Online Comic Book Store Stands Up To Olivia Munn Lawyers Over Parody Comic Book

from the parody-as-free-speech dept

Fri, Feb 5th 2010 4:48pm — Mike Masnick

Boing Boing points us to the news that Heavy Ink, an online comic book shop, is pushing back against the lawyers for geeky TV personality Olivia Munn, after those lawyers demanded Heavy Ink destroy all copies of an Olivia Munn parody comic book called the Celebrity Showdown Olivia Munn One Shot #1. Of course, since Heavy Ink is just the retailer, it's not responsible for the content itself anyway, so the original letter was somewhat mistargeted, but even so, Heavy Ink makes the argument that the comic book itself is protected parody:

Nigel,

Re: your letter of 4 February 2010 regarding

http://heavyink.com/comic/13136-Celebrity-Showdown-Olivia-Munn-One-Shot-1

I write to clear up some misconceptions.

First, the item offered for sale is not "our" comic book - it is created by a third party and offered for sale through our website.

I have never heard of Olivia Munn until you brought her to my attention, but a quick web search turns up a Wikipedia article describing her thusly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Munn
Olivia Munn (born Lisa Olivia Munn) is an American actress, model and television personality.
and her self promoting web page at

http://www.oliviamunn.com/

where she displays near topless pictures and links to a cover shot at Maxim magazine.

Given these two websites, it is clear that she is a public figure. As a public figure, the use of her likeness meets the tests for the parody copyright exception set forth in both Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. and the more recent Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin.

As such, we have no intention of taking down our webpage, destroying any inventory, or refusing to offer the comic for sale.

If you have any further comments you may reach me at this email address,

Travis Corcoran, President
Heavy Ink

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

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Filed Under: comics, olivia munn, stores, trademark
Companies: heavy ink

23 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2010 @ 4:58pm

Olivia Munn is not a geek, she just plays one on TV.
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bob, 5 Feb 2010 @ 5:51pm

Where Is The Artist
Because if he is in CA he just might be in violation of the likeness law that celebs got passed a while back.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 5 Feb 2010 @ 5:56pm

Hmmm
An interesting position for her to take, given that her own site appears to utilize fair use rather liberally in the media and links/summaries she's posting....

*Inebriated comment #1
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Robert Ring (profile), 5 Feb 2010 @ 6:22pm

Re:
Not that it really matters, but that's we he called her a TV "personality."
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Robert Ring (profile), 5 Feb 2010 @ 6:26pm

This is really odd. Munn is sort of an up-and-coming geek chick celebrity (maybe just over the hump of up-and-coming). I would think she would want any sort of pop culture notoriety. It seems fairly obvious that no one's opinion of her would be diminished by a simple parody.

My guess is this is one of those situations where someone sees something, thinks, "They're talking bad about me!" and calls out the lawyers without thinking it through. And obviously the lawyers aren't going to do whatever to satisfy the client.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2010 @ 7:34pm

there's a big difference when you profit from parady
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Andrew (profile), 5 Feb 2010 @ 7:37pm

Also via BB, Geoff Gerber points out that Mann is complaining about infringement of her publicity rights, not her copyrights as Heavy Ink assert.

"There is no absolute defense to a right of publicity claim based upon parody," and "It should also be noted that it is not clear that Celebrity Showdown would be considered a parody."

He also wonders why she's complaining about this particular comic and not the decidedly racier issue from Sinful Comics also featuring her. :)
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Hephaestus (profile), 5 Feb 2010 @ 9:55pm

To be a real prick
Anyone got a link to the pictures ...

"where she displays near topless pictures and links to a cover shot at Maxim magazine."

Maxim links please

Also links to order "Celebrity Showdown Olivia Munn One Shot #1"

I love the Streisand effect.
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btr1701 (profile), 5 Feb 2010 @ 11:12pm

Re: Parody
> there's a big difference when you profit from parady

Baloney. "Saturday Night Live" has been doing it for decades. So has MAD Magazine and Hustler Magazine.
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Mr Big Content, 6 Feb 2010 @ 2:34am

Dirty Rotten Swines
This is what happens when you take laws designed to protect the good guys, and let the bad guys take shelter under them as well. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it—lock up the lot of ’em.
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Blatant Coward (profile), 6 Feb 2010 @ 3:50am

Kids these days.
I just posted a very nice comment thanking Olivia for her photoshoot, and thanking her for letting us know about Celebrity Showdown Olivia Munn One Shot #1. I think it fit in nicely with all the comments about people needing new keyboards and doing things to themselves.

I now need to go bleach my PC.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Feb 2010 @ 5:30am

Re: Re: Parody
But wait, parady is not protected free speech. Its some kind of Indian cuisine!
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John Duncan Yoyo (profile), 6 Feb 2010 @ 6:48am

Re: Re: Parody
MAD won a case on parody song lyrics. I did like the parody of legal letter sent by the comic shop. I'm gonna try to order one now just to annoy Olivia Munn.
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AnonCow, 6 Feb 2010 @ 1:31pm

Olivia is a stupid Munt...
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Feb 2010 @ 6:09pm

Re:
Even if you had managed to spell parody correctly, you would still be 100% incorrect.
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 6 Feb 2010 @ 6:42pm

Re: Where Is The Artist
"Because if he is in CA he just might be in violation of the likeness law that celebs got passed a while back."

Which is a great reason to avoid California for you're next enterprise.

Good going, guys!
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mikespace, 7 Feb 2010 @ 12:05pm

her pictures are average at best... chopping off her face would help a bit
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2010 @ 9:18pm

Re: To be a real prick
RTFA
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Nicholas Overstreet (profile), 8 Feb 2010 @ 6:08am

Re:
You'd be surprised how many lonely geeks out there fool themselves in to believing otherwise.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2010 @ 8:23am

well she can dish it out alright
Shes lame for getting upset about this. Especially since she makes a very nice living showing internet "idiot" video (utilizing the content of others) and paroding others . . . truly disgusting reaction on Munns part.
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Steve Feinstein, 8 Feb 2010 @ 10:58am

Re: Dirty Rotten Swines
Who then gets to decide who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?

That my friend, is why Justice is Blind.
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another mike (profile), 8 Feb 2010 @ 12:20pm

cunning stunts from stunning...
Ms Munn has been a geek favorite for a while now. It's not like we haven't already seen everything she has to offer. That Slave Leia outfit at Comic-con, for example.
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Brian, 30 Mar 2010 @ 3:57am

Who again?
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