Brands Slowly Learning Not To Freak Out When Someone Creates A Parody?

from the not-quite-there-yet dept

A whole bunch of you have been submitting the recent story from Variety, that picks up on the silly takedown of Peanutweeter, and notes that at least some brands have realized that it's good to embrace such parody accounts even if they're technically infringing. The "surprise" company that has really embraced this kind of thing is Hasbro, with its support of the "bronies" -- adult men who (ironically?) use My Little Pony footage to remix it with other content, such as Wu Tang Clan songs. And it's a surprise (though not mentioned in the article), because Hasbro has a pretty well-documented history of going after parodies.

That said, much of the rest of the article isn't particularly encouraging. Yes, Hasbro appears to allow and support some of the brony remixes, but still feels that it can and should step in when it sees what it doesn't like. Other brands still feel the need to stop any of this kind of activity.

Amusingly, the article's discussion on fair use suggests (incorrectly) that YouTube's new "Copyright School" helps explain the nuances of fair use:

YouTube in particular has tried to enlighten its users to the nuances of fair use. The Google-owned site introduced a tutorial on the subject in April, as well as a "copyright school" -- a video series that educates users who have been flagged for copyright violations, followed by a quiz they're required to pass in order to be reinstated.

Except, that's not the case at all. YouTube's copyright school was criticized widely for brushing aside fair use and leaving out the nuance entirely. In fact, that's why there was an entire contest by Public Knowledge to create a second video that explains fair use to go with YouTube's original misleading video.

Either way, while it's nice to see Hasbro realize that not all parodies are evil, and that it's even good to support some cases of parody, it's a bit unfortunate that the overall prevailing view still seems to be that these kinds of things should either be shut down or possibly tolerated, rather than embraced as an important element of culture.

Filed Under: acceptance, copyright, culture, parody
Companies: hasbro