There’s an old adage in business that says your best advertising is good word-of-mouth. Just imagine if your friendly local plumber was just so good at what he does that the neighbors got together and put up a website in his honor. Not only would the plumber probably be flattered to no end, he’d be absolutely giddy at all the business that would come his way as a result.

So how come it doesn’t work that way in Hollywood? Sure, studios are always looking to generate "buzz" for their next movie or TV series, hoping to push the project to blockbuster proportions. But if that buzz gets too loud, somehow the studios freak out. At least it does if it involves enthusiastic fans building elaborate websites promoting those films or TV shows. Too often, the fans get a nastygram from Dewey, Cheatham & Howe, or other such High Powered Law Firm telling them to "cease and desist" from running their fansite because the fan has run afoul of copyright issues for posting some pics of the stars or sound clips from the episodes, or whatever.

Of course, Hollywood studios (and their corporate brethren, the TV networks) are more like most U.S. corporations than we care to admit and are control freaks by nature-they are scared of anything they can’t have complete power over. They’ve been targeting fansites increasingly over the last few years - usually telling the fan running the site to take down some offending multimedia file or somesuch. Occasionally, they just force fans to shut their sites down.

DEAD LIKE ME fans who relied on SpoilerSlayer.com for their sneak peeks will have to look elsewhere for spoilers regarding MGM’s reapers...

Two recent cases involving scifi series, unfortunately, take the studio crackdown on fansites to a whole new, and troubling, level.

Back in March, the government filed charges against Adam McGaughey, creator of the popular SG1Archive.com website, devoted to the MGM-owned series STARGATE SG-1. The charges, prompted by complaints by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), allege criminal copyright infringement and trafficking in counterfeit services.

I have no idea if McGaughey is guilty or not of the charges against him. But what makes his case so perilous is that the government may have invoked a provision of the USA Patriot Act to obtain financial records from McGaughey’s Internet provider. Congress passed the Patriot Act in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to track down dangerous terrorists - not errant scifi fans. McGaughey has pro bono lawyers on his case, but their expenses are rising. SG1Archive.com has set up a legal defense fund and more information about it and the case are available here.

More recently, Fox complaints against Frank Sewald and his wildly popular SpoilerSlayer site have forced Sewald-who goes by the name Tensai online-to shut his site completely. As its name suggests, the three-year-old SpoilerSlayer began by providing spoilers for the series BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. It also offered spoilers for the show’s spinoff, ANGEL. As those series went off the air, Tensai branched out into spoiling other shows he was a fan of, such as TRU CALLING, WONDERFALLS, and DEAD LIKE ME. Not for the first time, unfortunately, Tensai received a notice from Fox’s legal eagles. The attorney ordered Tensai to remove all of his TRU CALLING spoilers as well as any copyrighted-images that linked to 20th Century Fox products (such as the Amazon.com banners which advertising series DVD sets).

"Late this week, I had finally made the decision to retire from the spoiler world," Tensai posted on his site. "It was difficult, it is not the one that I wanted to make, but when I look at the big picture it was the only option that I had. I do not want to have to constantly be worried about what I am posting, promoting, or spoiling. Take it from one who knows, you don’t want to find a two-page letter from the legal representatives of a major media company on your doorstep some Saturday morning.

"And certainly not more than once..." he added.

Studios have a legitimate place in policing their intellectual property. Bootleg copies (either on DVD or downloadable), for instance, are an example of theft - pure and simple. Studios have every right to make sure unscrupulous folks aren’t stealing them-and their talent-blind.

Occasionally, fansites do cross the line and profit illegally from TV shows and films that rightfully belong to the studios. Most fan site operators, however, are honest and are happy to hew to the spirit of copyright law even if some lawyers may believe they violate an overzealously narrow interpretation of the letter of the law. The SpoilerSlayer case is particularly silly, since the banners which the lawyers demanded Tensai remove actually sell DVDs for Fox. Talk about cutting your nose to spite your face.

Much of the studios’ actions against fansites have been in that cut nose/spite face category - the studios simply being overzealous in applying the letter of the copyright law while ignoring the common sense that most of these sites do little that actually cut into their bottom lines. Where bootlegs and theft are at one end of the intellectual property spectrum, there is another extreme - one which the studios are flying at, at warp speed. That extreme is censorship.

Copyright is important, but the Founding Fathers envisioned copyright to be limited and allow what is called "fair use." Studios are relying on the fact fans like Tensai will, understandably, simply throw in the towel rather than fight a deep-pocketed legal team. In the process, the concept of fair use-and therefore personal expression itself-is being eroded dangerously. In the end, it’s not just scifi fans-but all of society-which will suffer.

Full article here : http://www.mediasharx.com/index.php/columns/3111