Lucasfilm loses appeal in U.K. over helmets

Lucasfilm had one of those up and down days in the UK courts. 

They lost their appeal of a prior rejection in the UK courts against Andrew Ainsworth and his stormtrooper helmet replicas.  In short, the stormtrooper helmets were considered to be utilitarian and not artistic (since they were used as a costume for a movie), so the “antiquated” UK copyright laws did not apply.

But, on the upside, Bloomberg says that this has established that companies can sue to enforce copyrights held in other countries. Corporate lawyers everywhere rejoice.

Today’s awful thing: The ‘sexy’ Chewbacca costume

George Lucas gonna sue somebody!

It’s a known fact that Halloween brings a brigade of cheap, ill thought out, hilariously ‘sexy’ character costumes for ladies. (News? Learn from Cleolinda, my friend.) Previously, we hoped that maybe it couldn’t get much worse than Sexy Optimus Prime.

We were wrong. Behold: The Sexy Chewbacca. Yandy.com calls it the ‘Sci-Fi Furry Costume,’ like that’s any better. I don’t think it’s quite enough to not get their nearly-bare butts sued… (It saddens me that I know this – thanks, Internet! – but that girl is showing far too much skin to be an actual furry.)

Also in the offering is a ‘Sci-Fi Commander’ and ‘White Soldier,’ but been there, done that.

On the other hand… At least it’s not yet another slave Leia? (via)

Lucasfilm C&Ds makers of ‘real lightsaber’

It BURNS FLESH. No thanks.The makers don’t call it a lightsaber (though the internet certainly does) but the Spyder III Arctic laser certainly looks like one, and that’s prompted Lucasfilm to send the Hong Kong company Wicked Lasers a cease and desist.

I’m no lawyer, but the appearance of the laser is pretty blatantly inspired by its fictional forbearer. And anything that might keep “the most dangerous laser ever created” out of the hands of stupid geeks is fine by me.

Does Stephenie Meyer have to cut a bitch?

THIS IS NOT OKAY. (And the photoshoping is bad, too.)Twilight fans, I’m sorry, but it’s becoming clearer and clearer that there is a deep vein of crazy running through your fandom. Hot on the heels of LadySybilla and her unending spiral of batshit, you now have a second person trying to sell their Twilight fan fiction – and this one is on Amazon.

Seriously guys, when your creator has a history of pitching fits in the style of a 16-year-old BNF who’s not getting enough reviews? It’s probably not wise to gleefully infringe on her copyright. One can be written off as just a random nutter, but two? That’s stupid crazy. Meyer has money, she has lawyers, and I don’t doubt that they will cut you – and maybe everyone else who’s doing their Twilight fan fiction without asking money for it as well.

Herbert estate puts the kibosh on Dune RPers

dunerpDune roleplayers in the virtual community of Second Life were taken aback when they received a takedown notice from the literary agency that maintains the Herbert Estate. The Dune RPG is rather small – just 130 members – and no one questions that the Herbert Estate has the right, but the move seems needlessly defensive – and completely clueless.

Hat tip to Boing Boing for the find, as well as this gem from their comment section, which puts it all in perspective…

Well it would be horrible for any fan activities to undermine the dignity of the Dune legacy. Isn’t Vacuum Cleaner Lint of Dune coming out next year?

Well, I doubt it has anything to do with dignity, given who they have (co-)writing the things…

Twilight infringer backs off, sort of

With fandom buzzing and several professionals weighing in, Lady Sybilla and her ‘publisher,’ AV Paranormal, are backing off on selling her Twilight fanfic, Russet Noon. But she’s not going to take it laying down!

Swarming with self-righteous judgments and slander galore, some of these postings have gone as far as to threaten Lady Sybilla and her team with everything from boycotting the novel, reporting it to web administrators, and even stalking the addresses listed under Whois registrar entries.

Slander is a term used for defamatory speech. The term she’s actually looking for is libel. But wait, there’s more:

Blown out of proportion falls short of describing the overzealous crusade that has given these teens “a common enemy,” as one of them has called it. Some of these volunteer soldiers are so militant about their cause, that eBay buyers appear to have been contacted one by one in an attempt to persuade them to request refunds on their Russet Noon preorders.

Now we all know that sometimes fandom will get a bit… overzealous in reaction to people trying to publish fan fiction of copyrighted works. Some of it might even qualify as libel, though most of what I’ve seen is simple boggling at her ignorance. But that is the absolute most minor reason not to do it. In short? Lady, if you don’t want people saying mean things about you when you do something stupid on the internet, maybe you should stop fanning the flames.

A recent theory, however, could mean her behavior isn’t born out of arrogance and ignorance, but instead something even less savory. Could Lady Sybilla have manufactured this situation simply to get more views on her site and cash via Amazon affiliate links? If so, she wouldn’t be first in fandom to attempt to (fandom_)wank her way to profit, but perhaps the most successful to date…

Once again, a huge tip of the hat to Caito and the folks at Fandom Wank.

You still can’t sell your fanfic: Twilight edition

I hate to make two Twilight posts in a week, but now it seems the fandom has their own Lori Jareo wannabe in the form of LadySybill, who’s written Russet Noon, a post-Breaking Dawn story about Bella’s other love interest, Jacob Black. Nothing surprising about that as a fanfic: But she’s calling it a “tribute novel” and was directing readers to… eBay? And it seems she thinks she can get away with it because… Stephenie Meyer didn’t draw pictures of her characters:

The characters in SM’s novels were not copyrighted because she never drew them or hired an artist to draw them. Today she shares her character copyrights with Summit. And, no, Russet Noon does not have direct permission from SM to publish this sequel, which is why the article says that it is a “Tribute” or “Unauthorized” Sequel.

And here’s what her ‘publisher’ has to say:

When fictional characters become such an intricate part of the popular psyche, as is the case with the Twilight Saga, legal boundaries become blurred, and copyright laws become increasingly difficult to define.

Yeah, that would totally hold up in court. Get the rest of the story and boggle at length at Sparklefield and Fandom Wank.

UPDATE: Has LadySybill seen the light?