DMCA Fun: Movie Studios Issue Takedowns Over Their Authorized Films

from the but-of-course dept

We've covered how often DMCA notices seem to be sent improperly, taking down others people's work, but it's also true that we see people send DMCA notices on their own work pretty often. TorrentFreak has done a great job detailing many cases where Hollywood's biggest and most famous studios have been issuing DMCA takedowns on their own movies, as well as their own movie promotional pages. Among the takedowns are ones from Lionsgate taking down authorized versions of a film on iTunes, Amazon, Blockbuster and Xfinity.

Then there's 20th Century Fox trying to protect Family Guy... by issuing a takedown of the Wikipedia page about the show. Even worse? Another takedown for the show How I Met Your Mother, in which the "original work URL" listed is the CBS website for the show (which makes sense), but that very same URL is listed for takedown Other studios seem to takedown press stories about their movies. The BBC, for example sent takedowns on a bunch of press coverage and reviews of their film "Ill Manors." While Sony Pictures issued a takedown supposedly about their film "The Other Guys," but which really targeted a ton of articles... about Megaupload. And then there are just random ones like notoriously aggressive about IP studio Summit Entertainment issuing takedowns over the movie 50/50... but including an announcement about US Energy Secretary Steven Chu delivering a keynote speech at the "50th Anniversary" of SLAC (the Stanford Linear Accelerator). Apparently, you can't take a chance with anything that has "50" in the title. Might be the movie.

While these may be amusing to point out, they raise a much larger issue. Copyright holders like to insist that companies like Google and others can just "obviously" tell what is and what is not infringing and they should be able to magically stop piracy because of that. And yet... here we are, where the studios themselves can't even figure it out. How the hell do they expect others to figure it out for them?

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, takedowns
Companies: bbc, disney, fox, sony pictures, summit entertainment

Twilight Studio Issues Another Bogus Takedown, But Is Zazzle Partially To Blame?

from the the-plot-thickens dept

Well, this one's weird. We recently wrote about the attempt by Summit Entertainment (the folks behind the Twilight movies) to claim ownership of a date, issuing a takedown notice over a painting by Kelly Howlett because its creation date (and title) matched a Twilight movie release date (seriously). Now, Mary Jo Place (who goes by the handle Mojo) writes to tell us about her own similar and even stranger situation, in which Summit took down some of her Zazzle merchandise because... well... that's anyone's guess.

The work in question is an original painting called "Sheep Are Pretty Stupid", copies of which she was selling on a variety of merchandise through Zazzle. The products, which again have absolutely nothing to do with Twilight, had been up for a few months before she received a notice from Zazzle, telling her they had removed some of them because of a complaint from Summit. Oddly, it was only the iPhone/Pad/Pod cases that were taken down—not the t-shirts or any of the other merch, even though all the items bore identical descriptions:

Sheep Are Pretty Stupid.
Yes, they are, but you don't have to be numbered among them! Mojo suggests you go AGAINST the crowd by buying one of her sheepie shirts. Or mugs. Or, whatever. Several years ago, I decided I wanted to paint my own Christmas card of the whole lion-and-lamb thing, only from a more, uh, realistic perspective. This is the result.

The email from Zazzle also suggested that the problem could be the search tags, but those (again shared identically by all the merchandise) were mojo, crap, craptacular, sheep, lion, and lamb. Nothing there that suggests Twilight either, except possibly crap. Understandably baffled, Mary Jo contacted Zazzle only to receive a condescending canned response informing her of their duty to abide by intellectual property law. She wrote back again, and actually linked to our coverage of the other takedown, but got nothing back. So she started digging, which brought her to Kelly Howlett's Facebook note about her situation, where she saw something interesting in the comments—and this is where things get weird:

Since Mary Jo's items were gone, she couldn't check to see if she was having similar tag problems. Nevertheless she emailed Zazzle again, included screenshots of the comments and suggested that this may be what happened. A little while later, she received another canned response from Zazzle telling her the products had been restored, but still offering no explanation whatsoever.

All this creates one big question: is Zazzle doing some sort of automatic tagging, which is then triggering false takedowns? If so, that's a pretty big mistake by Zazzle—but some cursory Googling and digging through their help forums doesn't reveal any references to an auto-tagging or community tagging system. If any readers are Zazzle users and have experienced something similar, or have any insight into this, please share it, because nobody seems to be able to figure out what's going on.

Filed Under: bogus takedowns, censorship, takedowns, twilight
Companies: summit entertainment, zazzle

Summit Entertainment Claims To Own The Date November 20, 2009; Issues Takedown On Art Created On That Day

from the hello-ip-fraud dept

Summit Entertainment, the movie studio behind the Twilight films, is no stranger to ridiculous-to-insane overreaches of intellectual property law. In fact, the studio seems to make a habit out of it. The company has sued Zazzle because some of its users made fan art inspired by Twilight. It's shut down a Twilight fanzine. It's said that only it can make a documentary about the real town where the fictional Twilight story is based. It's sued to stop a fashion designer from factually stating that a character in one of the movies wore its jacket. It shut down a silly 8-bit YouTube game. It issued a takedown on a song that was written years before the Twilight movies. It went after Bath & Bodyworks for daring to to sell a body lotion called Twilight Woods, which had nothing to do with the movies. It aggressively sued a fan and pressed criminal charges for tweeting some behind the scenes photos of a Twilight movie. It also sued the guy who registered twilight.com back in 1994.

This is a company that thinks that the world revolves around its trademarks, and it appears to have little concern for what the law actually says.

Its latest move is particularly asinine. The company came across the following lovely image created by artist Kelly Howlett and posted to Zazzle, and issued a takedown. If you're thinking that image has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Twilight, or any other Summit property, you're entirely correct. But it turns out that Summit Entertainment has decided it owns the date 11-20-09 (that's Kelly's Facebook explanation of what happened, found via Bleeding Cool), which was the date the sketch was created, and what it was tagged with. It also happens to be the date that the Twilight movie New Moon was released.

Summit has no legitimate claim here. At all. And yet it took the artwork down anyway, because that's the kind of IP abusers they are. Zazzle eventually came to its senses and restored the image, and Howlett is offering it on Society 6 as well. If Summit Entertainment had anyone with a soul working for them, they'd buy a few hundred prints to apologize.

Either way, the company has such a long and consistent history of abusing intellectual property law, isn't there a point at which we just say that the company no longer deserves any such power? If you regularly abuse monopoly privileges, shouldn't they be taken away?

Filed Under: dates, ip abuse, ip fraud, kelly howlett, november 20th, painting, takedowns, trademark
Companies: summit entertainment, zazzle

Summit Entertainment Sues Guy Who Registered Twilight.com In 1994 For Trademark Infringement

from the are-you-freaking-serious? dept

Movie studio Summit Entertainment has become somewhat notorious for its ridiculously over aggressive attempts to "protect" what it believes is its intellectual property. Just look at the list of stories, we've written about the company. It has shut down fanzines, stopped a documentary about the real town where Twilight is supposed to take place, sued a fashion designer for accurately noting that one of its jackets was worn by "Bella" in Twilight, been involved in a legal battle with Bath & Bodyworks for selling a body lotion called "Twilight Woods," which had nothing to do with the movies, and pressed criminal charges against a fan who tweeted some photos from the movie set of the latest Twilight flick.

This is a company that has a massive entitlement complex, and a somewhat faulty notion of intellectual property law.

Its latest move is to sue the guy who owns Twilight.com -- which he registered in 1994, eleven years before Stephenie Meyer published the first Twilight book and thirteen years before Summit Entertainment bought the movie rights to the book. The site, which is rather simple, does present some Amazon links to let people buy legitimate Twilight products (something you'd think Summit would like...).

The key complaint, once again, shows the technological cluelessness of Summit. The studio says that the site infringes with links to unauthorized Twilight contests and casting calls. But, as THREsq points out in the link above, Summit appears to be confusing the content found in the Google AdSense on Twilight.com with specific links put up by the site's owner, Tom Markson. One hopes that Markson can find himself a good (pro bono?) lawyer who can explain to Summit and the court that this is not how trademark law works.

Filed Under: trademark, twilight
Companies: summit entertainment

Summit Entertainment Commences Criminal Legal Action Against Twilight Fan Who Shared Images From Movie

from the photos! dept

We were somewhat stunned a few months back when notoriously overly-litigious movie studio Summit Entertainment absolutely freaked out and went legal against some fans of the Twilight movies by filing John Doe lawsuits against people for tweeting some photos from the next film in the saga. Remember: these are photos. And the reason they're getting passed around is because these people are fans. Nothing in these photos takes away from the marketability of the movie itself. If anything they do the exact opposite.

Summit Entertainment simply doesn't know when to give up. It apparently went out and spent money to hire Kroll Inc., a famed corporate investigations company who is not cheap, to track someone down to Argentina, and discover that they had shared the images... and then commenced legal action against the person in both the US and Argentina, including criminal charges in Argentina (thanks to DandonTRJ for sending this in).

Remember, this is a fan who was sharing photos of a film that would only serve to get people more interested in the film. Step on up, Summit Entertainment, because you just won the award for the absolute worst entity at treating fans right.

Filed Under: argentina, copyright, lawsuits, photos, twilight
Companies: summit entertainment

Summit Entertainment May Learn That You Can't File A Copyright Takedown Over A Trademark Issue

from the your-lawyers-should-have-told-you-that dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about a somewhat convoluted lawsuit in which a songwriter had sued Summit Entertainment, the movie studio behind the Twilight films, and a notorious overprotector of copyrights and trademarks that it holds. Summit had issued a DMCA takedown on a song that the guy had written and posted to YouTube and iTunes. The song had been written long before Twilight existed, but the songwriter had tried to associate the two, claiming (apparently incorrectly given the timing on all this) that the song had been inspired by the movie. As we noted at the time, the whole thing seemed like a mixup of trademark and copyright issues. However, it struck us that there was one key question: while the way the song was marketed could open up the songwriter to trademark or false advertising claims, if Summit actually issued a copyright takedown, it could be abusing the DMCA.

Apparently a judge agrees with my thought process as well.

As THREsq notes, the judge has dumped much of the lawsuit, but is allowing the key question of abusing the DMCA takedown process to move forward:

"The whole purpose of a take down notice is to cause removal of infringing material from a website," writes Judge Carr. "If the plaintiff can show that defendant knowingly falsely asserted such interest, he in all likelihood can also show that it knew that such false assertion, once made, would lead to removal of plaintiff’s song from the website. Given the contemporary importance to a creator of an artistic work of unimpeded website display, plaintiff’s claim of resulting damages is not implausible."

All along, Summit has argued that it had no choice, and that YouTube treats copyright and trademark requests as one and the same. Even so, filing a bogus DMCA takedown over an issue that has nothing to do with copyright can certainly get the filer into some legal hot water, which should make this case an interesting one to follow.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, trademark, twilight
Companies: summit entertainment

Summit Entertainment Sues Fans Who Tweeted Images From Upcoming Twilight Flick

from the really? dept

We've noted in the past that movie studio Summit Entertainment is more aggressive than most at going after just about anyone it thinks is violating its intellectual property -- especially when it comes to its flagship Twilight franchise. Apparently, some photos from the set of the latest installment of the film were leaked and got passed around online. Note: this wasn't video, just still photos. It's hard to see how or why anyone could be too upset about that. Having those photos passed around would seem like a nice sign of how much fans are anticipating the film. Initially, the folks behind the film (along with book author Stephenie Meyer -- who at one point seemed to get this stuff) put out a statement asking people to stop sharing the images:

As some of you may know, pictures and screen grabs of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn as a work in progress have leaked on the internet. We are extremely proud of this film and also extremely heartbroken to see it out there at this stage.

The film and these images are not yet ready or in their proper context. They were illegally obtained and their early dissemination is deeply upsetting to the actors, the filmmakers and Summit who are working so hard to bring these movies to fruition to you in November 2011 and November 2012.

Please, for those who are posting, stop. And please, though the temptation is high, don’t view or pass on these images. Wait for the film in its beautiful, finished entirety to thrill you.

As these things go, that's not too bad. It's a little ridiculous to claim that some photos of a movie getting passed around is "deeply upsetting" to everyone involved in the film, but it's a heartfelt plea, not entirely unlike some suggestions we've made for other studios.

However, it appears that it wasn't just a heartfelt plea going on. While they were appealing to people agreeing to stop sharing the photos, Summit was also filing a lawsuit against 10 John Does accused of sharing the images via Twitter. The lawsuit is so that the company can subpoena Twitter to try to get the identities of those individuals.

Honestly, the whole thing seems insane. These people like your movie and they can't wait to see it or get any information about it. That's a good thing. Nothing in the photos takes away from the movie or hurts the movie. Suing your fans, however for expressing how much they love the film? Yeah, that can hurt a film...

Filed Under: copyright, images, lawsuit, twilight
Companies: summit entertainment

Bath & Bodyworks Goes To Court To Explain To Summit Entertainment That The Word Twilight Existed Before The Movie

from the time-of-day-vs.-vampire-saga dept

We've covered many examples of movie studio Summit Entertainment being ridiculously overprotective when it came to the trademark on Twilight. Among other things, it's sued Zazzle for merchandise made by others (hello, secondary liability), it's shut down a Twilight fanzine, it's claimed that only it can make a documentary about the town where Twilight is supposed to take place and even shut down a silly 8-bit YouTube game that plays off of Twilight.

Apparently Summit is now going after totally unrelated products that have "Twilight" in their name. It sent a threat letter to retailer Bath & Bodyworks, because that company sells "Twilight Woods" body lotion. Rather than fold, or wait for a lawsuit, the retailer has gone to court to get a declaratory judgment that it doesn't infringe. It notes there's quite a difference here:

"The term 'Twilight' is used so as to evoke the idea of a particular time of day when the sun is just below the horizon, illuminating the landscape," the lawsuit says. "Whereas defendant uses the term 'Twilight' to refer to defendant's teen vampire saga."

Filed Under: confusion, trademark, twilight
Companies: bath & bodyworks, summit entertainment

Musician Sues Summit Entertainment For Taking Down His Song In Twilight Dispute

from the takedowns dept

This one is a bit confusing, but an artist named Matthew Smith apparently wrote a song back in 2002, but late last year he tried to re-market the song by trying to associate it with the Twilight Saga movies. He did so by doing some sort of deal with the company that sells pre-movie ads to promote the song in various theaters... and by getting an image designed as the "cover" image for the song that was inspired by the Twilight Saga -- using a moon and a similar font to the movie's advertisement. Summit -- who has shown itself to be ridiculously overprotective of its trademarks and copyrights issued a takedown to YouTube, where the song was hosted. This part isn't clear, because I'm not sure where the song image was included on the YouTube page. I guess in the video, but the article linked above doesn't say.

YouTube, of course, took down the video, and a back and forth between lawyers ensued, with Summit claiming that the image represented trademark infringement -- and claiming that YouTube "does not differentiate between copyright infringement and trademark infringement." I'm not quite sure that's true, and it makes me wonder if Summit actually sent a DMCA notice, which you're not supposed to use for trademarks, or if it sent a different type of takedown notice (entirely possible). Either way, Smith has sued first, claiming misrepresentation by Summit, and saying that the song clearly doesn't infringe on Twilight's copyright, because it was written well before the Twilight Saga existed. Of course, as the article at THResq notes, in doing so, Smith also shows that he misrepresented himself in advertising that the song was "inspired" by the Twilight Saga.

It doesn't seem like he really has much of a case here. While I think it was probably pretty pointless and petty for Summit to issue the takedown, it's entirely possible that the guy was infringing. The real question is whether or not Summit really did make a copyright claim here, rather than a trademark claim -- but even if that's the case, I can't see the "damages" being that high. Either way, it seems like another silly intellectual property-inspired legal fight, that has little to do with what either copyright or trademark law were intended to do.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, music, takedowns, trademark, twilight, youtube
Companies: summit entertainment

Movie Exec Says Studios Should Stop Sending Out DVD Screeners For The Oscars

from the this-has-been-tried dept

One of Jack Valenti's last great "battles" as the head of the MPAA was his fight against DVD screeners sent out for the various movie awards events. Valenti felt that sending screeners of all the nominated movies was a key factor contributing to unauthorized copies getting out into the world and on the internet. So he instituted a ban on sending out such screeners. This pissed off just about everyone. A bunch of really famous movie directors demanded that he drop the ban and the LA Film Critics Association actually canceled their own awards event in protest. Then, a bunch of independent film producers sued the MPAA. Basically, everyone pointed out that without the screeners, many of the voters simply wouldn't be able to see the movies being voted on, and that would hamper any awards effort -- especially for more independent films. Eventually, a judge sided with the producers, and explained to Valenti that he could not ban DVD screeners.

The following year, he came up with another plan, which involved special screener DVDs that only played on a special DVD player, which each voter would have to get and set up themselves. In other words, it was a "solution" that was a huge pain in the ass for everyone -- especially those who already had a perfectly good home theater setup. After a few years of everyone bitching and complaining about this, the MPAA finally relented in 2007, and went back to just sending out normal DVDs as screeners.

Apparently, some folks in the industry don't know their history. At the "Content Protection Summit" that we recently discussed, a VP from Summit Entertainment, the indie studio who has had some success lately thanks to the Twilight films and The Hurt Locker, apparently told the audience that the industry should get rid of DVD screeners, and who cares if it inconveniences people. She specifically said "we're going to have to agree to be inconvenienced." Apparently, she's totally unaware of how badly that worked out last time around -- especially for independent studios like her own.

Of course, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that Summit Entertainment thinks this way. The company has built up quite a reputation for being an intellectual property bully. In the past 15 months or so, we've had multiple different stories of Summit's overly aggressive attempts at IP enforcement, often threatening or suing people doing completely reasonable things, such as creating a fanzine or filming a documentary about the town where Twilight is supposed to take place. And that's not even getting into questions about The Hurt Locker and its lawsuit campaign against thousands of file sharers -- because that was really done by the movie's producers, Voltage, rather than Summit. Of course, all these actions are doing is reminding me to avoid any pictures associated with Summit.

Filed Under: dvds, movies, screeners
Companies: mpaa, summit entertainment