9 ms·
Grumpy 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 dis
by iamdave 9y ago
Grumpy 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 agoThat seems...highly subjective but I get your point. It's similar to how my reaction was when everyone lost their minds over the Kylie Jenner Pepsi commercial. I think it was something to the effect of: "You're getting bent out of shape because a company that makes money selling sugar water had a lukewarm message about protest movements? It's PEPSI, not Sesame Street".
- spondyl 9y agoUnless I'm misusing the term, I think this is a good example of the phrase "the optics of a situation".
- iamdave 9y agoYeah I think I'm going to stand by my "It's Pepsi Cola, not Sesame Street". Do the optics look bad? Oh well?? Why is anyone looking for positive optics coming from an advertisement paid for by billionaires featuring the sibling and daughter of millionaires on a commercial that cashes in on the features and 'optics' of a group of people that are one astronomical unit away from being millionaires themselves? It's Pepsi. Not Sesame Street. If you looked at that commercial expecting a message full of deep moral conviction on the state of affairs that exists in the space between the citizenry and the constabulary, you got played, son.
- mikeash 9y agoCoca Cola at least tastes good. I bet Grumpy Cat tastes awful.
- CPLX 9y agoGiven that the most valuable trademark and brand identity in modern history is a mouse it doesn't seem like we've strayed all that far from Eden here.
- iamdave 9y agoHeh. You got me there.
- paulcole 9y ago>we've made it to the point of profiting off of a cat. For looking humorously pissed off by cat standards. We profit off of cow, chickens, etc. because we enjoy sutffing them in our mouths after torturing and slaughtering them.
- icebraining 9y agoCircuses have been profiting from (large) cats for many centuries. Personally, I think the concern with the profit part is abstruse. You can make money from the cat while treating it well, and many harm cats for no gain at all.
- mseebach 9y agoWhat about profiting off a cute drawing of a mouse, specifically Mickey? That's almost 100 years old, so it's not really a case of "having made it to". Feeling despondent about the hollowness of popular culture is exactly one minute younger than popular culture itself. What I'm feeling despondent about is the readiness with which so many people read an agenda of decay into every little thing, when there are so many things to be optimistic about. But that's probably also been going on forever.
- vortico 9y agoThis case isn't really related to the cat. It's a typical infringement case on a drawn graphic of the cat, just like if you drew a logo for your tshirt brand and a a soda company started using it as a logo.
- hashmal 9y agoYou got it backwards, cats own people.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ajross 9y agoActually the more relevant proof in this specific case is that the defendant signed a contract and paid money to use that cat. The copyright angle here was never at issue except as a creative defense. Clearly the coffee company recognized the IP owner and saw value. This was a contract suit.
- lumberingjack 9y agoThese people better not go to a CFA cat show if this upsets them
- nodeflixnchill 9y agoExactly this.
- wnevets 9y agoThey hired a PR firm to make it famous on Reddit. I actively avoid it because of how much effort has been put into monetizing this poor cat.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoArguably little different from any other brand.
- 6nf 9y agoYea but this is a living creature. I don't mind the branding but traveling all over the world is very stressful for animals.
- wnevets 9y agoNot only traveling they were asking money to take pictures and pet it at ny comic con
- jopsen 9y agoConsidering what we do to farm animals by the millions I don't think this cat is an opportunity to argue animal welfare.
- uxp 9y agoWhile I essentially agree, the attitude that millions of living creatures are raised and killed in industry so what does it matter that one cat is stressed doesn't help anyone. Disregarding food waste, farm animals are raised for food and work to produce sustainment for society. At the minimum, their deaths help sustain our lives. This cat wasn't thought of as a monetary gain for the family until only after it became "famous", as the article states. That is when the family started showing it off for entertainment and as revenue. Take this another way, why should the one girl complain I groped her breast on the train when there are thousands of girls being traded for sex across the world and even country? What's one girl got to complain about when others have it worse? There are degrees of things. In this case, they are all wrong. Because A is worse than B doesn't make B better, it just makes A worse than B.
- KON_Air 9y agowhat I find even weirder is people not being turned off the fact that cat is a living genetic dumpster.
- petre 9y agoGenetic dumpster? Evolution is mutation based.
- partycoder 9y agoThis is not a refutation, but I thing it's important to point out that Tardar sauce (aka Grumpy cat) is a cat with dwarfism and an underbite, rather than a disgruntled cat.
- aaron695 9y agoI can't in anyway see how it's different to Micky Mouse? Even is you need a live animal, which I don't see why, there's Miracle Mike as an example (1947). So we have been "LATE STAGE CAPITALISM" for a while.