Buffy The Vampire Slayer

[Have some experience in this field - since I managed copyrights and trademarks for a publishing company for 6 years]

If they have problems with images or something, why do they have to shut down the whole fanfic part? (see http://pub165.ezboard.com/ftheducksversefrm1.showMessage?topicID=4293.topic)

Actually that’s not what the letter requested. The letter told the person in charge of the website to remove the graphics - the buttons, links to copyrighted images, and photographs. It did not tell h/ir to shut down the fanfic site. The owner stated they didn’t have the time or knowledge to sift through all the information and it was just easier to shut down the fanfic website itself. So the decision to shut down the fanfic site was the owner’s decision not something the lawyers ordered them to do. ALL they asked was that the owner remove images and graphics that Fox owned. Insert a disclaimer on fanfic - that all fanfic was not authorized by Fox. Kill links to sites that promoted materials that infringed on Fox’s copyrights. And make it clear that nothing on the site was officially associated with Fox or it’s TV shows. No where in the letter did they mention shutting down the site or removing fanfic.

Fox actually is being very nice - considering how many websites do get away with manipulating images. Also Under strict copyright law - none of the fanfic is legal. You are using names and characters that someone has spent a great deal of time and effort registering under trademark law. To use these characters in a story - is a violation of copyright law. That’s why no one can publish fanfic in print - ie. outside the internet and sell it in a bookstore. While the names in of themselves aren’t copyrighted - the names as descriptions of these particular characters and Whedon’s world are. BTW - Whedon doesn’t own these characters, nor does ME, Fox does.

What fans forget is the shows are first and foremost a business. To Fox - Angel and BTVS are intellectual property - or another way of looking at it - they are equivalent to a possession of yours that you would want to sell or would hope to make money off of. When someone takes photos, images, buttons, creates their own stationary, they begin to chip away at that possession’s value - it’s a bit like someone chipping away at a piece of china or say you have a collector’s edition poster - no one else has? If someone scans it into the internet and makes copies - it’s no longer one of a kind. It’s a bit like that.

As a fan - you may think you have the right to recreate images from the show - after all aren’t you selling it by doing so ?? And in a way you are - but there are times when your efforts actually hurt the show. Some sites create images to belittle the characters, depict the show in a negative light, or persuade people to not buy products or even not to watch the show (spoilers often do this) - Fox’s attorney’s may be trained to evaluate these sites to determine if what they are doing is hurting the continued value of Ats and BTVS as property.

The internet is a hard thing to police. And all in all, I think the copyright attorneys with Fox are fairly lenient. And there are loop-holes - for instance the information on these boards is fine - it doesn’t stay up that long, it’s just fun, it furthers the show. Also anything quoted in scholarly essays is fine - that fits under the education clause in copyright law. Fanfic? Gray area. Not really permissible under copyright law, but you’d have to be nuts not to allow it - a)too widespread to possibly shut down, b)it does help increase interest in the show (free advertising). So I think they’ve backed off of that (as I noticed in the letter). Images? That’s touchier - b/c you are dealing with lots of owners there : actors, photographers, cinematographers, networks, etc. For instance did you know that if you have a professional take your family’s photo, you can’t take that photo to another studio for 10 years and get copies or changes, you have to go back to that photographer and have him do it or get his permission? Why? He took the photograph, did the brush work, and owns the copyright. Photographic images are akin to someone doing a painting - the artist owns it. And believe me it is "very" hard to get rights to images. I used to do it for a living - and it was impossible, images are well protected.

The weird thing is - why hasn’t Fox gone after more websites? So many have images.

Well, the Ducks did something no one else does - they put out a huge ad in Hollywood Reporter using a doctored image of Buffy and Angel - which they may not have gotten the rights to, and that was taken from the series, and below that picture they put their website. They also suggested in the ad that they did not like the direction the series was going.

If you are doing an ad to thank actors or for the show, I suggest you clear the rights for the picture you plan to use first. (Now the Ducks may have done this, I don’t know, but if they didn’t - my hunch is that is what caused Fox’s attorneys to check them out.) Also be careful about the web site you put under the ad. You must have permission for anything you place on a website, magazine, or newspaper which is "not" your own personal work or does not fit within the educational fair use clause. Otherwise you could get a nasty letter from the owner of the work.

Hope that made sense and clarifies a few things.