That is one hell of a headline. As far as the meat of the article goes, I'm kinda torn because while I think you should have some recompense if somebody takes your trademarked character that you...
That is one hell of a headline.
As far as the meat of the article goes, I'm kinda torn because while I think you should have some recompense if somebody takes your trademarked character that you legally own and literally defames them, it also has MASSIVE implications for putting pictures of things on the internet if only approved pictures are allowed.
The reason it's going to court is about the extent to which Alex Jones can profit off of Matt Furie's (Pepe's creator) work without compensating him. Most memes are never monetized and fall easily...
The reason it's going to court is about the extent to which Alex Jones can profit off of Matt Furie's (Pepe's creator) work without compensating him. Most memes are never monetized and fall easily and safely under existing fair use laws.
Aren’t memes monetizable today, though? Know Your Meme and Meme Generator are sites dedicated to memes, with potential profit off of an ad model. Reddit, if it could get its own shit together,...
Aren’t memes monetizable today, though? Know Your Meme and Meme Generator are sites dedicated to memes, with potential profit off of an ad model.
Reddit, if it could get its own shit together, would probably make the most revenue/views off of memes. Even Grumpy Cat’s owner made thousands of dollars off the likeness of their pet.
Copyright law has been ruined by Disney, so I’m very conflicted by the desire to protect original artist’s work, but I don’t think this is a headline due to the Internet’s need to make meme-money, but rather due to Alex Jones’s VERY polarizing figure.
Both Know Your Meme and Meme Generator monetize memes in the aggregate, rather than from a specific image and don't gain revenues directly because of the image but by providing either context or...
Both Know Your Meme and Meme Generator monetize memes in the aggregate, rather than from a specific image and don't gain revenues directly because of the image but by providing either context or easy graphical customization. Grumpy cat was monetized by its owner, not by a third party.
What about the thousands of sites that sell tshirts and other merchandise based on other people's content? There are plenty of small sketchy sites that rip images to create that stuff to sell....
What about the thousands of sites that sell tshirts and other merchandise based on other people's content? There are plenty of small sketchy sites that rip images to create that stuff to sell. None of it goes back to the original creator, and without the creators' works there'd be nothing for those sites to sell. Plenty of them overcharge and place timers everywhere to make people think it's a one-time-only limited item, even though if you wait for the timer to run out it just resets.
Yep, those are breaking the law, and mostly artists throw up their hands and don't fight it because the effort to defend their copyright is nearly pointless in those cases. Many of the sites are...
Yep, those are breaking the law, and mostly artists throw up their hands and don't fight it because the effort to defend their copyright is nearly pointless in those cases. Many of the sites are located outside the US, and even if there was any international agreement between the artist's country of origin and the country the company owning that website is based in, the amount of money recouped from legal action would never replace the time spent fighting it. And even if legal action is successful, actually claiming the money can be challenging. All in all it pays better to make something new and sell it for as long as you can before it's knocked off, and then make something else. That also builds an audience (and with it potential larger payoffs in the future) in a way that fighting with foreign companies over copyright claims won't do.
This is why Matt Furie is only bringing a suit now. He felt helpless to do much about it for years, and is notably only targeting domestic violators of his copyright, which is a much more manageable thing.
That is one hell of a headline.
As far as the meat of the article goes, I'm kinda torn because while I think you should have some recompense if somebody takes your trademarked character that you legally own and literally defames them, it also has MASSIVE implications for putting pictures of things on the internet if only approved pictures are allowed.
The reason it's going to court is about the extent to which Alex Jones can profit off of Matt Furie's (Pepe's creator) work without compensating him. Most memes are never monetized and fall easily and safely under existing fair use laws.
Aren’t memes monetizable today, though? Know Your Meme and Meme Generator are sites dedicated to memes, with potential profit off of an ad model.
Reddit, if it could get its own shit together, would probably make the most revenue/views off of memes. Even Grumpy Cat’s owner made thousands of dollars off the likeness of their pet.
Copyright law has been ruined by Disney, so I’m very conflicted by the desire to protect original artist’s work, but I don’t think this is a headline due to the Internet’s need to make meme-money, but rather due to Alex Jones’s VERY polarizing figure.
Both Know Your Meme and Meme Generator monetize memes in the aggregate, rather than from a specific image and don't gain revenues directly because of the image but by providing either context or easy graphical customization. Grumpy cat was monetized by its owner, not by a third party.
What about the thousands of sites that sell tshirts and other merchandise based on other people's content? There are plenty of small sketchy sites that rip images to create that stuff to sell. None of it goes back to the original creator, and without the creators' works there'd be nothing for those sites to sell. Plenty of them overcharge and place timers everywhere to make people think it's a one-time-only limited item, even though if you wait for the timer to run out it just resets.
Yep, those are breaking the law, and mostly artists throw up their hands and don't fight it because the effort to defend their copyright is nearly pointless in those cases. Many of the sites are located outside the US, and even if there was any international agreement between the artist's country of origin and the country the company owning that website is based in, the amount of money recouped from legal action would never replace the time spent fighting it. And even if legal action is successful, actually claiming the money can be challenging. All in all it pays better to make something new and sell it for as long as you can before it's knocked off, and then make something else. That also builds an audience (and with it potential larger payoffs in the future) in a way that fighting with foreign companies over copyright claims won't do.
This is why Matt Furie is only bringing a suit now. He felt helpless to do much about it for years, and is notably only targeting domestic violators of his copyright, which is a much more manageable thing.