I'm new and I need to vent a few things

[Compound]

Frankly, as much as I empathize with the guys and NC, it is Wiseau's property. If he doesn't  want clips of the film floating around for whatever reason, he has the right to have them removed, especially on a for profit project.

No he doesn't! We have Fair Use Laws to protect this type of thing.

Yes, he does.

Fair Use is not a blank check. The lawyer rants in "The Tommy Wiseau Show"? Those are legitimate complaints from a copyright holder. You may feel that it's small and petty to gripe about them, but that doesn't change the fact that Doug is technically in the wrong.

You have a number of problems here. First,  there's no attribution anywhere. Look at any show that shows clips on TV. In the credits you'll see "Clips provided by Columbia Pictures" or "Star Trek and all related properties are copyright 2010 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved. No challenge to copyright should be intended or inferred." This is a very basic legal blanket that you see all the time on places like deviantart or Fanfiction.net that doesn't even really extend much legal protection to the person posting the work, but does tend to mollify the lawyers somewhat. Even that basic thing isn't in the review. The closest you get to it is showing the Wiseau Films logo, and that's not really proper attribution. Instead you have a "thatguywithglasses.com" bug on the bottom throughout the video, and practically any lawyer can argue at that point that Doug is trying to pass off Wiseau's work as his own.  "No he's transparently not!" you can argue and it would be true, but that won't change the facts that legally Doug's in the wrong.

Secondly, "Fair Use" also depends on the quantity of the excerpt, and generally it's regarded as "The less stuff is in there, the safer you are legally." That's not always true. Sometimes you can get in trouble for a sentence or two. Hell, IIRC, Stephen King got sued for putting a line or two from songs on the chapter pages of his novels. But here, in a 28 minute long piece, you've got close to 19 minutes of clips from the movie. From Wiseau's point of view, at best, you're showing 20 minutes of his movie without compensation, and at worst, you've just edited his film  down to 20 minutes and released it for free. Look, there's a precedent towards reviewers in print reviewing a movie, book, or Cd in depth, but there's not one towards video. A print review of a movie or CD isn't in the same medium as the original work and describing how a song sounds isn't going to substitute for hearing it, and a book review doesn't generally excerpt the source text substantially. But a condensed "review" of a film in the style of NC is another issue. If you watch just the clips in The Room review, you've basically seen the entire film, just a less detailed, shorter version of it. A lawyer can argue quite easily that having this condensed version of the film available, for free, is directly detrimental to the future sales of his product. (And yes, you could possibly make the same argument towards the "X in 5 seconds" clips too, but we're back to the "Less stuff is safer" thing. No judge or jury is going to buy that a 5 second summary of a work is a substitute for seeing the full work, but a 20 minute summary of it is a different story.) Doug wasn't intending to do this, just produce a review, but the way it was done doesn't jibe well with pre-internet, limited by time laws.

Thirdly, "It's for a review" isn't an ironclad defense in Fair Use. Let me give you an example- About a decade or so back, there was a lawsuit between a political site and a newspaper. (I'm being vague here as the politics are tangential to the law here and a "these guys suck"/"Do not" political argument isn't  helpful.) This site would take news stories from various online places, post them to their site and then the site members would discuss the story. The newspaper took this as "You're stealing our story and keeping people away from our website" and sued. The site responded with, "No. We're just discussing it. Look, there's a link back to your site right there. We're clearly telling people whose story it was. But in order to discuss a story, we need to post it, or at least an excerpt of it. It's fair use." The newspaper sued and the judge agreed with the paper, saying that you can't grab a story from a website, and repost it just because you want to talk about it.  By the same token, just because you want to review a film, it doesn't mean that you can just grab images and segments from it. Look at the MST3k Summer Blockbuster Review for a sec. There's a certain Tri-Star film in there with a certain giant reptile that didn't want any clips  from the movie used in the special. Did Mike, Kevin and Bill, backed by SciFi, further backed by NBC/Universal say "Screw that! We're doing a review!" and plunge ahead anyway? No. They made a fake segment instead and noted that Goshzilla didn't want any clips used. Because legally, TriStar has the right to say "We can't stop you from making fun of us, but we can keep you from using our clips." And guess what? Wiseau has the same rights. Did Doug even approach Wiseau for permission to use the clips before hand? I'm guessing not, and that may also be part of the problem.

And I hate to say it, but there's a hell of a lot of potential legal problems at TGWTG. Does Noah have permission to use "Break Me" as his theme song? In writing? Because the RIAA does sue folks for royalties when using songs in "public performances." Trust me on this. There's a reason that the iRiff section warns you against using copyrighted music in your iRiff. Multiply that one song towards all of the random songs used in the various videos, and then add in similar issues towards the use of movie/TV clips as well and you've got the potential for a lot of problems. And that doesn't even include the possibility of an "American McGhee's Strawberry Shortcake" incident where a random party is pissed off enough to summon lawyers. Someone over there needs to spend a hour or so with legal council and at least start taking basic steps so that they aren't sued into oblivion.

Look, this may have been a bad PR move from Wiseau's camp. It may have have been a bit heavy handed. But legally, he's got a pretty solid case for getting the review yanked and even possible damages. (The same with Lupa's review , who was probably just caught in the crossfire there.)

[Compound]

Maybe I should ask Wiseau about this when I go to a screening of The Room in about two weeks.

I have the sneaking suspicion that he might get asked about it, repeatedly, all throughout SDCC. Two days before San Diego isn't a good time to rile up a bunch of geeks.

[Darkling]

The story gets weirder:

An update for you,  the John at The Room Movie dot com who had the nostalgia critic's review removed is none other than Tommy Wiseau (creator) of The Room himself. Tommy Wiseau has been playing innocent in all of this, saying that Nostalgia Critic would have to speak with John and that he is not directly at fault and yet a recent  Harpers Bizarre article revealed otherwise.

http://www.willdendis.com/The_Room_Harpers.pdf

Page 4.    It was discovered that John of The Room dot Com IS Tommy Wiseau.

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

You have a number of problems here. First,  there's no attribution anywhere.

You don't watch Doug's (or Film Brain's or Nostalgia Chick's) reviews to the end then.

and practically any lawyer can argue at that point that Doug is trying to pass off Wiseau's work as his own.

Shakespeare said it best.....

"No he's transparently not!" you can argue and it would be true, but that won't change the facts that legally Doug's in the wrong.

If they manage some how to find a judge and/or a jury who doesn't understand what the words "critic" and "review" mean.

A lawyer can argue quite easily.....

A lawyer can argue anything.  That doesn't make it true to the law.

Look at the MST3k Summer Blockbuster Review for a sec. There's a certain Tri-Star film in there with a certain giant reptile that didn't want any clips  from the movie used in the special. Did Mike, Kevin and Bill, backed by SciFi, further backed by NBC/Universal say "Screw that! We're doing a review!" and plunge ahead anyway? No. They made a fake segment instead and noted that Goshzilla didn't want any clips used.

Probably had more to do with the fact that they were on the Sci-Fi Channel...which had gonads the size of BBs.  They wouldn't even stand up to Ray Dennis Steckler and pulled The Incredibly Strange Creatures.... episode - even though Sci-Fi had paid for the rights that Steckler had signed over to the film distributor - because Steckler said, "Boo!" to them.

And I hate to say it, but there's a hell of a lot of potential legal problems at TGWTG. Does Noah have permission to use "Break Me" as his theme song? In writing? Because the RIAA does sue folks for royalties when using songs in "public performances." Trust me on this.

Then how did MST3K use lyrics from popular (copyrighted) songs - some not just spoken but sung usually by Kevin Murphy - as riffs for ten years and not get sued? Or forbidden by CC or Sci-Fi to do it?  And here in Rifftrax as Kevin is want to break into "Don't Pay the Ferryman" now and again and Mike keeps wanting to imitate Michael Stipe?  You think that they had to go to each and every one of these people and ask for permission to use one or two lines? And then Rhino went through that all again to release the episodes on DVD?  Shout! Factory would do it but Rhino???  They'd just refuse to release the episodes.  How about all of these radio stations all over the country that use little clips from movies in their shows and IDs...

For the record, MST3k has used lines from "Clair" and (I believe) "Alone Again" by Gilbert O'Sullivan in several of their episodes.  O'Sullivan was the one who brought the landmark case that makes it necessary now for artists to get permission to sample other artists' recordings.  If there was anyone who would have sued if there was a case.....

From the sound of it, everybody who was ever involved in MST3K, Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic should probably leave the country right now.....

Because when you add up all of the examples, exceptions and qualifications you say apply to these situations, it's..."Yeah, there's a Fair Use law but it covers nothing".

....and even possible damages....

  He's going to claim damages from a review that recommends people go to see his film....?   Which Leon Uris book was it that the jury awarded a penny as judgment to a guy who sued a journalist for printing that he was an escaped Nazi...even though he was an escaped Nazi?

Apparently one of NC's fans just E-mailed them and got a reply that Nostalgic critic made misleading alternations to the movie's content.  Umm... That's called a parody.

It was only "misleading" if it made the movie look entertaining and well made.

EDIT:  From the website of the U.S. Copyright office....

The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: "quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported."

What's so difficult....?

[jewishcarpenter]

So much ado about a really bad movie. 

[spaceforarent]

And I hate to say it, but there's a hell of a lot of potential legal problems at TGWTG. Does Noah have permission to use "Break Me" as his theme song? In writing? Because the RIAA does sue folks for royalties when using songs in "public performances." Trust me on this.

Then how did MST3K use lyrics from popular (copyrighted) songs - some not just spoken but sung usually by Kevin Murphy - as riffs for ten years and not get sued? Or forbidden by CC or Sci-Fi to do it?  And here in Rifftrax as Kevin is want to break into "Don't Pay the Ferryman" now and again and Mike keeps wanting to imitate Michael Stipe?  You think that they had to go to each and every one of these people and ask for permission to use one or two lines? And then Rhino went through that all again to release the episodes on DVD?  Shout! Factory would do it but Rhino???  They'd just refuse to release the episodes.  How about all of these radio stations all over the country that use little clips from movies in their shows and IDs...

For the record, MST3k has used lines from "Clair" and (I believe) "Alone Again" by Gilbert O'Sullivan in several of their episodes.  O'Sullivan was the one who brought the landmark case that makes it necessary now for artists to get permission to sample other artists' recordings.  If there was anyone who would have sued if there was a case.....

From the sound of it, everybody who was ever involved in MST3K, Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic should probably leave the country right now.....

Because when you add up all of the examples, exceptions and qualifications you say apply to these situations, it's..."Yeah, there's a Fair Use law but it covers nothing".

Not to mention all the times Dis has sung ENTIRE songs over the credits.

[Compound]

You have a number of problems here. First,  there's no attribution anywhere.

You don't watch Doug's (or Film Brain's or Nostalgia Chick's) reviews to the end then.

Here is the entire end title for "The Room."



That's it. The only thing that follows is the Channel Awesome label. There are no additional title cards. By comparison, here's the credits for this week's "Atop the Fourth Wall."



Now, that's not really regarded as sufficient attribution to protect you from legal issues (It's like how merely putting up a sign saying "warning" won't generally protect you if someone gets injured) but this minimal amount would be regarded as a good faith measure by many parties. But it's not there in the review of "The Room." No mention of who the clips from "The Room" belong to, nor of the clips from "BTTF" nor "Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue." Now, it's possible that there's an additional sequence after the CA logo with all that info on it and that Bliptv removes it, but I kinda doubt it. A quick look at a couple of NC's other reviews shows the same issue. (I can't judge Chick's reviews as I don't have a complete review of hers to look at. She may be doing things differently.) To make matters worse, the guy who did the seahorse photoshops *is* properly credited. And generally the courts don't look kindly when you follow the law for some people and don't for others.

"No he's transparently not!" you can argue and it would be true, but that won't change the facts that legally Doug's in the wrong.

If they manage some how to find a judge and/or a jury who doesn't understand what the words "critic" and "review" mean.

And "It's for  review" isn't an ironclad legal defense. It's been tried before in music piracy cases. A person uploads a song to a website and leaves a detailed review of that song isn't legally treated any differently than a person who does the same without a review. Hell, I remember some White Supremacist groups using the same argument when they were uploading copies of "The Turner Diaries" to the internet. And book reviews have gotten judgments against them when they used too much of the source material in their reviews. The point is merely saying "Review" or "Parody" doesn't stop the lawyers, nor does it make the reviewer magically in the clear.

And I hate to say it, but there's a hell of a lot of potential legal problems at TGWTG. Does Noah have permission to use "Break Me" as his theme song? In writing? Because the RIAA does sue folks for royalties when using songs in "public performances." Trust me on this.

Then how did MST3K use lyrics from popular (copyrighted) songs - some not just spoken but sung usually by Kevin Murphy - as riffs for ten years and not get sued? Or forbidden by CC or Sci-Fi to do it?  And here in Rifftrax as Kevin is want to break into "Don't Pay the Ferryman" now and again and Mike keeps wanting to imitate Michael Stipe?  You think that they had to go to each and every one of these people and ask for permission to use one or two lines? And then Rhino went through that all again to release the episodes on DVD?  Shout! Factory would do it but Rhino???  They'd just refuse to release the episodes.  How about all of these radio stations all over the country that use little clips from movies in their shows and IDs...

Because there are different rules in play. Once again, you have the length argument in play. A short mention of a song can be considered to be fair use. (Then again, it might not. There have been legal cases about the use of 2 or 3 seconds of a song before. think "Ice, Ice Baby" for an example.)  MST3k falls into the "parody" camp fairly clearly as well. But most importantly, when Kevin sings "Poker Face" it isn't legally the same issue as it would be if Kevin played a clip from the actual song. There is a legal distinction between playing a recording of a song and doing your own performance of it. A band can perform a cover of a song with no legal problems. (Well, technically, they're supposed to pay royalties to the rights owners when they do so, but that's a royalty issue not a copyright one.) But they can't play a tape of another band performing it.  What NC does is legally different than what Mike & co. do.

There's also one more thing - with music, you need to replicate both the lyrics and the melody. When Kevin sings, he's replicating the lyrics, but not the music behind those lyrics. This is why what Dis does is probably not an issue. When you listen to "Keep Holding On", at no point does any music play in the background of the riff itself, and that probably keeps those performances in a safe legal area. (Plus you could make the parody case here.)

(For the DJ issue, I believe that falls into the "not worth the time, effort, rewards or possible PR backlash to prosecute the matter" camp rather than the "They're not doing anything illegal" one. )

Because when you add up all of the examples, exceptions and qualifications you say apply to these situations, it's..."Yeah, there's a Fair Use law but it covers nothing".

No. There's a Fair Use law, but what it says is often vastly different than what folks on the internet think it says.

[stansimpson]

Thanks, Compound for your input.  I am consistently shocked at the level of armchair lawyering I come across on the internet.  "Fair use" is the "First Amendment" of the internet.  It's the most used as well as the most misused and least understood.  I'm on my third YouTube account cuz I keep parodying petty copyright holders (each time has been small time guys; the big corporations are actually waaay easier to fight).  While perturbed, I honor the law that says, yes, I am using copyrighted material (and now I gotta fight it).  "I want the law to protect me!  It should give me everything I want too!"  It's surprising how many people see no conflict in that statement.  Also, "He/I didn't mean to break the law" is also surprisingly common... probably cuz "I didn't know" is just one notch too low on the stupid scale.

Just goes to show that people will damn the law if it's something they love.  For instance, you should see the vitriol in the YouTube comments for Charlie Brown Christmas 2/3 about how only the purest incarnation of evil someone has to become to rob them of Charlie Brow Christmas 3/3.  Forgetting that, oh wait, no matter how much you love Charlie Brown, cartoons ain't always free!  Esp the ones that bring in revenue by the millions.  You'd think they were being kind by leaving up 2/3rds of the show up, but it actually makes people more hateful... and stupider.  "It's on tv!  Tv is free!"  Seriously.  The majority of people think this.  I guess people also think "It's on the internet.  The internet is free.  Don't hassle me."  Technology is advancing way faster than people's morals can handle.

How you feel vs. what is right.  Moral relativism at its finest.  Actually, this is moral relativism at its finest.

[Randy]

Actually I highly doubt  Wiseua studios would take it to court.  There was a thing a year or two ago where another website pretty much showed an interview of Tommy at SDCC or something, the website got emailed and told that they have to take it down because it is infringing on The Rooms copyright (yes, AN Interview was SUPPOSEDLY infringing on a movies copyrights.). The filed DMCA on them, and fair. Youtube then realized Tommy was idiot and put the video back up. After that... Well Tommy pretty much did nothing to the site.

Then there was the other time when I think somebody was writing a book about bad movies, he contacted Tommy or whoever is head of the site and asked if he could say the name in the book. They said he would need permission JUST TO SAY THE NAME OF THE ROOM. Otherwise he would be "infringing on their copyright of the movie.". The guy published the book and, well nothing happened to him at all.


Tommy's Studio is just firing off empty threats left and right,

[Trekker4747]

Frankly, as much as I empathize with the guys and NC, it is Wiseau's property. If he doesn't  want clips of the film floating around for whatever reason, he has the right to have them removed...

Erm, he DOESN'T have the right.  Not at all.  It's called Fair Use, it means someone can use bits and samples of a copyrighted work, use copyrighted characters for purposes of commentary, review, satire and educational purposes.  This ishow RT gets away with the samples, this is how your weekly news review segment gets away with etc, etc. etc.

If all someone has to do is say "Waaa!!! I don't like bad reviews, take down your criticism!" the reviewing industry would be very, very different.

Wiseau has NO grounds to stand on on this issue.

[torgosPizza]

Frankly, as much as I empathize with the guys and NC, it is Wiseau's property. If he doesn't  want clips of the film floating around for whatever reason, he has the right to have them removed...

Erm, he DOESN'T have the right.  Not at all.  It's called Fair Use, it means someone can use bits and samples of a copyrighted work, use copyrighted characters for purposes of commentary, review, satire and educational purposes.  This ishow RT gets away with the samples, this is how your weekly news review segment gets away with etc, etc. etc.

If all someone has to do is say "Waaa!!! I don't like bad reviews, take down your criticism!" the reviewing industry would be very, very different.

Wiseau has NO grounds to stand on on this issue.

Except that he does. It's his image, his copyright, his trademarked logo (The Room in the font that he used, has a little (R) symbol next to it.)

Regardless of whether he has grounds or not, all he needs to do is say "If you don't take it down, I'm suing you" and then if he does follow through with a lawsuit, is it worth paying thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend it?

It's much easier to just do what he asks and be done with it.

[Darth Geek]

Frankly, as much as I empathize with the guys and NC, it is Wiseau's property. If he doesn't  want clips of the film floating around for whatever reason, he has the right to have them removed...

Erm, he DOESN'T have the right.  Not at all.  It's called Fair Use, it means someone can use bits and samples of a copyrighted work, use copyrighted characters for purposes of commentary, review, satire and educational purposes.  This ishow RT gets away with the samples, this is how your weekly news review segment gets away with etc, etc. etc.

If all someone has to do is say "Waaa!!! I don't like bad reviews, take down your criticism!" the reviewing industry would be very, very different.

Wiseau has NO grounds to stand on on this issue.

Except that he does. It's his image, his copyright, his trademarked logo (The Room in the font that he used, has a little (R) symbol next to it.)

Regardless of whether he has grounds or not, all he needs to do is say "If you don't take it down, I'm suing you" and then if he does follow through with a lawsuit, is it worth paying thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend it?

It's much easier to just do what he asks and be done with it.

See, I would think that going to court against Wiseau would be worth the cost, because TGWTG is so likely to win. And in the case ofa win, they now have a success in court as a precedance to help in future issues like this.

Also, if it does go to court there is the possibility that Wiseau would represent himself. And THAT would be hilarious!

[Thrifty]

For once, I would like to see an actual lawyer posit opinions on an intellectual property issue.  "Fair use" is a mantra that gets thrown around an awful lot as an umbrella excuse by a lot of people making dubiously legal use of copyrighted material.  It seems like one of those things a lot of people think they know more about than they actually do.

I kinda wish NC would take down his follow up video, which is not funny and just comes off to me as a temper tantrum.

[Darth Geek]

I kinda wish NC would take down his follow up video, which is not funny and just comes off to me as a temper tantrum.

Yeah, I wasn't too impressed with it either. The Cinema Snob's video was much funnier.

[stansimpson]

I kinda wish NC would take down his follow up video, which is not funny and just comes off to me as a temper tantrum.

Yeah, I wasn't too impressed with it either. The Cinema Snob's video was much funnier.

Thirdereded.

I've seen most of Cinema Snob's stuff now and that has by far gotten the most repeat views from me than any of his other stuff (which is not bad at all; just not so much on repeat).  Brad's impression is one of the most hilariously accurate (unlike NC's which wanders around and winds up like an exaggerated je ne sais quoi).  And the
Why you eyein' mah lemon drink bit was SO welcomed.  His Mark Whalberg ("What? Nooo!") is absolutely spot on!  Brad's possibly the most talented natural actor at TGWTG.