A firm representing Lucasfilm/Disney sent takedown notices to force removal from social media of photos of a newly issued Star Wars figurine that an unnamed fan had walked into a Wal-Mart and purchased in the usual manner. [Timothy Geigner, TechDirt]
2 Comments
Can anyone (better versed in intellectual property law than I) explain why this is not fair use?
I believe I remember reading somewhere that the filer of the takedown notice is now required to consider the issue of fair use before issuing the takedown notice and that there may be problems if they do not. (?)
This is one of those times when someone is blaming the wrong people.
It appears that the Hasbro “action figure” was released early to WalMart. The card / packaging that comes with the figure shows the new Star Wars character “Rey” as holding a blue light saber. People immediately picked up on the fact the blue light saber means at some point in time, Rey would become a Jedi, which would be a major, unreleased spoiler to the film.
As the post says, a company named Irdeto representing Lucas Films / Disney sent a takedown notice to Facebook. The person posting the image wrote Disney and got a response retracting the notice. The owner put the the image back up.
Irdeto then sent another DMCA notice to Facebook demanding the image AND the entire post be taken down. (Apparently either the Disney didn’t contact Irdeto or Irdeto has some sort or “legal bot” roaming the internet looking intellectual property copyright violations.)
Facebook complied by again removing the image and the post. They then went a step further and suspended the user for 3 days for posting illegal content.
It is not the fault of the purchaser that Hasbro released the toy early and that WalMart put the toy out early.
The problem is that while the person can challenge the DMCA takedown notice, that will most likely lead to a court battle as to whether the notice was issued falsely.
Just the thought of “Facebook Star Wars Fan vs. Disney / Lucas / WalMart / Hasbro / Irdeto” would send chills down the spine of the fan.
Lucas Films / Disney’s beef is not with the fan, but Hasbro / WalMart who put the thing out early.
But if you are Indento, (and the firms they represent) you are going after the little guy, and not the other big dogs in the room.