Artist threatens lawsuit against mathowie, poster of image May 20, 2006 7:21 AM   Subscribe

This re-purposed graphic was posted in this thread. Original graphic here. The original artist threatened both the poster and Matt with legal action, and threatened to harass Matt via advertisers on MeFi. Matt pulled the image. Poster discusses on Metachat, and his blog.
posted by theora55 to Etiquette/Policy at 7:21 AM (32 comments total)

Matt, might be time to incorporate or otherwise protect yourself from liability. There's a lot of suit-happy jerks with lawyers. They might not win, but even fighting a lawsuit is expensive, and defensive editing probably isn't a Good Thing.
posted by theora55 at 7:22 AM on May 20, 2006


(read the footer, I'm an LLC and I have a lawyer I just didn't have time for this guy's nonsense)
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:31 AM on May 20, 2006


This is fascinating, and I would have missed it without the MeTa thread. Thanks, theora55 for bringing this up.
posted by arcticwoman at 7:31 AM on May 20, 2006


What an idiot. On his main page
The photos and copy on this web site are copyrighted material and are owned by Brett Noel. Any unauthorized use of these photos and copy without written permission, will be punishable in a court of law.

But right above that:
Feel free to share my work with friends!
posted by tiamat at 7:34 AM on May 20, 2006


Thanks theora55--I woulda missed it otherwise.

Wow, what an ignorant dick Bret Noel is.
posted by dobbs at 7:36 AM on May 20, 2006


Oy. Poor form, Mr. Noel.
posted by cortex at 7:42 AM on May 20, 2006


Complain here. This is the comment form for the 'paper' that publishes his comics.

I used my real name and phone number to let them know that they look silly by association when their artist goes around making baseless legal claims. I'd imagine 20 comments like that and they'll take notice.
posted by tiamat at 7:44 AM on May 20, 2006


I'd imagine 20 comments like that and they'll take notice.

Yes, one of their columnists will probably write a piece about how a liberal cabal tried to steal Noel's work under the communistic cover of "fair use."
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 7:51 AM on May 20, 2006


Congress really needs to incorporate a harassment/baseless threat counterclaim into the copyright laws.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 7:53 AM on May 20, 2006


Hey, that means he was reading the thread where we made fun of him. Haha! Take that, Noel!
posted by graventy at 8:00 AM on May 20, 2006


That's great; we're all for fair use and free speech unless someone sends an "oh I'll sue you" email, then we just surrender. Sasnak, thanks for standing your ground. He'll huff and puff and maybe even send you a cease-and-desist on mimeographed letterhead, but nothing will come of it, because he's totally full of shit.

Brett Noel, you are a coward. I'm sure you were one of the people who fumed about John Edwards being a lawyer - and a fancy city trial lawyer at that! - and here you are, running to big daddy government, and planning on clogging the courts with another baseless suit. Let's also not forget that you traced copyrighted work - without modifying it in any way other than adding your own brand of mediocre line work- and posted it on your website. Hypocrite.


posted by Optimus Chyme at 8:43 AM on May 20, 2006



posted by quonsar at 9:11 AM on May 20, 2006

The original artist threatened both the poster and Matt with legal action...
Somewhere real artists are weeping.
posted by substrate at 10:44 AM on May 20, 2006


huh, good luck to Mr. Mansfield
posted by edgeways at 10:46 AM on May 20, 2006


I may be ignorant of the law but I think people are a little overconfident about this whole "fair use" thing. Can I change one pixel and call it parody? What good is copyright law if fair use is so broadly defined?
posted by scarabic at 11:11 AM on May 20, 2006


scarabic, if the pixels you change end up changing the meaning into clear comedy that couldn't be mistaken for the original, and the person that made it says "parody" right below the image, you're much more in the clear than your example.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:13 AM on May 20, 2006


If sasnak photoshopped cielingcat with Rush and Rusty Bottoms, this would'nt have happened.
posted by Smart Dalek at 12:17 PM on May 20, 2006


Interesting appeals court ruling from May 9th -- Fair use strengthened in court decision.
posted by ericb at 12:46 PM on May 20, 2006


I wonder if there is a parallel to be drawn between this guy wanting to protect his conservative comics like Rush and Bush from being made into mocking images and "Islamofacists" and how "they can't take a joke in the form of a single comic featuring their god".
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:25 PM on May 20, 2006


Cielingcat!
posted by Mid at 1:32 PM on May 20, 2006


I wonder if there is a parallel to be drawn between this guy wanting to protect his conservative comics like Rush and Bush from being made into mocking images and "Islamofacists" and how "they can't take a joke in the form of a single comic featuring their god".

Burrrrn.
posted by Ryvar at 3:33 PM on May 20, 2006


I wonder if the poster would have more of a fair use leg to stand on if he didn't leave the original website at the bottom and instead changed it to 'ihatepatriotart' or something like that...because as it sits a reasonable person could believe that this game from that website as the URL is part of the image.
posted by nadawi at 4:40 PM on May 20, 2006


Heh. Kinda' gets one thinking about playing a new game posting parodies of this guy's schlock all over the webs...not that I would ever play games on the internets or anything like that.
posted by taosbat at 5:10 PM on May 20, 2006


nadawi...he changed it to patriotfart
posted by Joseph Gurl at 6:05 PM on May 20, 2006


Duh, Matt, I haven't been paying attention, and didn't see the LLC. I hate that jackasses can affect content, albeit an image, though I can see why you don't want the hassle.
posted by theora55 at 6:13 PM on May 20, 2006


Joseph~

You know, these eyes of mine are getting worse and worse. I knew I should have downloaded it and zoomed.

Well, then, Fair Use away!
posted by nadawi at 8:21 PM on May 20, 2006


clear comedy that couldn't be mistaken for the original

As theora55 put it, the graphic was "repurposed," given new text and a new meaning. It seems possible someone could mistake it for an original work. I realize it was posted in a thread that had links to the original, but if someone posts it elsewhere, out of that context, is it less protected as parody?
posted by scarabic at 9:05 PM on May 20, 2006


scarabic, his original comment said the word "parody" in a sentence describing it below the picture. I think it was pretty clear as day.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:41 PM on May 20, 2006


Huh, I thought the "no more oxys for you" was the original image.

The guy was simply complaining about a link to a modified image file, hosted on another site?

I think it's very unlikely that he would have prevailed in a court case, although it would still have been a big pain in the ass for matt.
posted by delmoi at 12:15 AM on May 21, 2006


The guy was simply complaining about a link to a modified image file, hosted on another site?

No, read his emails. He's complaining about his stolen, defaced work hosted on another server.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:05 AM on May 21, 2006


Any defacement of this idiot's 'art' would be a fucking improvement.
posted by trondant at 8:34 AM on May 21, 2006


What an idiot. On his main page
The photos and copy on this web site are copyrighted material and are owned by Brett Noel. Any unauthorized use of these photos and copy without written permission, will be punishable in a court of law.

But right above that:
Feel free to share my work with friends!


I don't see how that makes him an idiot. He is authorizing you to share it with friends. Any unauthorized use (i.e. anything EXCEPT sharing it with friends) is not okay with him. What's the dilemma, Emma?

You might try to make the case that posting it on MetaFilter is "sharing it with friends," but unfortunately MetaFilter doesn't have any features that let you restrict viewing of your posts to only those people you have designated as your friends. So that doesn't really hold water.

(And this has nothing to do with "fair use," which does not involve creating derivative works but rather has to do with reproducing portions of copyrighted material for education, comment, or cricitism, as in a book review or a scholarly article. Parody is entirely separate from fair use, and it means more than just something funny.)
posted by kindall at 7:22 PM on May 21, 2006


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