• stinky@redlemmy.com
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    2 days ago

    They mention a character Charlie, unicorns, and a candy place. I don’t know why they are being so careful to avoid accusations of stealing the author’s work, because that’s exactly what they’re doing. People who are familiar with Charlie the unicorn are supposed to recognize it here, and spend their money on Warner Bros merchandise. How could you possibly not see this as theft?

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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        15 hours ago

        No they aren’t, but they directly used audio from it.

        There’s a difference between WoW having a character named Harrison Jones who’s largely a parody of Indiana Jones who’s quests are archaeology based and kinda silly. It’s another thing entirely if they used repurposed clips from Raiders of the Lost Ark for his voicelines.

      • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        There’s more going on.

        I’ve seen a number of references to my work in big-company projects before. For example, there’s a dead unicorn with an enchanted kidney named Charlie in World of Warcraft. This is fine! It’s completely within fair-use laws. Using my audio directly is not fair use.

        Copyright law, at least in the United States, is heavily weighted towards protecting large corporations. Warner Bros is one of the largest media companies in the world, and it often uses IP law like a weapon against smaller artists. Notable examples include MeatCanyon, whose clear fair use parody video “Wabbit Season” was forcibly removed from YouTube, and Vera Drew, whose parody film “The People’s Joker” received a cease and desist letter from WB, initially derailing its film festival premiere schedule.

        So WB wasn’t just making a reference, but also lifting audio from Steele’s work while also shutting down other’s fair use parodies.

        • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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          16 hours ago

          Actually, not necessarily. Plagiarism is not interchangeable with copyright infringement. Plagiarism is specifically academic misconduct.

          Those videos that upload an entire movie to YouTube and put “no copyright infringement intended” in the description are not committing plagiarism, because they are being honest about how the content they are using is not their own. But they are committing copyright infringement.

          Likewise, you can do plagiarism while not doing copyright infringement, if you take something that is public domain and use it in your research paper without explaining where you got it. It’s public domain, so there’s nothing legally wrong there. But it’s academically dishonest.

          • stinky@redlemmy.com
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            23 hours ago

            They’re … selling his content without his permission

            Oh my god are you stupid? Can you read??? Someone help this poor fool! He’s engaging in debate and has no ability to keep up!

              • stinky@redlemmy.com
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                18 hours ago

                Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s trolling. Trolling implies that I wanted your response. I don’t.