Yogi Bear Alternative Ending Creates A 'Squiffy' Fair Use Question

from the not-your-average-parody dept

Tue, Dec 14th 2010 11:59am — Mike Masnick

A bunch of folks have been sending in this viral video of an "alternate ending" to the new Yogi Bear movie. It's what you might call a... much "darker" ending, based on the The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Don't watch this if you don't like bear-on-bear violence.

What struck me, frankly, is the somewhat amazing quality of the work, which was done by a single guy, Edmund Earle, who had the idea for the parody after seeing the trailer for the Yogi Bear film right after having watched The Assssination of.... The Wall Street Journal scored an interview with Earle, where he admits that he's on "squiffy" legal ground, though he's not using any actual footage from the movie but created the work himself, and believes he's done so entirely as a parody. What will be interesting is how Warner Bros. reacts to this. It seems like it should be protected fair use, of course, but Hollywood isn't always known for being supporters of fair use.

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.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, parody, yogi bear
Companies: warner bros.

28 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Lisae Boucher (profile), 14 Dec 2010 @ 11:55am

I love it!
I always expected Yogi to end like that. :-)
Let's hope Warner has a sense of humor, albeit a little one...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2010 @ 12:05pm

The quality is amazing. Maybe they will take it down but give him a job?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
weneedhelp (profile), 14 Dec 2010 @ 12:06pm

Takedown notice filed in
3...2...1.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Dark Helmet (profile), 14 Dec 2010 @ 12:09pm

The best part...
...is that the Yogi rug is still wearing his hat. It was kind of sad until I laughed at that...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- johnjac (profile), 14 Dec 2010 @ 12:28pm
  
  Re: The best part...
  My thoughts exactly
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Jason, 14 Dec 2010 @ 12:12pm

So we hate singles now?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Jason, 14 Dec 2010 @ 12:12pm

So we hate singles now?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Jason, 14 Dec 2010 @ 12:13pm
  
  Re: So we hate singles now?
  "What struck me, frankly, is the somewhat amazing quality of the work, which was done by a single guy.."
  
  I mean, I didn't even know you were married until you posted about the old chick's cleavage today, which was weird, but yeah...
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Jason, 14 Dec 2010 @ 12:34pm
    
    Re: Re: So we hate singles now?
    Okay, apparently some unknown quick key combo digitally proximate to the one for paste, ctrl-v, causes the automatic posting of a blank comment.
    
    I went for a cheap gag, but clearly the force is with you.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Dark Helmet (profile), 14 Dec 2010 @ 12:15pm

Wait...
Di Yogi have a reward on his head for "pirating" too many pick-a-nick baskets? Does the fact that this video is still up and viewable suggest that this is part of a thinly veiled threat to filesharers?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2010 @ 12:19pm

Mike, you're a week behind on your links. So in the interest of staying on top of things, I offer everyone the 2010 in review. I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0QXB5pw2qE
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 17 Dec 2010 @ 9:22am
  
  Re:
  Shirley! Shirley! Shirley! Shirley!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
ShellMG, 14 Dec 2010 @ 12:38pm

A real Boo Boo
I was laughing so hard I hurt myself. Now I need to see if he's done anything similar with Scooby Doo!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Poster, 14 Dec 2010 @ 12:41pm

Save it while you can.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
mjb5406 (profile), 14 Dec 2010 @ 12:49pm

Doesn't Everyone Know...
DMCA stands for Don't Mess with Comic(book) Actors.

Studios are not known for their sense of humor, so I'm betting that this will get the old take-down notice, regardless of whether it's fair use or not. As far as the studios are concerned, it's better to act first, then forget about apologizing later.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
ARE YOU ALL BLIND?, 14 Dec 2010 @ 1:49pm

ARE YOU ALL BLIND?
Okay.. this is obviously a warner bros. release. To think that they aren't behind this is ridiculous. Does anyone have any clue as to how long that would have taken to design and render? There is a bigger plot here that is deeper than most have time to think about and it has to do with more than fair use. Does anyone really think that a few people had some extra time to make this with for a bit of humor?

It is hilarious, but to believe that this wasn't planned exposure to amp up the promotions for the movie is silly. Peace
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- WC, 14 Dec 2010 @ 3:15pm
  
  Re: ARE YOU ALL BLIND?
  Haaa, well, insider note I watched him make the whole thing from scratch, but shh! don't tell anyone.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Eugene (profile), 14 Dec 2010 @ 4:08pm
  
  Re: ARE YOU ALL BLIND?
  While it's incredibly impressive and animated beautifully, the fur is cheap. Probably done with out-of-the-box stuff, and doesn't really reflect what "Rhythm and Hues" was able to do (Yogi in the official trailer has soft, nicely washed fur; this one has coarse, oily fur).
  
  Not that they couldn't have intentionally used cheap fur, but that seems like a strange choice for obfuscation.
  
  Plus it diminishes Edmund Earle's accomplishment here to suggest he's faking responsibility for the interests of some studio.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2010 @ 2:01pm

Um... I work with Maya, Nothing in here is all that hard to do, Its a live set with CGI overlay, The worst thing would be the modeling of the Yogi and Booboo.

Render time on a home PC using Mental Ray would be a few weeks on a home PC but thats about it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- WC, 14 Dec 2010 @ 3:18pm
  
  Re:
  No live set. Just baked in texture/lighting maps.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- WC, 14 Dec 2010 @ 3:18pm
  
  Re:
  No live set. Just baked in texture/lighting maps.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
JustSomeGuy, 14 Dec 2010 @ 3:35pm

Actually, that wasn't too bad. I expected a lot more blood-letting in the Tarantino style. The rug at the end was a nice touch.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2010 @ 5:00pm

If the whole set is fake then it would take a few months on a single computer. On the other hand you could push it to amazon's computer farm and have it back in a few days.

Yes, the fir looks out of the box, other parts of the animation could also be done a number of cheep ways (there are tons of pree-made buildings for 3d studio max for example.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2010 @ 6:00pm

2 hours for 1 frame in Luxrender in high quality using raytracing + (3 minutes = 72 frames) = 144 hours = 6 days on a Quadcore to render the entire animation.

Of course Yafray, Indigo and others can be used.

Also there is this guy on YouTube making 3D models of all old cartoons.

http://www.youtube.com/user/johnpicha

Space Ghost
Herculoids
Penelope PitStop
Captain Caveman And The Teen Angels

Those are just a few he made.

Somebody should make a P2P renderfarm, we could have much more animations coming out from the amateur side of things :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2010 @ 6:22pm

Why are Yogi's eyes moving when he's a rug?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2010 @ 10:27pm
  
  Re:
  Silly its obviously an animatronics rug of course.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
concered person, 15 Dec 2010 @ 3:17pm

why would someone do this
this is a movie that kids will go and watch so why would they do that (I HATE IT)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- big and tall guy, 15 Dec 2010 @ 3:20pm
  
  Re: why would someone do this
  that is tottly right
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]