FOX kills Trucalling-fans

I'm sure I heard about the site being closed down a while ago.
 
Apparently Fox has also gone after SpoilerSlayer for it's TruCalling stuff:

Site News: No More Tru Calling

Well, it seems that after years of not having an issue with Fox, they finally decided that they have had enough of me. Sitting on my doorstep this afternoon, in a DHL courier envelope, was a brief two-page letter from the Fox legal department. Fox is requesting that while it's okay to keep up the Buffy/Angel archives, I must immediately remove any and all Tru Calling spoilers/summaries and links.
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Source

Here's some info on the Bringers site Faith mentioned:

For years, production company 20th Century Fox has taken legal action against non-profit fansites dedicated to their properties, particularly those featuring video clips, audio clips and transcripts. The trend began with Millenium and The X-Files sites, the first known victims, with The Simpsons and King of the Hill soon to follow. In response, fans initiated a letter writing campaign against the studio and Fox issued a statement claiming that all of the targeted sites had in some way violated copyright laws. This four year old statement (full of inaccuracies, inadequate and outdated) is still the only official response 20th Century Fox have issued.

In 1999, 20th Century Fox, makers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and spin-off show Angel: The Series, started taking legal action against these sites. In response, Solo84 founded "The Buffy Bringers", a group dedicated to halting Fox's inexplicable behaviour.
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I'm not sure if this applies here, but we've discussed this kind of thing here at Buffy-boards before:

I was just listening to a fascinating talk-radio show. This lady was discussing the new dynamic of online fandom. She made an interesting point.

She was describing how from a media marketing standpoint the popularity of online fansites were a great marketing tool. It was a way of keeping in touch with what made a particular series popular. Also a hardcore fan base can be shown to be a powerful force for driving the popularity of a series. One only has to consider how Star Trek fans brought a failed series back to life, enabling Trek to evolve into the most profitable franchise in television history.

The radio lady then made a point that dropped the jaw of the talkshow host, myself, and I'm sure many listeners. She said (and I paraphrase), "Industry doesn't always get this. Believe it or not, some shows actually fight with their fans.
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Full Thread
 
Looks like they were just getting started with TruCalling-Fans. Like I said about I can understand why they took action for their images and video clips as it is their property, that is the law. The lawyer in me backs that side up, but the other half of me (the one with the morals 😉) looks at things differntly, yes its their material, yes they didn't pay to use it. But as pointed out several times including the post above by N4H fan sites play a large part in shows like this. Star Trek was mentioned, look at Roswell the fans saved that show too. Saveangel.org, although didn't get the show saved created a lot of publicity and got across the point that the fans will simply not just roll over to the corporations. Fans even had an online campaign to get the Tru pilot picked up and a second season. The only people who seem to recognise the fans is the actors themselves. How many times have we heard the Buffy/Angel actors praising the dedication of the fans for something that they love.

Ok this wasn't meant to turn into a rant, but now you can understand why we do not allow talk of episode downloading, links to downloading and why we ask for the images in the gallery to have their proper sources and copyright. We are not claiming to own them, simply sharing promotional images...promotional images that are released to promote the show. We have spent a lot of time on this site, for a long time, so we want it to stay.
 
The tru calling pages on the fox site dosent take long to load...it didn't even take long for me when i had standard dile up on my computer.....well it could for some people but it's not a bad site at all......i like the flash into to it
 
Here's an update on the Spoiler Slayer situation. They've decided to shut the site down. Let this be an example to those sillies who say Fox can't shut down websites.

Tensai from SpoilerSlayer explains how it's done:

The Final Cut


As you may be aware, a few weeks ago I received a letter from the legal representatives of 20th Century Fox, asking that I remove any and all 'Tru Calling' spoilage, as well as any links to other sites that had such spoilage. In addition, I was required to remove any copyrighted-images that linked to 20th Century Fox products (ie: The Amazon banners advertising the DVD sets). Since then, I have not posted an update while I did a great deal of thinking about the site's future. With the request from 20th Century Fox, it was going to be difficult at best to continue.

While at first, it might have seemed that this letter only affected a single show, it has effects that may not have been readily apparent. Although Fox has no issues with the older Buffy and Angel spoilers and news, this does not mean there would be an issue with future series. They know that I am here, they are aware of the site, which means that I'm effectively barred from posting spoilers about any Fox property. This includes shows like the Buffy Cartoon, any Buffy or Angel movie, or any new property that may be introduced ('Wonderfalls', if it was still on, would have fallen into this category).

In addition, without the banner ads and Amazon links, I have no means of paying the operating costs of the site. While they aren't a large amount, I had always managed to keep the expenses covered by the banner ads. While traffic is not an issue at this point at time, if I were to cover any shows in the future that may be as popular as 'Buffy', I would need this income to keep the site alive.

Late this week, I had finally made the decision to retire from the spoiler world. It was difficult, it is not the one that I wanted to make, but when I look at the big picture it was the only option that I had. I do not want to have to constantly be worried about what I am posting, promoting, or spoiling. Take it from one who knows, you don't want to find a two-page letter from the legal representatives of a major media company on your doorstep some Saturday morning.

And certainly not more than once...

This morning, I received a second letter from 20th Century Fox's legal representation. Although they acknowledged the changes that I had made to the site, they requested that I remove the still present 'Tru Calling' spoilers, the copyrighted images that linked to products, and links to other sites that provided spoilers for 'Tru Calling'. Since I had already made extensive modifications to the site, and feel that I have removed any and all offending material, I don't know what this latest request was in reference to.

Since it would take hours of work to comb through the archives of the site, to locate and remove any offending spoilage, links, or product images, I feel that the best choice at this time is to simply remove all the material that the site has ever posted. Although my original intention was to have kept the site up as an archive, this will not guarantee that I will not be getting additional letters in the future. It was painful enough to go through and cut out large portions of the site already, I honestly don't have the energy to do this again.

I apologize the most to the fans of 'Dead Like Me', as the show itself is not a Fox property and should not be affected by this news. However, I have heard that similar action has been taken against sites that featured shows produced by MGM. I don't want to chance it, and I feel that this is the best course of action to protect myself from any legal action. Because of multiple requests for some of the Cafe Press merchandise, and to have the old links to Amazon itself (without the copyrighted images), I am leaving a link to both Cafe Press and Amazon.
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http://spoilerslayer.com/
 
Hey again guys!

!Chet

I've been around the FOX fandom since way back in early X-Files days...and banners, icons, and wallpapers were never an issue. Screen captures were also never an issue, as long as the FOX watermark was still visibly on the picture. Which is why I didn't think that any of the material on the site was an infringement. But I honored their requests, and the site has been back up for a few months now.

Seems that FOX has "shelved" Tru Calling until 2005 now. No specific month, or date has been given. Seems to me, that if none of the new shows on FOX fail...Tru may never see the light of day again.

SO...I've posted e-mail, and snail mail addresses on the web site, if everyone could drop them a note and tell them we'd like to see Tru Calling Season 2, that would be great.

Thanks again for all of your support guys. It's greatly appreciated.
 
Thanks for posting that 🙂 I'm going to put that in a new thread as chances are some people might not see it in here, but of course will give you the credit for bringing it to us.
 
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