Originally posted by Howard Hallis, the parody – which no one could ever mistake for true Chick – was taken down voluntarily as a favor to his Web host, who got some nasty mail from the Chick camp.
The art is Chick’s. Hallis “sampled” the art for a parody, in much the same way that Alice Randall used parts of Margaret Mitchell’s work to produce “The Wind Done Gone”. Randall’s case was settled, but the prevailaing opinion was that the Mitchell estate had little chance of winning their case. (They are notoriously jealous of their IP and would not likely have settled if they thought they had a chance of prevailing, especially since this was a high-profile “wedge” case.)
As noted by ChillingEffect.org, outright copying of parts of a work may be protected by fair use. One of the legitimate “fair uses” is reproducing parts of a work without permission for the purposes of commentary or parody.
ChillingEffect goes on to note that “The plaintiff in an infringement suit must show that defendant’s use of the mark is likely to cause… confusion” over whether the word is that of the author being parodied (in cases of use for satire). In other words, that someone might think the work is original, not a spoof.
The ChillingEffect site deals specifically with the practice of outright copying under fair use, in cases of parody (as here) as well as use of excerpts (such as photocopies) in the classroom or for reviews or commentaries (such as clips played on movie review shows), although I haven’t reprinted the entire cite.
After I posted this Pit thread on the fact that Who Will Be Eaten First? was no longer to be found on the web, I got a nice e-mail from Mr. Hallis with the “tract” as an attachment. In his e-mail, he cursed the DMCA, which implies to me that it was, in fact, not the Chick camp who threatened legal action, but as DocCathode implies in the linked thread, the folks who hold the rights to Lovecraft’s works. The irony that folks who would allow the various schlock movie versions of Lovecraft’s works to be produced, would get their panties in a bunch over someone so viciously savaging a religious nutbag using characters created by Lovecraft is overwhelming to me.
It’s supposed to be, but certain publishers have a tendency to threaten lawsuits againest those they percieve to be cutting into their business by making it free.
And nobody really has the resources to fight them when they do, even if they don’t have a legal leg to stand on.
Thanks for the correction, Tuckerfan. I made the same assumption re Lovecraft as did xgxlx, and so didn’t do my homework. Bad dog! :smack: Also, any claim of infringement by the Lovecraft group in this case would be obviously laughable, so it never occurred to me.
Is there no legal defense that involves the fact that while HPL was alive, he allowed everyone to set stories in his universe?
P.S. I sent out a letter asking “Eaten First’s” author if he would care to redraw the illustraions. That would take care of the chick problem, but I guess there is no chick problem after all.
Thanks for the links, BG. The Subgenius parody… a pop satire of pop religious material that practically parodies itself, using ironic pseudoreligious pop iconography… I think my brains may explode.
::Goes looking for jinnwicked to retrieve duct tape::
Again, the problem is that nobody who is willing to argue the issue in court has the resources to do so.
Any rich lovecraft fans out there want to help us out here?
When did H. P. Lovecraft die? Because remember the DMCA extended copyright protection to life + 70 years, and it’s possible that if the rights were properly maintianed (i. e. renewal forms were submitted when they were supposed to be, etc.) then the estate still controlled the rights to the works when the DMCA was passed.
Additionally, the estate of Mark Twain still apparently holds some control over the printed works of Twain, even though the rights to them as far as copyright law should have lapsed long ago, even if DMCA had been in effect at the time the right’s would have lapsed at the previous “life + 50 years” standard. I say this because many of the Twain books I have, use an imprint in the front of the book indicating an acknowledgement to “The Mark Twain Company” for permission. (And I wonder how copyright law affects unpublished works. Twain’s got a bunch of things that he didn’t want published until hundreds of years after his death.)
Given the fact that ol’ Howie did give permission to use his work druing his life time, perhaps either it still applies, (as I already mentioned), or perhaps the estate of one of his colaboraters can give permission instead. from http://hplovecraft.com/popcult/mythos/authors.htm
Robert Bloch, you know, the writter of Psycho
J. Ramsey Campbell –
Lin Carter –
August Derleth –
Robert E. Howard –
Stephen King –
T.E.D. Klein –
Henry Kuttner –
Frank Belknap Long –
Brian Lumley –
Clark Ashton Smith – Smith incorporated numerous Lovecraftian elements into his fiction and poetry (and Lovecraft returned the favor), and also created many Lovecraft-related paintings and sculptures.
Colin Wilson
King wasn’t a contemporary, but I am too lazy to research who lived at the same time an who didn’t. Way too lazy.
Say, minty, you’re a legal beagle, IIRC, isn’t there some way you can cornhole (in court, of course) Jack the Jerkwad Chick on behalf of all thinking humans?
