevin Bracken. Newmindspace had been putting on “lightsaber battles” for eight years with no pushback, but in January, perhaps because the multi-city battles had drawn media coverage, a letter arrived from the Lucasfilm lawyers. “We immediately stopped using the words ‘lightsaber,’ ‘Jedi,’ ‘Sith’ and ‘The Force,’” Bracken said.

Newmindspace, which also puts on other gathering events, such as massive pillow fights and bubble-gun battles, changed the name of its “lightsaber battle” event, calling it the “Light Battle Tour”, and referring to lightsabers and “light swords.” As you’ve probably already anticipated, Lucasfilm immediately declared that the changes weren’t enough. The lawyers sent more notices demanding more changes. Which is how what was supposed to be a fun gathering of Star Wars fans engaging in a fake lightsaber battle turned into a space battle between cats.

Since the agreement with Lucasfilm, Newmindspace has pivoted, and although it has more battles planned – including one on April 30 in San Jose’s St. James Park at 8 p.m. – it has put entire galaxies between itself and any Star Wars-related language. Lightsabers have been replaced with “Catblades,” which it must be said bear a certain resemblance to the famed movie weapon of Luke and Obi-Wan. And the sword-fight events are now dubbed “Cats in Space” because, said Bracken, “with the simple addition of whiskers to anyone’s face, they can be completely transformed into a galactic warrior – all it takes is a few brushstrokes and you’re ready to help us defeat evil mice across the galaxy.”

And the galaxy was saved, apparently, from a non-profit having a lightsaber battle, which obviously would have ended all the things for the Star Wars franchise. I don’t even understand what the dispute here is. It can’t be copyright, because the lightsabers to be used were Star Wars toys that were legally bought. I’m struggling to see how it could be trademark, as this use wasn’t commercial and the likelihood of any confusion that the free battle was something put on by Lucasfilm is likely null. Yet, because one side is big and the other is small, now we have a battle of space-cats. Great job, everyone.

Filed Under: copyright, fans, intellectual property, kevin bracken, lightsaber, lightsaber fights, star wars, trademark
Companies: disney, lucasfilm, newmindspac

Even The Power Of The Dark Side Can't Save Disney & ESPN From Cord Cutting

from the denial-leads-to-anger... dept

Wed, Dec 30th 2015 09:35am - Karl Bode

It hasn’t been a particularly good year for ESPN, once considered evidence of cable’s infallibility in the face of Internet video. The sports network spooked Wall Street several times this year; once when analysts realized ESPN’s viewership totals had dropped 7.2% since 2011, and again when SEC filings showed the cable network had lost 7 million subscribers in the last two years alone. That’s of course thanks to two major trends: cord cutting (and cord trimming) users tired of the high cost of TV, and the rise in so-called “skinny bundles” that ditch ESPN from the core channel lineup in a desperate attempt to retain TV customers.

And while Disney may be seeing a huge windfall thanks to Kylo Ren and our other friends in the Star Wars universe, analysts worry that cord cutting is the iceberg that Disney and ESPN simply won’t be able to avoid:

“Even the Force cannot protect ESPN,” BTIG Research analyst Rich Greenfield recently wrote in a note downgrading the stock to “sell.” The sports channel long “viewed as the crown jewel of the Disney empire … now appears poised to become Disney?s most troubled business as consumer behavior shifts rapidly.”

45% of Disney’s 2014 operating profit came from cable TV, which is caught in a desperate struggle between unsustainable programming increases and a consumer base finally fed up with bi-annual rate hikes. Case in point is basketball: in 2014 Disney signed a deal with the NBA in which it shells out $1.4 billion every year for nine years, even though ESPN’s basketball viewership last season dropped 10 percent, its lowest since 2008. For years ESPN enjoyed bloated subscription rolls due to ESPN being force-included in the core cable package, and something both cord cutting and skinny bundles are threatening.

Though ESPN, like most incumbent broadcasters, has focused largely on denial instead of adaptation. Professing to be protecting “innovation,” ESPN sued pay TV providers like Verizon for skinny bundles, while refusing to offer a standalone streaming service of its own for the modern era. And like most broadcast industry executives, Disney CEO Bob Iger seems to think this is just a stormy patch that ESPN can somehow ride out by charging angry customers more money:

“Iger, the Disney chief, has sought to calm investors worried about ESPN’s fortunes, saying rising cable-subscription fees and increased advertiser spending would help the sports giant stay on top. Speaking on Bloomberg TV last week, Iger said, “We have lost some subscribers, but we believe we will continue to derive growth from ESPN. It will just not be at the rate it was before.”

But this isn’t a temporary slowdown. And, contrary to what many broadcasters believe, cord cutting isn’t a fashion trend that evaporates once Millennials procreate. Cord cutting and Internet video are fundamentally changing the entire television and TV advertising landscape, something patience and a prayer isn’t going to fix. At several points this year Wall Street suffered multi-billion dollar declines simply because they finally realized cord cutting was real. 2016 will be the year they finally realize the cord cutting battle station is not only fully armed and operational, but headed directly for the ESPN mothership.

Filed Under: cord cutting, star wars
Companies: disney, espn

Disney Grapples With Light-Side/Dark-Side, Retracts Toy DMCA, Resubmits It, Is Probably Our Father, Aaaah!

from the toy-story dept

It’s a struggle that Disney ought to know quite well, having taken over the Star Wars franchise. The struggle between good and evil; the light side of the force… and the dark side. And it looks like we’re all getting a front row seat to the internal strife of Disney via the ongoing silliness surrounding the image of a Star Wars toy accidentally released to the public by a retailer.

If you recall, our original post detailed how Disney was apparently abusing the DMCA process to take down the photographs of Justin Kozisek, contributor to Star Wars Action News. The photographs were of a toy that was in and of itself something of a spoiler due to the outfit the character is wearing. Pretty much everyone speculated that Disney was using the DMCA process to avoid the spoiler reaching audiences before the release of the latest film, which is, of course, not what the DMCA process is for. Also, most people were happy to agree that claiming copyright on images of a legally purchased retail item was Jar Jar Binks level absurdity. Well, Marjorie Carvalho, who runs Star Wars Action News, tried to reach out to Disney to see what was going on.

She wrote a polite e-mail to the Disney company e-mail address listed in her DMCA notice, explaining exactly what happened. While Carvalho didn’t get a direct reply, her message seemed to have worked. Last night her account got a late e-mail from Facebook stating that “The Walt Disney Company has retracted their intellectual property report.”

“All we did was write a letter, and a few hours later, it was retracted,” she said in an interview with Ars this morning, pleased with the result. “It pays to take the high road and get your facts in order, rather than overreacting. I feel good about it, and it’s nice that they’re recognizing they made a mistake.”

The light side jedi is humble and knows the best course of action when he or she is at peace. Carvalho’s email must have had a tranquilizing effect on Disney, allowing it to turn away from the darkness. Much as Vader rendered himself useful for thirty seconds by tossing Emperor White Raisin or whatever his name was down a galactic laundry chute that for some reason had been installed in an Emperor’s throne room, Disney realized its error and became good again.

For about an hour or so. The dark side is tempting, after all. According to the Ars Technica article linked above:

Not 10 minutes after getting off the phone today, Carvalho informed Ars that the image was taken down again. Disney sent an identical DMCA notice.

“For reasons we can’t understand—Disney has now RESUBMITTED the claim, again removing the pictures (that they restored this morning),” she told her followers on Facebook.

This time, Facebook removed the entire post, not just the photo. It also administered a punishment to Kozisek, banning him from posting on the site for three days.

Yes, with the kind of speed that would impress a tie fighter pilot, Disney went from pulling the DMCA takedown to re-submitting it. Meanwhile, as Disney goes through this phase of self-discovery, images of the toy that it had hoped to censor exist roughly everywhere anyway, including in the reporting that has been done on this whole stupid episode. In other words, the only thing that Disney has managed to accomplish throughout this whole thing is to look bumbling and silly, and to Streisand Effect news about the toy all over the internet.

Filed Under: dmca, photographs, star wars, takedowns, toys
Companies: disney, facebook

Disney Sending Out DMCA Notices Over Pictures Fans Took Of Their Legally Purchased Star Wars Toy

from the the-dark-side dept

We see abuse in the way some companies and people use the DMCA takedown process all the time. Those stories typically range from anywhere between mildly frustrating to truly infuriating. But to really abuse the DMCA process in the most heartless, idiotic, disingenuous and fan-hating manner, we of course must bow before the masters over at Disney.

All of this started not that long ago, in a Walmart not particularly far away, when someone with a Facebook Star Wars fan group walked into a store and legally purchased a Star Wars figurine and then uploaded a photo of it to the Facebook group. Turns out the figurine contains a sort of spoiler within it or something. As such, plenty of other websites, such as Star Wars Unity, linked to it, embedded the photo of the figure, and discussed its implications. You know, like Star Wars fans do on all kinds of sites all the time. Well, that’s when the DMCA notices began rolling in and the images started coming down.

This morning I woke up to numerous DMCA takedown notices on the @starwarsunity Twitter account, the Facebook account, the Google+ Page, and my personal Twitter for posting the image of an action figure that was legally purchased at Walmart. My webhost also received a takedown email from them with a threat of a lawsuit of the image wasn’t removed. I of course removed the image because I can’t afford to be sued by a toy company who likes to bully Star Wars fans.

The exact wording of the “infringement” is:

“Description of infringement: A screen shot of an unreleased figurine for Star Wars: Force Awakens”

Except, of course, the figurine wasn’t “unreleased,” it was very much released at a Walmart where it was legally purchased. If the Walmart made a mistake in putting it out on the shelves too early, that doesn’t suddenly make it copyright infringement for someone who bought it in good faith to take a picture of it. And, taking a step back, even if the figurine had not been released by the Walmart, how is taking a picture of it copyright infringement? It isn’t, by any sane reading of copyright law. Because it was a picture of a Star Wars toy made by Hasbro, most people logically assumed the takedowns were coming from the toy company.

This wasn’t a figure that was stolen off the back of a truck or stolen out from behind closed doors at Hasbro. It was legally purchased in a store by a fan and they posted a picture of their purchase on the internet. But because Hasbro is terrified of pissing off Disney and losing the Star Wars license early, they’re threatening and bullying fans online with legal action for sharing pictures of their purchases. Due to this I urge all Star Wars fans to avoid Hasbro product and not purchase any of their Star Wars releases. Until Hasbro grows a brain and stops bullying fans online, they do not deserve any of our money.

Except it doesn’t appear that this was Hasbro at all. Turns out the DMCA notices are coming from Irdeto, an anti-piracy outfit we’ve discussed before, and are being sent on behalf of Lucasfilm, which is, of course, Disney. And those DMCA notices are going out not only to the original uploader of the picture, but even to those using the picture in a discussion or news capacity, and even those retweeting the picture.

So, let’s recap. Hasbro made a toy that was released by a Walmart and bought legally by a fan, who uploaded a photo of the toy. Disney/Lucasfilm, which does not have a copyright on that photo, is having a third party, Irdeto, send out DMCA notices for the uploading of a picture, or a retweeting/reposting of the picture, which is not copyright infringement. And this gross abuse of the DMCA process is being done simply to stifle the speech of Star Wars fans and save them from a spoiler that apparently is coming from the depiction of this toy.

If that isn’t the kind of DMCA abuse that results in some kind of punishment, nothing is.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, fans, figurine, star wars, takedown
Companies: disney, hasbro, irdeto, lucasfilm, walmart

DailyDirt: Scotty, We Need More Power…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There could be a new Star Trek TV show ready in a couple years or so (trying to keep up with the Star Wars franchise, no doubt). But real space travel is also making some progress — with a growing number of private companies trying out new approaches to making more cost effective launch systems. Check out a few of these propulsion concepts that could be powered by “di-lithium” crystals someday.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: hall thrusters, ion thrusters, lasers, nuclear propulsion, propulsion, space, space exploration, specific impulse, star trek, star wars
Companies: boeing, escape dynamics