Washington Post Notes Summit Entertainment's Twisted View Of IP Laws On Twilight

from the nice-work dept

Wed, Jul 7th 2010 3:03pm — Mike Masnick

We've been following how ridiculously aggressive Summit Entertainment has been when it comes to IP issues, and the Washington Post has an excellent article highlighting all of the same points we've raised. It almost reads like someone went down the list of our Twilight posts and wrote an article about all those vignettes. I doubt that's how the article came about, but it is pretty cool how neatly the stories in the article line up with what we've written about, concerning Twilight and copyright and trademarks. But the key point made underlines exactly what we've been trying to say for a while now (though does so more succinctly and eloquently):

Its lawsuits go far beyond curbing piracy and end up limiting how we can talk about pop culture.

The law may be on Summit's side in some cases, but the spirit of what the company is doing -- shutting down almost anyone referencing Twilight without its permission -- shows the shortcomings in how we understand and interpret copyright law.

In its lawsuits, Summit essentially argues that it should control almost any expressive activity related to the Twilight franchise because it has copyrighted the material and acquired trademarks associated with the movies. The studio might win its cases, but it fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of intellectual property law. Trademarks exist to prevent customer confusion about the source of a product, not to prevent discussion of the product or the trademark itself.

The piece was written by Christina Mulligan, who recently got plenty of attention for her thoughtful piece on the mixed messages on copyright found in the TV show Glee. It's great that a paper like the Washington Post is giving her a platform to write about these concerns. Hopefully it will finally reach some of our more stubborn and misguided DC-based politicians that intellectual property is being widely abused in troubling ways.

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Filed Under: abuse, copyright, free speech, intellectual property, trademark, twilight
Companies: summit entertainment

16 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2010 @ 3:25pm

Ignore them
I think the best thing for companies that go over the top with copyright and tradmark claims is to give them what they want - nothing. Ignore them, don't see the movie, don't buy the stuff, act as if they do not exist.
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- interval (profile), 7 Jul 2010 @ 4:55pm
  
  Re: Ignore them
  What we need is for one of these studios to launch some massively repugnant & punitive legal campaign against a mother who was taking videos of her little darling's birthday party and who made a "Twilight" themed birthday cake (or something), that gets in the frame, and then post the video on youtube. And the case gets handled by some judge with sense and asks the studio "You automatically own any confection with the word "Twilight" on it? And you want this plaintive to pay you WHAT???!!"
  
  Its nice to dream.
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- abc gum, 7 Jul 2010 @ 5:25pm
  
  Re: Ignore them
  "Ignore them, don't see the movie, don't buy the stuff, act as if they do not exist."
  
  With twilight, that is easy to do.
  
  btw - in conversation, can I still refer to that time of day when the sun has gone down and the sky is not yet dark ?
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  - Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2010 @ 6:20pm
    
    Re: Re: Ignore them
    "btw - in conversation, can I still refer to that time of day when the sun has gone down and the sky is not yet dark ?"
    
    I suppose if you really act like Twilight(C)(TM)(FU) does not exist then using the word twilight in normal conversation would not be an issue. I prefer 'dusk' anyway.
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    - Bill W (profile), 7 Jul 2010 @ 7:51pm
      
      Twilight
      Twilight is a technical term http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight
      
      Civil, Nautical and Astronomical
      
      It is perfectly all right to refer to it in those contexts.
      
      But when it comes to Vampppiiii ... arrrghhh!
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      - Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2010 @ 7:59pm
        
        Re: Twilight
        And technically dusk is the end of twilight http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dusk
        
        Which is why I prefer dusk.
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Bill W (profile), 7 Jul 2010 @ 3:55pm

I don't have high hopes ...
I think the reason that these sorts of articles won't have much affect at all is that the regulators get no appreciation of the actual harm that the copyright maximilists are doing. They get continuous reminders from the industry that the "theft" is bankrupting corn farmers but the opposite harm isn't being realized. Those that understand the issues can point to only societal issues or economic effects that are a bit vague and nebulous. Even refuting the "the music business is dying" claims, something easily done, is less effective than the well-heeled industry saying that they are dying.

I wish I knew what it would take to get the ones in the position to do something about it to understand.
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out_of_the_blue, 7 Jul 2010 @ 5:03pm

Benefit of the doubt isn't due corporations.
"[Summit] fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of intellectual property law".

No, it's *you* who don't understand what it's *become*, despite all the evidence accumulating in just one direction, probably because can't believe that anyone can be so unreasonable and unjust in pursuit of profits that they're willing to rip civil society to shreds -- when they're already living high off that society.

The distinction between Rich and Poor is that The Rich don't accept boundaries as reasonable people do. The Rich really do believe that money equates to societal worth, and that they're therefore "entitled" to rule the rest of us however they please, and we're to be grateful that they provide jobs serving them.

And if there's one thing I've learned from lawsuits, it's that if you go in expecting a fair hearing and a reasonable compromise, and make even *slight* admissions, you'll end up losing in *total* because law and profits respond to *extremes*, not reason.
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- ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 7 Jul 2010 @ 6:19pm
  
  Re: Benefit of the doubt isn't due corporations.
  "No, it's *you* who don't understand what it's *become*..."
  
  No, the purpose and the current direction are two different things.
  
  E.g., If a ship has been hijacked, it doesn't mean it was designed to be a pirate ship.
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  - Sos, 7 Jul 2010 @ 7:43pm
    
    Re: Re: Benefit of the doubt isn't due corporations.
    It doesn't take away from the the reason that the ship was hijacked because its design makes for a very good pirate ship
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    - Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2010 @ 7:47pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Benefit of the doubt isn't due corporations.
      So the Internet and Copyright are rival pirate ships?
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      - Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2010 @ 10:41pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Benefit of the doubt isn't due corporations.
        Yes but, if you hadn't heard, the internet is over.
        
        "The internet's completely over." - Prince
        
        It was a worthy battle while she lasted.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2010 @ 5:15pm

Hope Summit Entertainment have their twilight soon.
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Vampire Bill, 8 Jul 2010 @ 4:52am

On the bright side...
On the bright side... there's only one more movie and then we can be done with it!

R.I.P.
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Gene Cavanaugh (profile), 8 Jul 2010 @ 2:27pm

Copyright article (and your blogs)
Good article, and I agree, except for one thing.
Imagine you are in politics, and want to stay there. You know (assuming you have not caught the public eye as Obama did), that you will need a LOT of money. Even if you have the money (in fact, especially if you have the money) you want to be elected on someone else's money.
In spite of all the faulty journalism about how much money you could get from individuals, the reality is you have to have big business behind you, and for them, it is not emotional. They want a positive bottom line from all this.
So, if they want "copyrights", even at the expense of our society, you give it to them (or leave politics).
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zara, 9 Feb 2011 @ 9:57pm

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