DIE VIACOM DIE!!!

[TPoptarts]

They're coming after my precious SouthTrek!! Like what the frell!!!! I mean like it's not like it's the only Trek (or South Park) fanfilm out there they don't touch fanfilms like Hidden Frontier, New Voyages, Exeter, OGAM etc (there's like way too many to even list ) and parody is like TOTALLY fair use, and I made it myself and I DIDN'T MAKE ANY MONEY OUT OF IT and I'm not planning to!!! So get your evil greedy paws the hell away from my freedom!!!!!

Anyone knows how to get Trek celebs to endorse SouthTrek or something? Anyone knows people who know people?? Any idea how to put up a Save SouthTrek campaign?? I really don't know a lot of people

[CX]

Fair Use extends to parody, otherwise every show that has ever parodied another would be sued. South Park itself parodied Trek, a lot.

[TPoptarts]

DUH!!!! Then why in all hells are they coming after poor little me??

[CX]

Because they think you'll make an easy target, and to discourage others from doing the same for the same reason they tried to shut down all Trek websites except for the official one, and tried to take down all fan fiction. In other words, because they're assholes.

I put the word out on about 4 boards I frequent, so hopefully someone will come up with something you can use. If nothing else, you can just do like I said and bring up that Fair Use, a legally defensable position, allows you to make a parody of Star Trek as you haven't made any money off of it, and then bring up several examples of parody (like South Park) that did make money.

I'll see if I can did up that agreement Viacom came up with because they couldn't shut down fan fic like they wanted to back in the late '90s.

[TPoptarts]

Thanks

Though as for South Park making money from Trek parody I don't think that'll hold because South Park is Viacom too *sigh*

[CX]

Yeah, but look at Galaxy Quest. Isn't that a Universal movie?

Here it is. There's the name of the lawyer there who went to bat for Trekkies before. Apparently she writes or wrote for Wired magazine, so maybe you could look up their website and try to contact her.

You also might want to consider writing to Boing Boing and/or ARS about your plight. When they wrote about that deal with the SFWA trying to strong-arm people posting sci-fi stories on Scribd (including a writer who had posted his own work on there), it took less than a week for the backlash to reverse that organization's stand on the issue.

[CX]

Filing a counter-notice

[TPoptarts]

Thanks... though I really don't wanna have to need like lawyers and stuff that seriously freaks me out. What has the world come to.

[CX]

I actually already gotten a few replies, but unfortunately all of them are to express surprise at Viacom doing this.

I don't think you'd need lawyers, that YouTube thing is just a way for you to bitch at them and tell them that they're in error about your video being in violation. I also still think you should talk to Wired and see if you can get in contact with that lawyer if Viacom actually tries to sue you. If nothing else they might be able to write about what's going on about how Viacom is bullying some teenaged girl over a 10 minute long cartoon she drew and voiced herself.

[TPoptarts]

Heh I'll try that.

[Elessar]

Yeah that's a buncha bull, I can't believe they're giving you a hard time... seriously, what a bully.

[enterprikayak]

I KNOW! They took it off my new eScrybe channel.

I mean...um....there's absolutely NOTHING more COMPLETELY original than south trek! You drew every f***ing frame and did the frikkin' voices!!!!!!!! It's your creation from start to finish. and you never got any $$$$. no one on youtube does.

Why do they cut off the thumb to punish the hand? Stupid! Stupid! These huge companies have absolutely no forward-looking abilities!

The whole 1900's idea of "copyright" is just taking so long to change with the times. It just doesn't WORK the way it is any more. Take a look around dudes. The internet is composed of "lifted" content. Can't we humans share the info we have? Gnu? copyleft? all that wiki shite?

And I actually speak from experience. Our band dayinthelife has bajilllions of (free) plays on mySpace and we are not so STUPID as to NOT recognise that for the free advertising that it is!!!! Of COURSE it would be NICE if those bajillions of plays had come from our pathetic CD sales....but we don't put much time into marketing our physical CD since we have 900 other things on our plate right now. And so we recognize those free mySpace plays as a whole segment of the world that WOULDN'T have listened if we hadn't offered the mp3's up for free. That is true for us and it's true for Viacom.

South Trek is so cute it is only going to lure more peeps into watching the real South Park and Star Trek. If They cannot see that then they need to get their f***ing brontosaurus heads out of their asses. (And yes...I know....brontosauri aren't even real. that's why I picked them. Viacom/other media giants are f***ing fake dinosaurs that never even really existed, with their serpentine heads striving, Lemmiwinks-like, up their own collective asses!)



/rant (for now)

[CX]

Sounds like they're hoping that the threat of a lawsuit itself will be enough to get her to back down.

The four factors behind determining if something is protected under Fair Use are the following (I'm making assumptions on the nature of your friend's work, so correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points like it being on a website):

1) Purpose and character of the use -
It's not for profit, which is good. It transforms the original work somewhat. It's still for comedic purposes as far as South Park goes, but it's completely different from the purpose behind Trek, so it doesn't represent any kind of "threat" to occupying the role traditionally played by Trek since Trek is not a comedy.

2) Nature of the copyrighted work -
Greater weight is given to works that are created to educate or criticize, neither of which are being satisfied here. The original work (Trek and South Park) have both been "published" which means they are open to parody. The court generally protects unpublished works.

3) Amount and substantiality of the portion used in the newly created work in relation to the copyrighted work -
Aside from the characters, which span two different franchises, I'm guessing that it's all original work otherwise, right? So it's not reproducing a significant portion of their copyrighted work.

4) Effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work -
This represents no credible threat to either Trek or South Park's market share, since it's only hosted on a single website which probably doesn't have a huge number of hits and is not for profit.

If I were her I would do some more research into fair use and prepare a response to Viacom that addresses each of the factors raised above. Be cooperative and ask if there is anything she can do to work out an arrangement with them, but be firm in asserting that her work is strictly protected under fair use by at least three of the four required criteria.

Don't make open threats like "take me to court" or anything like that, but just make it clear that she believes she is on solid ground as far as her parody being fair use, explain why, and make it clear that she is willing to stick up for her right to release the parody, but in a cooperative and calm manner.

Honestly I think they're just hoping that the notice itself would be enough to get her to back down, because there's no profit in taking this to court.

I'd say she's fully protected, as it's parody. If you need to, cite Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin, where the author of a parody of "Gone With the Wind" (called "The Wind Done Gone"). The court ruled that parody constitutes fair use.

[CX]

post a DMCA counter-notice, that'll solve hte problem

DMCA Counter notice - Google Search[/QUOTE]

[enterprikayak]

we can stop them?
...this is music to my 'pirate' ears.....

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