8 ms·
Grumpy Cat wins payout in copyright lawsuit
- pavel_lishin 9y agoI vaguely remember reading that Tardar Sauce is a retcon of the cat's real name.
- 6nf 9y agoYup the cat was called Tard
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoI hadn't come across this words before. [ret-kon] noun a subsequent revision of an established story in film, TV, video games, or comics.
- cperciva 9y agoAnd the possibly illuminating etymology: Retroactive Continuity.
- TallGuyShort 9y agoSee also: Backronym (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym). I don't recall the specific context, but I recall learning about the phrase when a tech company had a fairly inappropriate internal acronym for something that ended up appearing in a published chart, and needed to come up with an appropriate explanation for the acronym that differed from what was originally meant.
- slivanes 9y agoGood.
- lxe 9y agoWhen Keyboard Cat became a thing, I tried making some t-shirts on Teespring or something of the sort. Got a cease-and-desist very quickly. That's when I learned that behind the facade of cute internet cats and memes hides the cold reality of copyright law.
- peterburkimsher 9y agoThe cold reality of copyright law is having a chilling effect, causing me to not share content for fear of being sued. Case in point: bilingual songs. all of the italic items are illegal I go to a prayer room in Taiwan, and the musicians there have translated many famous Christian songs into Chinese. I got their lyrics as PDFs and converted those to TXT so I can use it with my http://pingtype.github.io http://pingtype.github.io translator app. They stream their 2-hour sets on YouTube and Facebook. I downloaded those and cut out the MP3s. I want to combine the audio with the lyrics to make lyrics videos to put on YouTube (I already made some, actually, and a few more that I didn't upload). I got the lyrics from someone in another prayer room in another city, followed by a message saying basically "Oh no! I shouldn't have sent it to you! It's copyright and we don't have the license to share those songs so don't ever share this to anybody!" The reason is that the original English author didn't authorise the translation, so what they're doing is breaking copyright and they're afraid that if they become famous, they'll get caught. I've procrastinated uploading more lyrics to Pingtype because of these issues. Meanwhile I use my personal copy in church, and it's great to sing along with everyone else and learn Chinese while doing so. I tried contacting CCLI to get a license from the original authors of the songs, but they don't operate in Taiwan. I'm seriously considering just posting my painstakingly-clipped MP3s and the lyrics files on some pirate sites and letting the Internet do what it does best.
- dizzystar 9y ago>>> I got the lyrics from someone in another prayer room in another city, followed by a message saying basically "Oh no! I shouldn't have sent it to you! It's copyright and we don't have the license to share those songs so don't ever share this to anybody!" The reason is that the original English author didn't authorise the translation, so what they're doing is breaking copyright and they're afraid that if they become famous, they'll get caught. Covers are compulsory in the United States. The requirement is that you have to pay a certain portion of the profits to the copyright holder.
- peterburkimsher 9y ago
- koolba 9y ago> In 2013 Grenade Beverage, owned by father and son Nick and Paul Sandford, struck a $150,000 deal to market iced coffee beverages with the cat's scowl on its packaging. I want an article on how the cat’s owner convinced someone to license the cats image for $150K, let alone just for one line of beer. That’s insane.
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- darkstar999 9y agoBeer? Coffee. My guess is they thought the cat would take off. The article mentioned that the countersuit was about how the cat was supposed to be a star in a big movie.
- teej 9y agoIt’s not that hard to fathom. Literally tens of millions of people know the name Grumpy Cat. Maybe 1% of that number know about Grenade Beverage.
- mikeash 9y agoIn 2009, I bought a bottle of Barack Obama hot sauce I discovered at the local grocery store, just for the sheer novelty of it. I have no idea if it’s any good, as I never opened it. I keep it as a memento. Grumpy Cat is a big enough phenomenon that they could probably make back the fee just on purchases like that. Let alone people who would actually drink the stuff.
- guelo 9y agoThe verdict seems wrong. You can't copyright a cat. Per the constitution only "works" are copywritable. So you can copyright a photo of the cat. Or in this case a sketch of a cat. But unless the owners of the cat also drew the logo they shouldn't have a copyright claim on it.
- opiweoiper90 9y agoMaybe you missed this on your reading: "Grumpy Cat Limited sued the owners of US coffee company Grenade for exceeding an agreement over the cat's image." And... "In 2013 Grenade Beverage, owned by father and son Nick and Paul Sandford, struck a $150,000 deal to market *iced coffee beverages* with the cat's scowl on its packaging." It wasn't about generic copyright violation, but explicitly violating the agreement "as worded". Grenade signed on to the language willingly, the violated it. Seems pretty cut and dry.
- tedunangst 9y agoDefendants should have hired you.
- vortico 9y agoYes, the drawn graphic of the cat is exactly what the defendent infringed on. See the similarity on page 4 of http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/national/grumpy-cat-complaint/2720/ http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/national/grumpy-c... between the second image and the image used on the coffee.
- Idontknowmyuser 9y agoI feel like this is bullshit. It's very clear that the photo is inspired by the cat, not the photo of the cat. There are many different details between the two images to the point that it is a totally different photo of the cat ( see ear position,left eye ..)
- Guest9812398 9y agoBelow is a better comparison of the two images. https://i.imgur.com/nyD3111.jpg https://i.imgur.com/nyD3111.jpg If the image is the issue, then we're basically not going to allow anyone to draw an illustration of a sad cat any longer, which is absurd. That being said, I imagine the "Grumpy Cat" text is the concern here. If they just used the cat illustration and "Grumppuccino" text they would probably be in the clear (assuming that text wasn't part of the original agreement). The way it's currently presented, it's confusing to consumers and it looks like an official Grumpy Cat product.
- iamdave 9y agoGrumpy Cat Limited I genuinely don't know if I'm impressed or incredibly depressed that the owners of a disgruntled looking cat are turning the facade of a discontented feline into a company. Snarky types would point at this and scream "LATE STAGE CAPITALISM" or some such.... but...it's weird, to me.
- make3 9y agoI understand, but they own the cat, and it has a commercial appeal, the proof being that people sold t-shirts with it's face on it. this is in no way fair use. this is just to regulate proven commercial worth, it's no different then Disney charging to print pictures of their star wars birds with teeth things on t shirts, etc. you find something. you own it. it has commercial appeal that is not against ethical free uses. you make money
- iamdave 9y agoOh no, I don't object to anything you're saying--I literally have no objection on the merits of the lawsuit. It's just...we've made it to the point of profiting off of a cat. For looking humorously pissed off by cat standards. The year she (she? I think?) came to sxsw and I saw the lines of people spilling out onto the street for people to take a selfie with said cat, I was bewildered (and also slightly disgusted, pondering how anxious and probably stressed out/tired the cat must have been to be handled and fondled all day long so her keepers could pocket some coin and notoriety) Maybe I'm just getting old and this sort of thing doesn't impress me; not the target demographic. Not here to rain on the parade, just...the whole phenomenon is something to behold.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoGrumpy Cat arguably has more substance than, say, Coca Cola, which is little more than a brand + sugar + water + CO2. Or that other brand which is little more than "three stripes".
- iamdave 9y ago
- mhb 9y agoYou may also be interested in the Monkey Selfie case: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16228390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16228390
- devoply 9y agoMore likely that someone is going bankrupt than someone is getting paid.
- cobbzilla 9y agoFor those interested in getting in on the game, you should checkout The Handbook [1], it's a must-read. [1] http://liartownusa.tumblr.com/post/152912631875/breed-and-publicize-your-own-congenitally-deformed http://liartownusa.tumblr.com/post/152912631875/breed-and-pu...
- partycoder 9y agoGrumpy cat generates and sustains jobs: photographer, the community manager, agent, advertisers, the t-shirt people, and an army of people working in the various products going from books to calendars, the movie cast... you get it. It also helps people release stress, which improves their immune response. Grumpy cat is a force for good.
- granitosaurus 9y ago> sustains jobs A doubt some one off meme sustains jobs. Also there's something unethical about proffiting of a genetically sick animal. It's a bit of a stretch to call it a force for good. Force for okay, maybe.
- krylon 9y agoHuh. When reading the headline, I thought "Grumpy Cat" was the name of a company, because, you know, cats do not win many law suits. That was actually what made me read the article, because I thought that "Grumpy Cat" was an odd name for a company. It seem a little childish to think that the face of a cat is subject to copyright.
- qbrass 9y agoWell, it is the name of a company. It's just a company holding the rights to the face of the cat. https://www.grumpycats.com/ https://www.grumpycats.com/