Announcement regarding the New Voyages videos!

[Indomitus]

I just wanted to chime in briefly here...  Being probably one of the few on this board who has actually been through a lawsuit along these lines (it was a trademark suit over a parody of a logo on a gripe site), I can say I'm glad the Rifftrax folks had the sense to take it down.  The producers of this actually reasonably decent** fanfic take enough risks as far as not "making money" off their creation.

Trust me (as I've had many such conversations with a very expensive lawyer myself), the argument that they're charging for the riff itself and not the movie absolutely would not stand in a court of law.  They were charging for access to the downloads, and those downloads included material that could open them and the original producers to the risk of a lawsuit.  That is how the courts would see it, folks.  It's best all around that the movie itself simply isn't there.


**Anyone who's seen the "Bring Back Kirk" shorts would agree, I'm sure.

[DarthChimay]

and like shatner im already shirtless oiled up ready to go

I don't remember a moment in time any more where that wasn't true for me.

Except for your last murder trial.

Ya know, you offer to oil wrestle the judge for your freedom and everyone gets all weird...

[mrbasehart]

and like shatner im already shirtless oiled up ready to go

I don't remember a moment in time any more where that wasn't true for me.

Except for your last murder trial.

Ya know, you offer to oil wrestle the judge for your freedom and everyone gets all weird...

I think Judge Judy would've taken you in any case.

[bettertomorrowamy]

and like shatner im already shirtless oiled up ready to go

I don't remember a moment in time any more where that wasn't true for me.

Except for your last murder trial.

Ya know, you offer to oil wrestle the judge for your freedom and everyone gets all weird...

I think Judge Judy would've taken you in any case.

She lacks the will of the warrior.  Now Judge Mathis would take you hands down.

[Flopsy T. Hamster]

Trust me (as I've had many such conversations with a very expensive lawyer myself), the argument that they're charging for the riff itself and not the movie absolutely would not stand in a court of law.

I would be very interested to see how this would play out in court, as the question of "damages" (in the legal sense) would have to be brought up, and what sort of monetary damages would you suffer from a product that was given away? Most cases like these involve a product that is being sold commercially, so it's much easier to figure out what is being loss, even if it's an inflated figure. Rifftrax would probably end up paying court costs, and perhaps turn over what they made from sales of the file ("unjust enrichment"?), but the only money that would be made would be by the lawyers, I'd bet.

Unless Paramount got involved. That'd be a whole other thing, and the Phase II guys would probably get screwed at that point, so I'm glad it's not gonna come to that.

[DarthChimay]

and like shatner im already shirtless oiled up ready to go

I don't remember a moment in time any more where that wasn't true for me.

Except for your last murder trial.

Ya know, you offer to oil wrestle the judge for your freedom and everyone gets all weird...

I think Judge Judy would've taken you in any case.

She lacks the will of the warrior.  Now Judge Mathis would take you hands down.

I dunno... she's got those harpy claws of hers. She'd probably scream "Kaliman shak ti da!" and rip my still beating heart out.

[bettertomorrowamy]

and like shatner im already shirtless oiled up ready to go

I don't remember a moment in time any more where that wasn't true for me.

Except for your last murder trial.

Ya know, you offer to oil wrestle the judge for your freedom and everyone gets all weird...

I think Judge Judy would've taken you in any case.

She lacks the will of the warrior.  Now Judge Mathis would take you hands down.

I dunno... she's got those harpy claws of hers. She'd probably scream "Kaliman shak ti da!" and rip my still beating heart out.

She's a girl.  Girls have the will of a housemom.

[AmandaGal]

ah, well i dont think ive EVER seen anyone banned here.  course most people dont bother to respond with vulgarities even when they disagree or are angry.  Its just pointless if i thought you were that big of a tit, i wouldnt have even posted in the first place.  what would be the point? 

Which brings us back to internet "tone of voice."  It's a very real thing. 

not really.  Yeah people can USUALLY tell if something is sarcastic(tm) or whatever but for the most part tone is assumed.  ]

Actually, I recently read an article about online communication and tone.  It concluded that tone inferred on the Internet was generally more a result of the reader's feelings and attitudes than the one who originated the post.  IE: if you think Conor is an ass, that posts would make him sound like more of an ass, who just wants to mock you.  Whereas if you think Conor is a nice guy, you can clearly see he wasn't being an ass, but he was expressing dry wit. 

So, online communication sucks and there is no real "tone."  Studies of body language and infliction say that non-verbal cues makes up a major part of our daily communication and are more important, in many cases, than the actual words (I forget the percentage of meaning and I can't find it and I won't make up a number).  It's something we learn before we learn how to talk.  It's something even animals can pick up on.  It's our most primal form of communication.

When we're online and don't have that, we infer our own emotions and inflections onto the words.  We even do that a little off-line and we HAVE body language and inflection.   How easy is it for someone to get on your nerves when you're already upset?  If they said the same thing when you were happy would you see them as the same condescending pig you see them as now?  Probably not.  If we can't infer meaning to conversation without pushing our own emotional states onto it in real life with those non-verbal cues, how the heck can you say you can do it online?

[Flopsy T. Hamster]

When we're online and don't have that, we infer our own emotions and inflections onto the words. 

I can't tell you how many people (mainly trolls) who have thought that a post of mine was angry in tone only because they WANTED me to be angry. Without a doubt, people put their own emotion into someone else's words, especially during an argument. I can remember an agrument on USENET back in the 80's that started when some simply said that his beard was too long and white for him to remember a certain fact, and someone else took it as a great personal insult. Before that, I used to think that smilies were stupid and swarmy, until someone pointed out that if the guy put : ) at the end of his comment, he'd have avoided a lot of trouble. 

[BathTub]

ah, well i dont think ive EVER seen anyone banned here. 

Well there have been a couple, mostly spammers, There was that guy pretending to have MS or something? And of course googergeiger or whatever it was.

[Isaac S.]

ah, well i dont think ive EVER seen anyone banned here. 

Well there have been a couple, mostly spammers, There was that guy pretending to have MS or something? And of course googergeiger or whatever it was.

Ah, those were the days...

I'm glad this was resolved amicably.  Putting the video up did seem a little shady.  It wasn't theirs to distribute, even if it was free.  I just assumed they had gotten permission.  But that's history now.  Live and learn.  Everything worked out in the end, and two groups of decent people came to an understanding.  If only everything in life could be resolved so easily.

[Kor]

I'm dissapointed.  Both by the fact that a proper ipod video version was never posted, and by the whole thing in general.  I could go into a long rant about intellectual property followed by a tangent about how virtually nothing will ever lapse into public domain again but I won't.  I'm just sad and disapointed.  I was looking forward to more of these already synced.   

[torgosPizza]

I'm dissapointed.  Both by the fact that a proper ipod video version was never posted, and by the whole thing in general.  I could go into a long rant about intellectual property followed by a tangent about how virtually nothing will ever lapse into public domain again but I won't.  I'm just sad and disapointed.  I was looking forward to more of these already synced.   

iPod video version? You mean the mp4 version that was one of the videos that got removed?

Besides that, we never said there would never be more already synced. We've thought about these things already and we have some ideas for the near the future but it's going to take a bit of time. Try not to be disappointed for too long, arright?

[Isaac S.]

Besides that, we never said there would never be more already synced. We've thought about these things already and we have some ideas for the near the future but it's going to take a bit of time. Try not to be disappointed for too long, arright?

Hmm...  Intriguing.

[Cosmic Muse]

Any chance of getting some of the New Voyages guys to Riff on a bad Star Trek film, oh, say, like Star Trek: Nemesis, the worst of all the Trek movies. It made even less at the box office than Star Trek V if you can believe it.