What is Digg?Sponsored by wix.com
The Ultimate Flash Website Design Tool view!
wix.com - Design a stunning website in 10 easy steps.
23 Comments
- mattzog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I get that Lucasfilm has to cover it's ass, and I don't begrude them that. But the shirts in question do more good than harm to their brand, in my opinion. I like the new movies (ep 1 was a little weak, but it built to some stuff I liked a lot). And I like the shirts. I get to parade my continuing fandom by wearing a shirt created by an artist I enjoy. Big media needs to embrace remix culture and realize that it builds the communities of fans around their content products, thereby adding volue to the franchise. I wouldn't wear one of the authorized Star Wars shirts because they look like crap. They are for kids. R's shirts help me like Star Wars MORE by associating my (admittedly geeky) personal style with a cultural anchor like Star Wars. I would even say that the shirts in question should be protected as legitimate parody.
Lucasfilm makes it hard for me to love them when they take things like this away. I understand the R has little to no recourse but to take them down. I'm glad I got my Gonk Gonk when I did. - LycoLoco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Big media needs to embrace remix culture"
Quoted for the Truth. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3(it may take a week to deal with all this, but you'll get it. word to that.)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2that is actually a really phenomenal argument. i should have thought of that!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The link in the main story is just to a scan of the letter, here's some context: http://www.dieselsweeties.com/#lucas
- mineralgeneral, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i totally agree with that.
like banksy said: "copyright is for losers" - halokiller27, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2How can lucasfilm dare to sue someone like R.Stevens
- philrenaud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2somwhere, deep down inside,
I know that you meant "alienate" to be a hilarious pun. To you I say kudos, sir. - mattzog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's like Lucas is trying to alienate his fans.
- kilrathi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I love DS. Too bad about this, though.
- Griffin-of-UC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1does anybody have pictures of the actual shirts? I only remember the "chewie is my co-pilot" one.
- bananatree, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I would enjoy seeing this play out nicely for both parties. I saw Lucas on the Colbert Report, and it seemed like he was open for fan interpretations enough to let them use a lot of light-saber battling.
- cobweb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yeah, unfortunately I'm willing to bet that Lucas himself never even saw this C&D. They probably have lawyers who's only job is to do this sort of thing and rarely have communication with the rest of the company.
- PaleBlueDot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think that DS should take the designs down, at least temorarily, so that RStevens can make a personal plea to George Lucas using the above argument. True, he is making money with the designs, but it is a small amount that he uses only to supplement his normal income and to support the continuation of the website. I think the damage caused by alienating his fans, who at the very least are already reluctant to by the crappy "official" merchandise, far outweighs the "loss" caused by DS t'shirts. Star Wars, and other popular icons, both sci-fi and otherwise, develops its own culture. For them to continue being popular well into the future, the powers that be must allow independent development of ideas and merchandise to more deeply connect the icon to it's fans. This means stopping everthing that dubs itself as official, or constitutes as outright theft (such as pirates in theatres with cameras, or pre-release leaks), but allowing a certain latitude for benign enterprises such as DS.
- mattzog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I agree that it isn't Lucas himself that is directly to blame, however MY gut reaction was "***** Lucas!" despite what my highly intelligent brain has to say.
Whether he likes it or not, Lucas IS his company. What some minor legal functionary does reflects on him. I think he is probably a good nerd in person, but the corporate entity that bears his name tends a bit toward the money hungry, draconian side.
Mr. Lucas, how do we rectify this perception? - mattzog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I actually don't believe that copyright is for losers. Artists (like our precious and beloved rstevens himself) deserve to own their work and determine how it is used. The real problem is abuse of the copyright system. Draconian control is, as I understand it, not in keeping with the spirit of the original copyright laws which were meant to protect artists from those that would steal their ideas.
However, the state of copyright (and patent too, for that matter) is pretty royally *****. Dead men don't get royalty checks. - PsiMonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Mattzog makes an excellent argument both in terms of Stevens supporting (indirectly) the work of Lucas and in the fact that Copyright laws have been seriously abused.
These are laws we're talking about however and I have to wonder with a company the size of Lucas Films how much of this cease and desist order is coming directly from the desk of some lawyer without the knowledge of Lucas himself. I'm not suggesting Lucas doesn't know what's going on in his own company, but I wonder if he'd really be informed of every legal letter leaving his business. Especially when at this stage the letter could merely be a scare tactic (as mentioned by someone on the DS Live journal).
So Lucas may not be the bad guy in all this while it is his name on the letterhead. When it comes to alienating fans I'd be more inclined to accuse some anal lawyer at Lucas Films for sending the letter to justify their pay cheque than Lucas himself. - kingnat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0American Fair Use provisions provide parody clauses which these would come under.
Of course, he's right in that it's not worth his time, and he'd lose due to a lack of funding rather than being in the wrong, but in the end it all comes down to the same thing; copyright works, but the system by which it is enforced doesn't help the people it was designed to protect. - yatima2975, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I wonder when RStevens is going to get a C&D letter for this awesome shirt: http://www.dieselsweeties.com/shirts/commie/
(In Soviet Russia, T-shirts sue the Party, sorry) - dakulest, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Granted that the properties used were copyrighted in some sense by Lucasfilm But the money that Mr. Stevens makes from these shirts is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the income of that company. The fact that Lucas has the time and resources to pursue legal action against a struggling artist is further proof of the weight being thrown around. I suppose next he'll be suing the band "Nerf Herder" for using his protected ideas to sell records, right?
- dfurlong, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0While the argument is excellent the fact remains that he was selling the shirts - that is, making money that "should" have been going into Lucasfilm's bank account. Lucas himself doesn't seem to have a problem with people using his creations as long as they aren't getting paid doing it.
- ha3rvey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0DS is an amazing comic. I stayed up until almost 0300 reading back issues the other night/morning.
I just hope I get my "Chewie is my co-pilot" shirt before he actually stops shipping them. Of course, I'd also like about a dozen of his other shirts, too. - mattzog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I meant "value", not "volue". Accursed typing interface! Accursed!
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is 