It's true that there's no practicable way to frame "style theft" as an intellectual property issue that wouldn't have horrifying consequences for independent artist, but that doesn't mean we can't have sympathy for all the artists who've spent their lives perfecting the craft of drawing moist-lipped, glassy-eyed, vaguely oily-looking anime girls in three-quarter profile and now everybody thinks they're a robot.

Last week I received a cease and desist letter, claiming that my F*CK THE LAPD design was in violation of LAPD intellectual property. A few days later my lawyer sent this letter, seen here in its entirety.

"Other purposes" such as training generative AI, printing on t-shirts, etc.

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The James Somerton thing is one of those rare cases where the amount of force applied by a viral video exposee / public shaming is probably the exact amount that was necessary to stop a bad actor from acting badly. However. The aftermath of public violence is often fear. So I would caution people against taking the "live your life in a way that avoids hbomberguy making videos about you" atmosphere too seriously. Remix is ok. Pastiche is ok. Transformative works are ok. Citing sources in a way that isn't perfectly consistent with MLA and APA standards is generally fine. The problem with a vibes-based crime is that there are always going to be grey areas. Somerton went way past the grey and over the line, but don't let the fact that one person did crimes in the shittiest possible way scare you off of crimes entirely. Push the envelope.

Happy Anniversary, Intellectual Property! April 14, 2023

THE TIME HAS COME

i finally finished the parx blinkies!!

this took me like one and a half weeks? mainly cause i forgot that entertainment existed SORRY

(low quality ones below the cut)

(no i cannot control the fact that geoff’s hair and other stuff are blinking. it’s a computer thing, not something i did on purpose lol)

patenting does not equal invention. patenting is the colonization of intellectual property. invention requires the collective efforts of a diverse group of people over time.

The Other Side, Dean Cornell // Sneaking Out of Heaven, Waterparks

Now we see the stupidity inherent in the system (that is modern copyright law.)

software is an objective proof that copyright is fundamentally incompatible with the modern age btw.

paintings, movies, and books never become obsolete. whatever current novel is hot will still be just as readable in decades when it becomes public domain, anyone with the knowhow can make a film projector.

software, on the other hand, specifically videogames, need active ongoing preservation; up to date emulators, storage, etc.

the people who say "um why are you emulating a console that is still on sale" fundamentally don't understand that preservation for games is an active process. if you wait until a console's lifetime is over to start doing this stuff tons of art will be lost, especially nowadays with digital storefronts that can take away your games, starting to make emulators and preserve games as soo as possible is crucial

nintendo's "case" (IANAL, but it's fucking bullshit) against yuzu was, as i understand it, based on the idea that since yuzu needed dumped parts of a real switch's OS, it was infringing on their IP. if we took this seriously and didn't allow bring-your-own-bios emulators until every part of a console's OS is in the public domain, then we might as well give up on emulation, because in decades by the time that's possible, all games will be lost and the tech will be so old that the amount of work to even start an emulator would be monumental

abolish IP.

People on Twitter will see me one bad Winnie the Pooh adaption and start claiming that the Public Domain was a mistake.

Mickey Mouse's entry into the public domain comes with significant caveats. While the Mickey Mouse who appears in Steamboat Willie (and other media published in 1928 or earlier) is free to use, there's established precedent that specific elements of a character which appear exclusively in later works which still fall under copyright may be protected, if sufficiently distinctive.

(This is the basis of, e.g., the infamous "Sherlock Holmes can't respect women" lawsuit: the Doyle estate, which at the time owned only a tiny handful of the latest-written stories, the others having already fallen into the public domain, argued that specific personality traits which Holmes exhibits only in those later stories are sufficiently distinctive as to be the valid subject of an infringement claim.)

With respect to various elements of Mickey's visual design, such as his red shorts and signature gloves, the matter is clear: just don't use those for another few years. However, there's another thing Mickey's public domain iterations don't exhibit: speech.

The present consensus among copyright scholars seems to be that "a character speaking" is not sufficiently distinctive as to qualify for protection, but the vocal characterisation with which Mickey Mouse is famously associated may so qualify. So, if you want to be scrupulously safe, you can have him talk, but not in that exact specific voice.

Which raises a fun question: what voice would you give him? Wrong answers only.

I’ve been thinking about writing this for a couple of days now, debating as to whether I should say anything publicly but I feel I should as nobody seems to talk about this.

Firstly, can I just say how much we (Sophie and I) love you guys. We wouldn’t be making these comics if we didn’t have an audience and we appreciate you enormously. Thank you.

A few days ago someone posted one of our comics to a Facebook group with about a million followers. The credits had been cropped out and we weren’t credited by the poster. In fact, they blocked us so nobody could tag us. One of our followers took a screen shot of it and sent it to us and by then it had gotten over 100k likes and tens of thousands of shares. Far more than ANY of our comics have ever received on our own page. It’s very disheartening and frustrating to see that people like our work but just not when we have our name on it or post it on our own account.

We had the comic taken down (it took 7 attempts with Facebook) and had some other ones taken down on similar pages and groups. After that we had a barrage of angry and abusive messages, comments and emails from the owners of these pages. One of their arguments was, “Don’t you want people to share your comics?”. The answer is yes…and no.

We love when our followers share our content. LOVE IT. It’s brilliant. There’s a share button at the bottom of every post of ours. Please smash that button for all you are worth. It helps us out enormously.

BUT there are a great number of Facebook pages and Instagram accounts that just steal our stuff (and other comics) and post them without permission or credit and then monetise it. You’ve all seen them. They have names like “Daily Funny Comic” or “The Funniest Cat Videos”. Their whole reason for being is stealing other people’s content and then selling stuff in the link at the top of their account. There are groups of people making huge amounts of money doing this.

I’ve had a load of abusive messages from people who run these accounts, accusing me of stopping them from making a living because their page is now under review. A living made solely on the back of exploiting other people’s work. I’d ask you not to follow or subscribe to these pages. It’s a whole industry now, built on monetising other people’s work with nothing paid to the original artists. And before anyone comments saying it’s great exposure, it’s not about exposure. It’s the principle of people’s work being exploited for financial gain with the artist getting nothing.

So for those people running those accounts, I will report it to Facebook. I don’t owe you a living. Everyone else, please feel free to share our comics. We thank you so much for doing so.

Also we have a shop if you’d like a t-shirt or a book. We make everything ourselves. Baby needs shoes.

FISH GRIP!!!!!

but i don't know how

Imagine believing there's anything just about imprisoning someone over fucking video game clips. IP law is such flagrant violence and so fucking counterethical to the natural act of creation.

Remember that if you think ideas and images can be owned, you agree that violations of that ownership deserve the full violence of imperial carcecal systems.