Sakura con takes down Girugamesh ad parody on youtube?

[trythil]

Should also note that Vic Mignogna developed the commercial for Sakura-Con; as such, it's entirely possible that this is the result of external pressure. The DMCA takedown notices have Sakura-Con's parent organization's name of them, but that's not necessarily a reliable indicator of just who is actually targeting these things.

I would like to hear about that, too.

[trythil]

Another anecdote; maybe it will help to clarify what I mean when I write about aggregates vs. individual departments.

I'm Anime Central's webmaster, so I work with a lot of material that is copyrighted by different parties: MAPS, the Midwest Animation Promotion Society (ACen's parent company), avex group (the m.o.v.e media), and various other organizations (lots of guest photos, anime club art challenges). All material is under the traditional all-rights-reserved copyright.

Let's say someone were to use ACen's CSS and images to create a parody web site. Perhaps also some textual content.

Would I care? No. I can recognize parody when I see it, and sometimes when there is no parody present. Plus I'm rabid on issues like this.

Would someone else in ACen's production department care? Maybe. I can't say what their attitudes on this sort of thing is like.

Would anyone in MAPS care? Almost certainly, especially if some of the avex group content was used. (ACen wants to keep on good terms with avex, and something like that happening might severely damage the relationship.) So I could see takedown coming into play there, as nasty as it is.

[BasharOfTheAges]

It's extremely chilling coming from a con - a place where fan art, fan parodies, AMVs, fan fiction, and cosplay all directly go against strict IP laws. It's all parody. If we can't trust convention operators to respect that aspect of remix culture agnostic of how they feel about the content, then they are as much of an enemy as the rest of Big Content and should not be supported in any way.

What makes you think Sakura-Con (i.e. the aggregate of everyone working for it) cares about remix culture in the first place? Is there evidence that stuff like AMVs represents a bigger boon to the con than a liability -- the sort of thing that people would think of and go "hey, oh wait, we attract these people who really like to remix things, we'd better not piss them off"?

AMVs are a tiny fraction of the IP infringing activities that cons perpetuate and sponsor. Take a step back and read the rest of what you quoted there. The medium isn't important. Take fan art (something Otakon made a big stnk over a while back), fanfiction (i don't have to go into examples on this, do I?), and cosplay (something mangaka from Japan made quite a big stink about 4 or 5 years ago in some very public international competitions). It's all IP-infringing and a the boon of any con. Attendees that participate in these tasks represent a majority of convention goers at most cons.

Parody and criticism are protected speech (hell, even hate-speech is protected in this country) and any efforts to censor it by subverting the DMCA process is slimy, underhanded, and, in this case, hypocritical thing to do.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Even further - the aforementioned activities are not only done by a majority of con-goers, but also represent the majority of programming at cons. The cons themselves are contributing to and sponsoring these activities. Their attendance base, and by direct association their very operating budgets, are tied to IP infringing activities, yet they're pouring fuel on the fire by becoming involved because someone hurt their feelings.

[outlawed]

Comments posted anonymously at the creator's LJ ( http://littlekuriboh.livejournal.com/97708.html ) claim this was brought about after it got linked on the official sakura con forums.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Comments posted anonymously at the creator's LJ ( http://littlekuriboh.livejournal.com/97708.html ) claim this was brought about after it got linked on the official sakura con forums.

While interesting it's patently irrelevant. Harassment is not even a valid reason to send a DMCA take-down notice. Youtube has anti-harassment policies in place to deal with that kind of thing - those are the channels that should be gone through, not DMCA provisions.

[Pwolf]

I think if they had left out the clip of Vic talking and it was still taken down, I would have more of a problem with it. To me, it would be like someone re-editing one of my videos and putting my name on it. That doesn't necessarily mean I can be all "take it down now!" (i don't have that right, i don't own anything other then my name). But in this case, Sakura-con and it's parent companies own the copyright to that clip of Vic talking and the Sakyra-con name being used, so therefor they wouldn't want anyone else creating content that "represents" them without their consent.

You also have to remember that Sakura-con is marketed as an event for the entire family so if little tommy is on his computer and comes across it while mommy and daddy are there, they will assume this parody was sanctioned by Sakura-con. Based on what is "advertised" in the parody, I wouldn't take my child there (I'm also smart enough to NEVER take my child to a con in the first place ). DMCA notice? i think that is/was too far, but not completely unwarranted. Filing a harassment claim through the tube? a better approach considering the con doesn't condone remix content outright (AMVs, Cosplay, ect...). i think this situation is looking bad for Sakura-con in the eyes of the remix crowd.


Pwolf

[Pwolf]

I forgot about a comment Outlawed posted in another thread:

a lot of it is the context being used
some we are finding funny, and have just been going after the ones that involve derogatory terms and hateful content

Sakura con is a shitty place to go for anime fans and I recommend no one give them business.

I just typed a sentence of inane BS with no justifications and I will state that I have never been to Sakura con. Are you going to take this forum post as a serious threat and request it be deleted because it may be paint Sakura con in a bad light?

While I can understand wishing to control intellectual property I cannot condone take down actions of parodies if your sole operating premise is roughly "we didn't like what they said"

I think there is clear difference between saying something derogatory and hateful about Sakura-con (what you said) and saying something derogatory and hateful about Sakura-con while also stating that the comment was said by (lets say) the Con Chair.

The later example, which the parody is essentially doing to a degree, could be considered slander/libel (or fraud) which is against the law. I'm not a lawyer though so don't take my word on that.

Pwolf

[trythil]

I think if they had left out the clip of Vic talking and it was still taken down, I would have more of a problem with it.

There was an edited version called "1!!!HSEMAGOORHUG", which had all references to Sakura-Con removed. (Not sure if it also removed Vic.) It was also taken down by ANCEA.

[Pwolf]

I think if they had left out the clip of Vic talking and it was still taken down, I would have more of a problem with it.

There was an edited version called "1!!!HSEMAGOORHUG", which had all references to Sakura-Con removed. (Not sure if it also removed Vic.) It was also taken down by ANCEA.

In that case, it's unwarranted. although, I wonder also if thats something on the tube's end. Their software compared the cut version to the one that was taken down and it automatically flagged it for take down.


Pwolf