Warner Bros. Turns Harry Potter Fan Events Into Events For The Franchise That Must Not Be Named

from the trademarka-kedavra dept

It's always a weird look for companies and IP owners to go after clear expressions of fandom from their customers. And, yet, this sort of thing is done often, with fan get-togethers or festivals regularly being threatened by the IP owners they're fans of. Often times we hear the usual nonsense trademark law excuse that fans must be served with cease and desist letters, or sued, or else the trademark owner will lose its rights. That, as we've discussed repeatedly, is not true, as there are other options available to the trademark holder besides threatening fans.

Warner Bros. has many of the rights to the Harry Potter franchise and the company has not been shy in the past about firing off threat letters to fan groups and festivals. Previously, Warner Bros. has claimed that it only abused fans in this way if there was a commercial aspect to the events. Even under that policy, the legal team for the studio was, shall we say, imperfect. But Warner Bros. has apparently had something of a policy shift that is causing it to go after far more of these fan events, causing Potter fans everywhere frustration and anger.

"It's almost as if Warner Bros. has been taken over by Voldemort, trying to use dark magic to destroy the light of a little town," said Sarah Jo Tucker, a 21-year-old junior at Chestnut Hill College, which hosts a Quidditch tournament that coincides with the annual suburban Philadelphia festival.

Philip Dawson, Chestnut Hill's business district director, said Warner Bros. reached out to his group in May, letting them know new guidelines prohibit festivals' use of any names, places or objects from the series. That ruled out everything from meet-and-greet with Dumbledore and Harry to Defense Against the Dark Arts classes.

"It was very quickly apparent (we) weren't going to be able to hold festivals like years past," he said. The late October festival drew about 45,000 fans last year to the historic neighborhood's cobblestone streets. This year, they will instead have a "wands and wizards" family night and pub crawl and other magic-themed events — and people can still dress as their favorite characters.

As the AP notes, this policy shift is causing these notices to go out to festivals all over the country, each time stating that new policies prohibit this sort of fan-fun at local festivals. As is often the case, Warner Bros. is claiming that trademark law requires it to take these exact actions. Again, this is not true. The studio has many other options, including offering a cheap license to the festivals to allow the fun to go on while having them be officially sanctioned. That it chose not to pursue that course means that Warner Bros. is squarely more interested in being a legal bully than it is in allowing fans of its franchise to celebrate their fandom.

It's an especially stupid track to take, given that these organic fan festivals are certainly in some part responsible for propelling the Potter franchise to the stardom it has now achieved.

Philadelphia Potter fan Sarah McIntyre thinks it's ridiculous for Warner Bros. to target the festivals.

"They are acting like the Dursleys," said the 34-year-old yoga teacher and bookkeeper. She said they should be encouraging communities to bring Harry Potter to life. "Creating interest in the franchise would increase revenue," she said.

How this is not obvious to the folks at Warner Bros. is beyond me. The studio ought to want people talking about the franchise as widely as possible and it's hard to see how fan events at local festivals would do anything other than cause new potential consumers of the franchise to generate some interest in it. As the AP takes pains to note, Warner Bros. is certainly within its rights here, or is at least likely so. But that doesn't make this is a smart business decision, never mind the most optimal outcome for its franchise. Instead, it comes off as purely unfriendly to fans, which is just not a good look for an entertainment product.

Filed Under: cease and desist, fans, harry potter
Companies: warner bros

Hollywood Goes After Korean Fans Subtitling Soap Operas, Pressing Criminal Charges

from the copyright-failure dept

We've written a few times in the past about the movie and TV industries irrationally freaking out over fans in other countries providing subtitles for works that aren't being released locally in that language. These are always labor-of-love efforts by fans who want to share the work more widely by providing the subtitles that the studios themselves refuse to offer. And yet, because of standard copyright maximalism, these efforts almost always end up leading to legal action.

The latest such example involves Fox, Warner Bros and four other Hollywood studios pressing criminal charges against 15 internet users in South Korea for daring to do the most horrible thing in the world: making their soap operas watchable in Korea by adding subtitles. And, of course, thanks to US pressure creating a ridiculous "free trade" agreement with Korea that includes ridiculously draconian copyright requirements, the punishment here can be extreme:

People who make subtitles without permission from the original authors or producers can be given a five-year jail term or fined up to 50 million won [about $50,000 US]

The police involved in this case, go on and on about the "harm" these fan subtitles are creating. They claim, without any evidence or numbers, that there was a massive decline in some cable broadcast revenue based on this and, also, that those poor professional Korean translators are being put out of work.

The [anonymous police] officer went on to say that a cable broadcast, which has aired U.S. dramas, held an emergency meeting recently after experiencing income loss following dwindling viewer ratings because of the massive spread of subtitled dramas on the Internet.

“Professional translators were also hit hard by the subtitle makers. I understand that the U.S. television drama producers took legal action against them to issue a warning to end such an illegal practice rather than making money through an out-of-court settlement fee,” he said.

This is positively insane. This is not what copyright is supposed to be about, and the fact that it's being considered a criminal action to add subtitles to US soap operas is simply ridiculous. While the potential fine is a lot lower than statutory rates in the US, just the fact that this is considered a "criminal" matter at all, rather than a failure by these Hollywood studios to adequately serve their market, really says an awful lot (and none of it good) about how distorted the debate over copyright has become.

Filed Under: copyright, criminal copyright, korea, soap operas, south korea, subtitles
Companies: 20th century fox, warner bros

When Memes Go Corporate: Creators Of Nyan Cat And Keyboard Cat Sue Warner Bros.

from the it's-a-meme,-get-over-it dept

Two of the most well known internet memes of the last decade are probably keyboard cat and Nyan cat. You may think they're silly, pointless or stupid, but there's no denying the incredible level of "memeness" each has reached. And yet, as many of you submitted, the creators of both are now suing both Warner Bros. Entertainment and 5th Cell Media for including both memes in the Scribblenauts game without licensing them. Charles Schmidt, who created Keyboard Cat and Chris Torres, who created Nyan Cat have teamed up here for this lawsuit.

The lawsuit is somewhat amusing to read, explaining what memes are, and how these two memes are especially well known. But then it gets a little wacky, claiming that Warner Bros. logo is also a meme, even though it is not. The point they're trying to make, obviously, is that "memes" can be protected by trademark or copyright law.

The "WE" logo also is a meme, even though it is only two letters inside the outline of a shield. Of course, WE employs an army of lawyers who use trademark and copyright law to zealously protect its intellectual property, including its logo.

Except that's not true. Their logo is a logo, not a meme. They try to redefine meme to their own purpose. Look up most standard definitions of a meme in any dictionary, and you get something involving how it is passed from one person to another:

• Random House Dictionary: meme: a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.
• Merriam-Webster: meme: an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture
• Answers.com: meme: A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.
• Collins English Dictionary: meme: an idea or element of social behaviour passed on through generations in a culture, esp by imitation
• Wikipedia: meme: A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena

There are many more where those come from. But the key bit is that they all require the meme to be shared from person to person. That's what makes it a meme. The word originated from Richard Dawkins, who meant for it be analogous to biological propagation through "imitation" as things get passed around. Yet that key element -- the transmitting by passing from person to person -- is conveniently left out of the definition presented by the lawyer for these meme makers, which allows them to falsely claim that Warner Bros.' own logo is a meme. It is not. It did not gain cultural significance by being passed around from person to person.

And that, really, is the key issue with this lawsuit. Neither Nyan Cat nor Keyboard Cat took on cultural significance because of Schmidt or Torres. On any day you can find thousands upon thousands of similar videos. Like most good memes, these two took on cultural significance because of everyone else who took on those ideas and did something with them. For those two to step back in now and claim "ownership" over the memetic quality of their works is insulting. It's a slap in the face to the community of folks who made those two memes popular.

I know that some people think that this lawsuit is justified because it's "individuals against a big company" -- including a big company like Warner Bros. which has a history of being an obnoxious copyright and trademark maximalist. But just because one company is an abusive maxmialist, doesn't mean others need to stoop to the same level against it.

In the link above about this lawsuit, lawyer Milord Keshishian also points out some other problems, in that the meme makers certainly took their sweet time in registering their copyrights:

Plaintiffs, however, mistakenly demand statutory damages and an enhancement of damages under 17 U.S.C. § 504, and mistakenly believe that they are entitled to attorneys’ fees and costs of suit under 17 U.S.C. § 505. Defendants are accused of infringing both copyrights in their initial 2009 release of the video games and neither copyright was registered until 2010. Thus, neither Plaintiff is entitled to statutory damages or attorney’s fees, a prerequisite of which – per 17 U.S.C. § 412 – is either registration before commencement of any infringement or within three months after the first publication of the copyrighted work. Further, both the Keyboard Cat video and the Nyan Cat video were published over five years before the application to register the copyrights were filed, thus they are not entitled to a presumption of validity afforded by 17 U.S.C. § 410(c).

The creator of Nyan Cat has tried to defend the lawsuit, but his argument is basically that he just doesn't want it used by a for profit company without him profiting too. Of course, I do wonder if the creator of Nyan Cat properly licensed the use of the pop tart that makes up Nyan Cat's body...

This whole lawsuit seems particularly silly. The two creators of these memes have benefited massively not from their own efforts, but from the fact that millions of people passed around their silly works to make them famous. Having those same memes appear in a video game just further increases the awareness and lore behind these two memes. It provides plenty of additional opportunities for the two of them to profit themselves if they wish. But suddenly filing a lawsuit and demanding money from others is just lame.

Filed Under: charles schmidt, copyright, keyboard cat, nyan cat, orlando torres, scribblenauts, trademark
Companies: warner bros

Warner Bros., MGM, Universal Collectively Pull Nearly 2,000 Films From Netflix To Further Fragment The Online Movie Market

from the this-isn't-helping dept

Michael Carusi points us to the news that Warner Bros., MGM and Universal Studios have agreed to pull nearly 2,000 films from Netflix's library, in order to put them in the Warner Bros. Instant Archive. You may recall that Warner recently launched this archive, which is an incredibly overpriced and ridiculously limited offering. Apparently, they're trying to bolster the offering in part by hurting Netflix. As we've warned, this sort of fragmentation does little to help anyone. Consumers don't want to have multiple accounts for multiple services. They don't want to have to worry about whether or not a particular title is available in one place or another. And they certainly don't want movies to suddenly disappear from the service they had been already paying to get.

Everything about this move seems designed to piss people off, not provide them a better overall experience. Sure, Warner wants films for its own archive, but removing them from other services doesn't suddenly make people run gleefully to join their service. It just makes people annoyed and resentful of Warner Bros., which is exactly not the way to encourage people to sign up for their new service. In the article linked above, it noted that some people were having "marathon" viewings of some of the films about to disappear from Netflix. Note that they weren't planning to sign up for Warner's lame archive, but rather watch while they could on the service they chose. One of the key lessons from the past decade or so of internet content is that you need to make accessing your content as convenient as possible. And Hollywood's response is to do the opposite. Incredible.

Companies: mgm, netflix, universal, warner bros

Warner Bros. Sues A Ton Of Amazon Resellers For Selling 'Counterfeit' DVDs

from the counterfeit?-resale? dept

The Hollywood Reporter has a story on Warner Bros. filing a lawsuit against a bunch of individuals who use Amazon's marketplace offering to sell DVDs that Warner Bros. claims are counterfeit. The lawsuit is pretty weak on details so far. The THR report speculates on whether or not this is about packaging up downloaded or camcorded movies and pretending they're official.

However, if you look at the Amazon profile of the named defendant, Todd Beckham, you see that he has very good reviews. Currently, he has a 4.9 star rating with over 2,000 reviews. If he were selling inferior counterfeit products, you'd think people would complain, because his listings certainly suggest they're new official copies. So buyers seem to feel they're getting what they thought they bought. It's possible that he's just a really good counterfeiter, but THR wonders why WB doesn't just use Amazon's existing internal controls to terminate service for users who sell infringing works.

WB apparently told THR that this isn't a case of going after used product sales (where it would have a tough case, given the first sale doctrine -- and, again, would likely lead to negative reviews, since the offerings don't seem to indicate "used" conditions), but it's unclear how or why the company thinks these DVDs are counterfeit. Again, given the sparseness of detail, it's entirely possible the targets are creating (apparently high quality) counterfeit flicks and selling them. But it would be nice to see a bit more evidence that that's the case, and this isn't just a case of being worried about being undercut by the secondary market. What's a little worrying is that, according to THR, WB is claiming that the sellers are violating its "distribution rights" to the films, not reproduction rights. That raises at least some questions over whether or not the concern is just competition, or actual unauthorized copies. At the very least, this will be a case worth following...

Filed Under: counterfeit, dvds, lawsuits
Companies: warner bros

Louis Vuitton Loses Bogus Trademark Lawsuit: Using Fake Handbag In Hangover II Isn't Infringement

from the get-over-it dept

Louis Vuitton is probably the biggest of the trademark bullies out there. We have a bunch of posts detailing some of Louis Vuitton's overreach. Unfortunately, just a couple months ago, it actually won in one of its more bizarre claims -- that a clearly fake basketball in a commercial damaged its trademark. LV used that win to support another ridiculous claim: that Warner Bros. using a counterfeit LV bag in its movie Hangover II itself represented trademark infringement.

Thankfully, as a number of folks have sent in, district court Judge Andrew Carter is not convinced and has dumped the case, noting (correctly) that "The likelihood of confusion is at best minimal." The judge pointed out that the bag was on-screen for less than 30 seconds and no one was likely to notice it was fake. The fact that the character in the movie (played by Zach Galifianakis) made a joke in which he pronounced Louis Vuitton as "Lewis Vuitton" is meaningless here, even though LV seemed particularly hurt by being the butt of a joke, saying it was "an oft-repeated and hallmark quote from the movie."

Now, if only we can get that ruling on the basketball overturned...

Filed Under: andrew carter, counterfeit, the hangover, zach galifianakis
Companies: louis vuitton, warner bros

Zazzle & Warner Bros. Pretend All References To Wizard Of Oz Are Covered By WB Copyright

from the there's-a-problem-here dept

Lowestofthekeys alerts us to the situation of one W. Thomas Adkins, who had some t-shirt designs of his own making for sale on Zazzle... until they were taken down in response to a copyright claim. After Adkins requested more info on why his images were taken down, Zazzle explained:

...your product was removed due to an infringement claim by Warner Bros. Studios. While the artwork as you claim is original, the characters from the Wizard of Oz are currently property of Warner Bros. As a guideline, designs from the Wizard of Oz that are currently prohibited for sale on Zazzle’s Marketplace are:

• All inspired artwork and character renderings from the Wizard of Oz
• Quotes from the Wizard of Oz Franchise
• All tags and descriptions that reference the Wizard of Oz

- Zazzle

There are a few problems with this. First of all, characters from the Wizard of Oz are not, in fact, "property of Warner Bros." The original book, written by L. Frank Baum, was published in 1900 and is in the public domain. The popular movie version, in which Warner Bros. holds the copyright, came out in 1939. This does lead to some interesting copyright questions, and a few lawsuits. For example, last year, we wrote about a lawsuit involving t-shirts designed with public domain Wizard of Oz images. And then there's a brewing fight over whether or not Disney can make a film based on the public domain parts of the Baum books if it makes no reference to the 1939 movie.

Basically, what the law has said is that if you're making references to the specific characters or character traits that were portrayed in the movie, but which are not from the books, then its under WB's copyright. So, if you were to display pictures of the actual actors or specific expressions or outfits that are from the movie, but not the books, then there's an issue.

From Adkins' post, however, it appears these were the images on the t-shirts that were removed from Zazzle:

It is difficult to see how either of these come anywhere close to infringing on WB's copyright. The first one merely displays a witch's pointy hat. While it seems that the origin of the pointy, wide-brimmed witch's hat has been lost to history, the various reports online suggest it long pre-dates 1939 and the movie. In fact, it appears that images in the original books show the witch in a pointed, wide-brimmed hat. So the hat is not copyright to Warner Bros.

Then there's the flying monkey. Problem being... the flying monkeys were in Baum's books, and Adkins' drawing is quite different from the version in the movie.

The concept of water melting the witch? Also in Baum's books, and as Adkins details in his blog post, it way predates the Oz books anyway.

Basically, everything in Adkins' images appear to reference the original Baum books and not the movie. Assuming Warner Bros. did make a copyright claim, as Zazzle's email stated, then it is engaging in copyfraud here and asserting copyright against images it has no rights over.

That said, Adkins also exaggerates his own rights in his response to Zazzle, which he posted. After explaining to Zazzle why his works did not infringe on WB's copyright, he unfortunately goes on to say:

As such, I respectfully request that my material and corresponding artwork be returned to circulation for purchase immediately.

Failure to do so would be an infringement on my copyright of my created artwork which, as verified by the testimony above, does NOT infringe upon Warner Bros. Entertainment’s copyright on the 1939 film or the specific celluloid representations of the characters made in said film. If my copyright continues to be infringed upon I will seek legal action against both Zazzle and Warner Bros. Entertainment.

Uh... no. Zazzle choosing not to display your work is, in no way, copyright infringement. As a private company, Zazzle has every right to refuse to display any particular work, even if its reasons are dumb. The public (and people like Adkins) are free to mock them, but there is no copyright issue there, and especially not infringement by Zazzle. The service certainly does not have the greatest reputation because of its quick trigger finger in pulling down perfectly legal content, but that doesn't mean it's illegal. Claiming that not displaying someone's work is infringement is just ridiculous, and takes away from Adkins' otherwise strong arguments.

Either way, the original point stands: Adkins' works don't appear to be infringing WB's copyrights. If WB did make the claim, it appears that WB went way too far. Adkins should have just filed a standard counternotice to Zazzle, and one would hope Zazzle does the right thing and puts the works back up.

Filed Under: copyfraud, l. frank baum, public domain, wizard of oz
Companies: warner bros, zazzle

DMCA Notices So Stupid It Hurts

from the yay-dmca dept

Google's decision to be much more transparent about DMCA takedowns for search has revealed a swathe of absolutely ridiculously stupid DMCA notices. We've covered some already, but TorrentFreak has found some more -- including multiple cases of DMCA notices by copyright holders that aren't just against their own best interests, but are often against content they, themselves, put up. This isn't even a situation like Viacom suing YouTube over clips that Viacom's employees had uploaded. In those cases, at least, it involved attempts to make the clips look unauthorized.

Here, however, it appears to just be ridiculous bad processes in place to make sure DMCA takedowns are legit. There is, for example, the case of Warner Bros. sending a DMCA takedown for the IMDB page of its own movie, Wrath of the Titans. It also demanded that the Guardian newspaper's showing of the official trailer of the movie be removed from Google search. Ditto the official trailer on Apple's site and Hulu's site. And, let's not forget the BBC America news article about how the film might be "critic proof" as well as a page from Charleston South Carolina's newspaper, The Post & Courier about the film and telling people where to go see it. Though, I guess Warner Bros. lawyers didn't want you to see it at all, because all of those were DMCA'd for being in Google's search.

It's almost as if the lawyers at Warner Bros. are so clueless that they were actively trying to hide any legitimate marketing for the movie. I'm sure their colleagues in the marketing department must have been just thrilled about these efforts.

The TorrentFreak article lists out a bunch more takedowns, directed at news sites, often promoting the works in question:

In addition to the Warner instance mentioned above, the RIAA asked Google to delist a review of the album Own The Night published on The Guardian. The artist behind the album is Lady Antebellum, signed to RIAA-member Capitol Records.

Even more worrying, the RIAA asked Google to delist Last.fm’s entire Electro Pop section because they thought it carried a pirate copy of All About Tonight by Pixie Lott.

Warner also reappeared later on, asking Google to delist a page on news site NME which lists information on the latest movies, which at the time included information on the movie Hall Pass. The same page on NME was targeted on several other occasions, including by anti-piracy company DtecNet on behalf of Lionsgate, who had info on The Hunger Games delisted.

Hollywood Reporter didn’t fare much better either. Sony Pictures asked Google to swing the banhammer against the popular news site after it published an article called “Trent Reznor Releases Six Free Tracks From ‘Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ Soundtrack” and Sony mistook it for a DVDRIP.

But as soon as Sony’s piracy fears on the first ‘Dragon Tattoo’ movie had subsided they were back as strong as ever with the sequel. This time the sinner was Wikipedia who dared to put up an information page on the movie The Girl Who Played With Fire. Luckily Sony were on hand to ask Google to delist the page.

The more you play around, the more examples like this you can find. Zuffa, the notoriously litigious folks behind UFC, demanded a Hulu link be disappeared from Google search, despite Hulu only posting authorized content.

Sony Music and the Estate of Michael Jackson tried to get a page on Last.fm for Slave to the Rhythm removed as infringing.

Let's see... we've got Universal Music/Interscope (by way of Web Sheriff) demanding that Google delete a link to Wall Street Journal post (reprinted from Mashable) embedding an official Lady Gaga video from last year. Oh, and that wasn't all. They also went after an MTV news article about the video shoot -- which did contain some footage that someone had shot from a distance, but that seems extreme to kill the whole article. Ditto for a NY Post article.

Sony Music Nashville was so worried about a Carrie Underwood leak that it tried to erase a Reuters archive page from 2008 that just lists a bunch of headlines -- none of which has anything to do with Carrie Underwood.

TorrentFreak noted above that the RIAA asked the Guardian to takedown its review of the Lady Antebellum album Own the Night, but that wasn't the only target. The RIAA demanded that Google remove a link to a review of Lady Antebellum songs on AOL's music site. Lady Antebellum was clearly so upset by AOL breaching its copyright that the band posed for a photo at AOL studios.

For most musicians, getting onto Pitchfork is a goal. For the RIAA? Well, apparently Pitchfork must be stopped. That's why it DMCA'd the tastemaker website for daring to post an article about Coldplay, in which they embedded a song directly from Coldplay's own YouTube account. The article even notes that the band had released the song to Pitchfork. Nice going RIAA, trying to stop your own bands from getting the publicity they seek.

Anyway, that's just after a little bit of searching... I'm sure we'll have more examples going forward... Thanks to the folks at Torrentfreak for their initial research which inspired some of these other findings as well.

Filed Under: dmca, takedown, transparency report, wrath of the titans
Companies: google, riaa, viacom, warner bros, youtube

My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields On Reissue Delays: 'Sony Hid Our Master Tapes'

from the inevitable-'artist-signed-a-contract'-trolling-in-3...2... dept

Shoegaze legend My Bloody Valentine has never been mistaken for a prolific band. With their last album (Loveless) having been released over two decades ago (1991 to be exact), anyone who's been holding their breath waiting for a followup has probably been revived enough times that friends and family are considering adding a DNR order to their living will.

Now, at long last, there are signs of life. On May 7th, Sony Records is set to release remastered versions of MBV's two full albums and several EPs [exclamation points!]. Not only that, but MBV co-founder Kevin Shields is strongly hinting at an actual new My Bloody Valentine album [more exclamation points, tempered with a "we've heard this before over the last 20 years, but still..."!].

While the new remasters will be appreciated, it's a project that's been in the works since 2004. Most of those familiar with Kevin Shields' perfectionism (the obsessiveness that saw the band go through 19 recording studios and nearly as many producers while recording Loveless, nearly bankrupting Creation Records in the process) probably chalked up this extra-long delay to excessive amounts of knob twiddling. But in an interview with Pitchfork, Shields points out that this time it wasn't him:

The [remastering] process actually started in 2001, when we managed to come to an agreement with Sony, who inherited us from Creation. Part of the Sony deal was that I wanted all of the EPs made into one package because, back in 2001, you could get the albums pretty easily but not the EPs. So it was basically a compilation of all the EPs, and that was it.

Then we decided to do Isn't Anything and Loveless as well-- if we're gonna remaster [the EPs], we should remaster everything. In 2002, I tried to start working on it, but the studio that had the tapes, Metropolis Studios, lost them; the analog multi-tracks were all missing for a year. Only after I started threatening to get Scotland Yard involved did they magically, suddenly reappear. The true story is as yet to be determined, but we'll fight that one out in the near future.

Tapes going missing isn't completely unheard of. When bands lie dormant for years at a time, the labels generally don't place a premium on keeping everything sorted out, especially when they can do things like issue faux-remasters by pressing the "+Loud" button while the CD is in the tray. Shields points out that Warner (who handles American distribution) did exactly that when issuing supposed vinyl "remasters" in 2003:

For example, in America, Warner Bros. licensed Loveless and Isn't Anything to Plain Records, and they basically just ripped [the audio] off the CD and put it on vinyl [in 2003]. They did an awful, terrible job. It was done without my permission, and the sound quality was 100% wrong. It was a rip off to anyone who bought it. But I didn't know anything about it until they were in the shops. We actually got an injunction against it being imported into the UK at the time because it was technically a bootleg but, in America, Warners operate under their own law, so it might have been slightly legal in the United States.

But Shields states that the missing master tapes wasn't the result of simple oversight:

The contract we did in 2001 basically gave me ownership of the tapes, and then the Sony regime that existed when that contract was signed left. And when the new regime came in, the tapes disappeared. That was relevant because even though I was the owner, it would only revert back to me if I remastered from the original tapes-- if the tapes were gone, I couldn't remaster from them and hence I couldn't ever own them.

[Fun note: Pitchfork asked Sony to comment on this and got this smiley chunk of PR spam in reply: "We have really enjoyed working on these hugely iconic re-issues with Kevin, and can't wait for the release." We know this isn't true because no one enjoys working with Kevin Shields. (HAHAHA ONLY SRS. 19 studios! Thousands of pounds!!! Engineers not being allowed to listen to vocal takes!!!?!)]

So, keeping the tapes away from Shields meant preventing him from reclaiming control of his band's output or being compensated for any interim sales. In fact, despite continued interest in My Bloody Valentine's catalog, the band is still operating in the red:

Also, you don't get paid if you don't own it-- you know, we've never been paid one penny from the United States from any of the records we've ever made. In the record company's world, we're always in debt. But the strange part of the story is Loveless alone sold enough copies in its first year to put us out of debt. But somehow Warners have managed to create a situation where, hundreds of thousands of records down the line, we're still in debt. That's why the compilations aren't coming out on Warner Bros. They're extremely in breach of contract as well at the moment.

Despite all of this, Shields remains largely pragmatic about this situation. It's not that it isn't unfair or stupid or flat out ugly. It's just that it isn't uncommon:

I'm no victim here-- this is just the way it is for everybody. It's a bit like being in the middle of a battlefield and getting shot in the arm and going, "Why me?" I mean, to put it very, very, very simply: The corporate system is fully psychopathic, and any creative people who enter into business with any of these organizations come up against a lifetime of issues. You just deal with it as you go along. It'll keep on happening until people reorganize the organizations.

Shields expands on this, pointing out that this two-decade gap between the original albums and the reissues could have been a lot shorter, if there had been any sort of cooperation from the labels involved.

Well, the organizations are [psychopathic], but probably 70% of the individuals in them are decent people. But a significant controlling minority have no empathy. They don't give a shit. If you put them in a situation where they can't make any decision but one that is in your favor, they will-- but that can take years. That's the game. Most people just give up with time and go, "I'm a victim." The only reason I've got the reputation for delays and spending a long time on things is because I just don't stop. We've had incredibly huge obstacles in our way-- no tapes, no royalties, no cooperation on any level-- and we sort it out.

Apparently, this is what it takes do a proper reissue: eight years, two labels, Scotland Yard and Shields' willingness to keep pushing on despite the labels' best efforts to keep him and his music as far apart as possible. I eagerly await the naysayers who will point out that the label system is still the artists' best friend, preferable to self-publishing, Kickstartering, etc. while simultaneously pointing out that "Screw the artists! They signed a contract!" Fun stuff, this cognitive dissonance.

Filed Under: kevin shields, master tapes, my bloody valentine
Companies: sony, warner bros

Louis Vuitton Touts Basketball Trademark Victory In Similar Lawsuit Against Warner Bros.

from the trademark-hangover dept

We recently wrote about the terrible ruling in which a district court said Hyundai had diluted Louis Vuitton's trademarks with a one-second clip of a mock LV basketball in a commercial. Now THR reports that Louis Vuitton has included that ruling as part of a new filing in another ongoing trademark suit against Warner Bros., over a scene in The Hangover Part II that briefly shows (and refers to) a Louis Vuitton bag. Warner Bros. is seeking summary judgement in that case, on the quite sensible grounds that featuring trademarks and brands in a film is protected speech under the First Amendment, but Louis Vuitton is using the Hyundai ruling as a counterweapon:

The French brand says that judge's decision two weeks ago shows why it should be able to go forward with its claims against Warner Bros. for infringing and diluting its trademark by showing, for one brief moment in the movie, Zach Galifianakis telling someone who pushes his bag, “Be careful, that is … that is a Lewis Vuitton.”

...

"As Judge Castel recently ruled in Louis Vuitton v. Hyundai, Louis Vuitton's 'aggressive' enforcement of its trademark rights and prompt action against those who misuse its trademarks are necessary concomitants of its exclusive rights in the brand," the French company says in a court filing.

This is how a law gets out of hand: each bad ruling diminishes its intent a little further, until it no longer serves its original purpose. This is a big part of what happened to copyright law, and bullies like Louis Vuitton are causing a similar erosion of trademark: a shift from laws that benefit everyone to laws that grant broad powers of ownership and control to rightsholders, infringing on freedom of speech in the process. Of course, Warner Bros. has been through something similar before, when the artist behind Mike Tyson's face tattoo sued over the very same movie—though that was a copyright issue, and settled confidentially. The argument against trademark dilution is likely even stronger than the argument against copyright infringement, but it remains to be seen how Warner Bros. will respond to Louis Vuitton's latest move.

Of course, as always, one can't ignore the irony of Warner Bros.—a big proponent of stronger intellectual property laws—fighting against overly restrictive trademarks, and citing the First Amendment in the process. This hypocrisy is something media companies don't want to acknowledge: as content producers and distributors, they rely on the very freedoms and fair use exceptions that they are constantly seeking to curtail.

Filed Under: bad ruling, free speech, the hangover
Companies: hyundai, louis vuitton, warner bros