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[merrily]

The (Browncoat) Invoice

sffan, ana_grrl, human_loser, inasahl, smlslikecrotch, skripka, I be looking at you.

But y'all are much more with-it than I am, and probably have already been discussing this for a week.

Comments

[human-loser.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

Oh, Browncoats...so entitled...

...read some intellectual property law sometime.

I mean yeah it's a cute little dig, but they're all up in arms because the studio is trying to stop some of them from MAKING MONEY off of artwork somebody else did? Wha-huh?

I don't care how much lip service Joss Whedon pays to his psychotic fans (he knows who butters his bread), all the letter-writing, internet-whining and forum-spamming in the world would not have got that movie made. It took someone at a studio stepping in and dumping 40-million dollars into the project. And for all the noise the Browncoats made and all the multiple viewings, it didn't even make it's relatively low budget back in the initial run.

And now they're trying to say that the studio OWES them? For one of the most ill-advised marketing strategies I can think of? I mean yeah it was the studio's call to turn a lot of the marketing over to the fans, and the little studio marketing I saw for Serenity really pumped it as a fan phenomenon...with the end result being non-fans staying away in droves because this was clearly some sort of exclusive sci-fi cult thing. So if they wanna brag about that now, as an argument that Universal ought to let them make money off of pirated artwork...okay...

Sorry, you know I'm a HUGE Whedon fan and Firefly fan, and I thought it was a damn shame Serenity didn't catch on, cause it was a wonderful movie. But I'm a little tired of the die-hard fans getting confused about the difference between the Nerd-god writer/director going around and SAYING it's "their movie" and them thinking they actually own the property.

i don't think anyone's being that dumb, are they?

[merrilily.livejournal.com]

I got the impression that everyone making anything affiliated was being shut down (or was pre-emptively shutting themselves down), and that's what I find ridiculous. Of course I'm not supportive of stealing other people's art and selling it and making money!

(Though honestly, wouldn't it have made more sense to approach people with "desist or license" propositions?)

Mostly, I think it's the timing that's dumb. Joss called the Blue Sun shirts "free advertising" (at least in one interview that I've read) and no legal action was taken a year ago, which makes one assume that as long as Universal needed promotion for the film, they were going to turn a blind eye to non-official merch. Now, however, it's a problem. Seems a little lacking in high ground to me.