how dare you be creative!!!
how dare you make the things that people love!!!
So it seems that the company that now owns Theodor Geisel’s, Dr Seuss’, copyrights is suing a naughty group of creators for infringement!
Connecticut-based ComicMix has been sued for trying to sell a book called Oh, The Places You’ll Boldly Go!, which was proposed on Kickstarter as a “mash-up” of Dr. Seuss and Star Trek. The lawsuit raises the question of what kind of “fan fiction” may be legally allowed in a world that’s embracing “remix” culture.
The plaintiff in the case is Dr. Seuss Enterprises, or DSE, which owns the copyrights and trademarks related to Theodor Geisel, the author and illustrator who wrote children’s books under the Dr. Seuss pseudonym, including one called Oh, The Places You’ll Go!
ComicMix and the project’s creators, Glenn Hauman, David Friedman, and Ty Templeton, raised tens of thousands of dollars on Kickstarter before they were hit with an intellectual property complaint from DSE. At that point, the Kickstarter page was taken down.
Source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/dr-seuss-creator-sues-over-star-trek-mashup-book/
How dare they create new content based on old content! Sad!
If you go take a look at their preview illustrations they are remarkably similar to illustrations in Dr Seuss’ work. Not that that matters much. But it is easy to see how somebody would get upset and see theft instead of parody.
Frankly I find this all very frustrating. I don’t know about you but I’m really not seeing the benefit to the artists of our world to continue to protect decades old work that has made hundreds of millions of dollars.
And now to protect the ability to earn even more… they’re proactively suing other creators… I mean honestly…