(no subject)

[odditycollector]

Thanks to vagabond_sal...

mightygodking was recently banned from LJ for copyright violation.

You know mightygodking. You do. He's the mind behind the improved_archie comm, and that absolutely brilliant re-lettering of the Civil War mini. (You remember, the one that you wished was carried in stores in place of the original.)

mightygodking is a credit to fandom. He is a skilled and accomplished parodist (to my eternal envy), and parody is, of course, a legally valid form of interrogating the text.

Unless you are on LJ, and then it seems to be a bannable offense.

 
As vagabond_sal says:

It seems to me like this is a pretty clear case of LJ saying that they won't recognize the validity of transformative interpretations of texts, which—that's what fandom is all about, no? That's how we keep the fuzz off our backs. Is it just me, or does anybody else see this as a declaration that fandom doesn't have a friend in LJ/SA?

...I think that this is something that fandom needs to talk about--it's no longer a question about us being moral/immoral, it's about fandom not being wanted on LJ, full stop, and I think we as a community need to talk about this before things degrade any further.

 
He's not wrong, guys.

 

Comments

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

I'm reposting basically the same comment I've left in several other places...

In my opinion, this is a wild misinterpretation of what's actually happened. Yes, this *is* a case of a company abusing the rules in order to get certain content kicked off the net-- but it's not Livejournal doing it. This is *not* Livejournal making any kind of declaration about transformative texts, fanfic, fans or fandom.

Google something like "DMCA takedown notice" abuse and you'll find dozens of examples of companies (like Scholastic) sending using DMCA takedown notices to threaten sites like Livejournal or Youtube into removing content they don't like, or for even more frivolous reasons (http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/11/sweet_sweet_copyright_law/).

Here's an article which features an explanation of "safe harbor," which is the relevant factor in the case of Livejournal having *no choice* but to suspend mightygodking's account. Scroll down a bit for a short history of safe harbor abuse. (http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2006/12/10/crook-copyright-dmca-bailey/) This article also cites a study claiming that up to 30% of DMCA takedown notices (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/24/133226) are eventually deemed baseless or illegal. This doesn't stop them from being *effective*, however. This article does more to explain (http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:08-6Rq61MEwJ:static.chillingeffects.org/Urban-Quilter-512-summary.pdf) livejournal's response to DMCA takedown notices.

Finally, see this thread (http://astolat.livejournal.com/156326.html?thread=3092646&style=mine#t3092646) for an actual lawyer's opinion.

[votemarvel.livejournal.com]

While I appreciate the effort put into creating the parodies, they never struck me as funny because to me they were little more than a bunch of disjoined words that tried to extract the maximum humour from each panel, rather than an attempt to create a cohesive story parody.

However whether I found them good or not is not the point. Comic companies tolerate fanfiction because it does not directly act as competition but I believe that mightygodking was likely acted against because he was using the actual pages from the Civil War comics, he was essentially creating his own version of the Civil War stories using elements (in this case the art), taken directly from Marvel.

Had he used his own original artwork to create the parody, I doubt he would have gotten taken down for copyright infringement.

[red-eft.livejournal.com]

It wasn't Marvel. It was Archie Comics and Scholastic. In the former case, he used only the covers, and later he recreated the covers in photoshop but frankly I think because the cover is such a small portion of the work it would be fair use anyway, and in the latter case he didn't quote the book- it was his own words.

[votemarvel.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I must have misread the original post, I apoligise, I thought it was both.

But you mention the problem yourself, he used original covers and then made recreations in photoshop.

Not originals but recreations, even Marvel got into trouble for "recreating" a picture of the King of Spain for a Magneto one during House of M.

Don't Lose Hope

[murnshaw.livejournal.com]

Google still has the page cached and I just saved a copy of it, so all hope's not lost yet. The link is here:

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:BeTjsADBGRIJ:mightygodking.livejournal.com/345287.html+http://mightygodking.livejournal.com/345287.html%23cutid1&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us

I plan on posting it on my blog when I get home tonight. Let's all do the same.

:-)

[baked-goldfish.livejournal.com]

I thought he'd gotten TOS'd due to the fact that he was using the carpetbook for his review, which meant he was openly talking about having a leaked copy of the book, and may have used filesharing services to get it. LJ/6A has shitty customer service, but they're not dumb. They could likely tell that the whole "hobo stole mah book" thing was basically him going "Nyah nyah, I have carpetbook, you can't do anything about it losers." Unfortunately for him, they did something about it.

I mean, if LJ is letting underage Snarry dubcon (http://ari-o.livejournal.com/305551.html) remain, I'm willing to bet there was some other reason for taking down his review.

[/devil's advocate]

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

This is what a bad Flistie I've been being - I just found out about mightygodking getting suspended. :(

Anybody have any contact information for him?

[odditycollector.livejournal.com]

I've got his new url around somewhere... *looks*

Ah, mightygodking.com. That was a tough one. And he does have a lj feed as well.

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Brill. Thanks much.