The Serenity T Shirt Debate

nerd4hire

nerd4hire

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Here's the way I understand this.

It begins back in the days pre-movie. Universal had an interesting marketing strategy for Serenity. They didn't really do anything. The Whedon fan community was already in full gear promoting the film with innovative plans and schemes. Universal decided to go with it. They pretty much gave the fans carte blanche to create stuff and promote the film and DVD. They then came forward and boasted on their innovative marketing techniques.

That was then and this is now. The film's out. The DVD is out. Whatever money could be made from both has pretty much been made. Whatever promotion they needed from the fans, they don't need anymore. It's time for the lawyers to take over. It's time to sue the fans.

So there's this guy who's been making this T Shirt with Serenity spelled out in Chinese figures. Recently this happened.

The Demand continues, and includes such stipulations that within 72 hours I must agree to: pay a retroactive $8,750 licensing fee; the permanent closing of my shop; turn over any merchandise referring to the Universal Property; and provide the last 12 months complete sales records... there's more, but that's the gist... oh, except for the threat of federal court and the statutory damages thingy of $150,000 per infringed work... don't want to go leaving that part out.
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http://forums.prospero.com/foxfirefly/messages/?msg=32591.1

The studio side of things was represented by Chud.com as follows.

The problem is that the Browncoats are wrong and Universal is right. This is actually one of the fans vs studio battles where the lines are pretty clear. This store, run by someone with the internet name of 11th Hour, was selling – please note emphasis on selling – items that Universal felt was in violation of their copyright. The more interesting battles are like the one that Fox had against fans of another Whedon property, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when they started getting all pissy about websites devoted to the show. While I believe 11th Hour’s intentions were quite good – to provide cool merch to fellow fans – the actions were wrong. When you sell something that uses someone else’s copyright, you’re pirating, just as much as if you copied the Serenity DVD and sold it on the 6 train.

Many of the Browncoats, who have rallied behind 11th Hour, miss the point, and don’t see the bigger picture. Even ignoring the fact that some schlump working for Universal’s lawyers saw the site and checked it against a list of possible copyright infractions before shooting off a form e-mail and that “Universal” had very little do with this mostly automated process, how is the studio supposed to know that you’re the guy selling Serenity t-shirts with the best of intentions? I have some friends that made a pretty penny selling pirate t-shirts outside of Red Sox games; at least one of them ended up in a jail cell for it. Should he have been able to get out of jail by explaining that he’s really just a big Sox fan? Of course not – even though he was.
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http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=news&id=7901

Personally I think the Chud guy misses the point himself. It's not the studio's right to defend their copyright that's really being disputed here. It's the heavy handedness, and hypocrisy of it all. They encouraged the fans to promote, and made a kind of winking deal with them where they (Universal) created an environment in which stuff could happen like a guy might make and sell T shirts with tenuous connections to the movie. Once they had what they (Universal) wanted, and had taken their bows for this clever marketing strategy, they unleashed their lawyers on the people who did all the work.

Also it isn't just the response. It's the massive, almost insane, over-reaction of it that's getting under people's skins. The guy made a few T Shirts. Send him a contract, and a reasonable bill. They want his business, and his balls. What's the purpose of that? To piss everyone else who used to be on your side? What kind of thought, if any, goes into that?

And here's another thing that pisses me off. Universal couldn't have actually seen the movie. If they had they'd know whose side the Serenity crew would be on in all this.
 
It was already pretty clear to me that nobody at Universal had actually seen the movie.

If they had done then they would have been down on their knees, begging Joss to make at least four sequels! 😉
 
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