There is an old saying that those who live in a house of glass should not throw stones. This can be seen as true for one furry who has been making a wave in the furry YouTube community for all the wrong reasons. In a video she posted, she shows herself filing copyright takedown requests of furry videos frivolously.

Copyfraud is the false claim of ownership over a work, it is something that the claim site on YouTube warns against doing due to the legal issues that can come with falsely claiming the work of someone as your own. In the mostly automated digital world it has become a common action to utilize false strikes to attack content creators.

But the greater irony was that in this video of the self-admitting copy-fraudster flagging these videos is that there is a grating and sped up music of some description in the background. A closer listen to the first song of the video at the eleven second mark, and slowing it down to half speed and lowering the pitch a bit, reveals it to be a copyrighted song: David Guetta - Turn Me On ft. Nicki Minaj

This mascot will be licensed, not sold.

Designers of the Phillie Phanatic 'sculpture' have threatened to terminate their copyright transfer after 35 years, per a lawsuit filed by the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team.

Crucially, the Phanatic was not originally a "work for hire", but owned by its creators:

Initially we leased the Phanatic to the team for appearances and paid a royalty to them for the licensed products we did. The first year of licensing we did over two million dollars in sales in the Philly area. Eventually we had a number of successful programs with teams who wanted to be able to control of the characters and were able to enforce the copyrights so we sold the Phanatic and then others to the teams.

Many made light of the mascot's pending "free agency", with the Washingtonian promoting a move to D.C. But for teams in a similar situation, such disputes could mean serious payouts - at least for lawyers - and given the time periods involved, the issue might soon touch on works in furry fandom.

Midwest FurFest has always had a no-piracy rule. The specific wording may change from year to year, but the intent and implementation has not. If you have further questions or concerns, please engage with our Dealers Den staff directly, at: dealers@furfest.org

— Midwest FurFest (@FurFest) August 12, 2018

Last Sunday, Canadian furry artist Nayel-ie brought to Twitter concerns about Midwest FurFest's rules for dealers, which state:

Midwest Furry Fandom Inc. prohibits the sale or offer for sale at Midwest FurFest of items that reproduce third parties’ intellectual property without the express written permission from the owner.
[...]
Prohibited are included but not limited to:

Unlicensed depictions of characters appearing in third parties' movies, TV shows, books, sound recordings, still images, sculptures or any other media. No fan art; no counterfeit goods.

New powers to patent animals (including unrealized hybrids that populate furry fiction) burst into the news on 11/13/13, when activist organization Wikileaks revealed a draft of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Analysts have called it "a major power grab for large patent and copyright industries," with powerful implications for the future of intellectual property.

With a lead like that, I have to apologize for faking you out. I couldn't resist. Now let's do a 180, and turn back to the furry level of life, where copyright concerns are much more personal. Consider this scenario that happened to fursuiters Sakura Fox and Mercury on their trip to New York City:

You're walking through Central Park, and see some panhandlers begging for change. They're wearing badly made, unsightly costumes of Sesame Street characters. You shouldn't hang around them in fursuit, because a pimp Elmo might come smack you off his corner!

It's an unauthorized misuse of trademark for profit. It could make the copyright owners look bad, and they wouldn't like it. It's probably too trivial for them to hear about, or hire lawyers to stop it- but you never know. In a famous 1989 action, Disney forced the removal of murals featuring their characters from three Florida day care centers. It helped earn their "reputation as an extreme copyright hawk -- there's a reason 'Disney lawyer' is a term all its own". (On the more friendly side, consider Hasbro's relationship with Bronies.)

The British magazine of anomalous phenomena, the Fortean Times, has published a three-page article about otherkin in its January 2012 edition (pp. 44–46). [Arethinn]

The article appears relatively non-controverisal, though some have raised concerns about a full-page spread of the Otherkin Alliance logo, used with credit but without permission.

Meanwhile, Evess Arudem - a member of the otherkin community - seeks to create a fan-sourced documentary, and is soliciting audio and video submissions. [Tsu]

SoFurry lost its custom chat last weekend after a key developer responded to a ban by filing a copyright-based takedown demand. [Conan/vivisector]

Site leader Toumal responded with assurances that a new chat module would be provided, and made a call for donations. A temporary chat has since been implemented.

Fuzzy Ergo Sum, by Wolfgang Diehr, published in March by Pequod Press (review), is now in a revised Second Edition after a copyright claim.

The novel, intended as a “fourth” Fuzzy novel after H. Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy, Fuzzy Sapiens, and Fuzzies and Other People, is based on the 1962 Hugo-nominated Little Fuzzy, which entered the public domain in 2006.

Two other Fuzzy novels, William Tuning’s 1981 Fuzzy Bones and Ardath Mayhar’s 1982 Golden Dream: A Fuzzy Odyssey, have been disowned from the Fuzzy canon. However, three months after Fuzzy Ergo Sum was published, Golden Dream publishers Ace Books charged that it was in copyright violation.

Developers of rabbit-based beat-em-up Lugaru HD are battling to get an unauthorized copy removed from the Apple App Store.

iCoder is offering the OS X game for just $1.99. The official verison sells for $9.99. [iDuck/Slashdot]

Gaming blog Kotaku reports that Apple are "looking into what happened", and also hosts a quote from iCoder saying that they "have every legal right to market and sell the software".

The game's code was released under the GPL last May while developers focussed on their new game, Overgrowth; however, for-profit distribution of the game's assets was not authorized. The legality of GPL-licensed code for such apps is also in doubt.

Update (12 Feb): Lugaru HD is now the only version available on the Apple App Store. Wolfire are giving out valid serials to all iCoder purchasers.

In an amusing clerical error, an Italian court has summoned Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, and Tweety to take the stand in a copyright counterfeit trial.

Lawyers for Disney say that the characters maintain permanent residence in Disneyland and therefore, regretfully, cannot answer the summons. Newsweek has the full story.

Trickster

The original cartoon from Purple Pussy by Shmorky

Todd Goldman's version

Comic artist Dave "Shmorky" Kelly has accused artist Todd Goldman - owner of popular merchandising company David & Goliath - of plagiarism.^[1] Kelly says Goldman's piece "Dear God Make Everyone Die" (featured in the Gold Digger exhibit at Jack Gallery) was traced from a panel of Kelly's comic, Purple Pussy.

In response, Goldman stated:

I made a judgment error and did not research the background of this particular submission. My intention was not to copy Mr. Kelly.[2]

Goldman also stated his intention to issue a formal apology, which Kelly has received, and to donate the proceeds of the sale of the piece to Kelly or a charity of his choice.

In much a similar battle as file sharing servers have gone through, several major DVD manufacturers are bringing up a lawsuit against manufacturers of software that allows people to copy DVDs to their computer. At stake is the definition of copyright and whether providing the means to potentially infringe on it is illegal, at least in the case of DVDs. I wonder when publishers are going to bring up the same thing with photocopiers?

Often I see on people's websites, and on popular art galleries pictures of their or others muck or role-play characters. And in most instances they are followed by descriptions similar to 'FluffyWuffieBunniekins Copyright Me, Art Copyright Some Guy I Met Online!!!'. Well, sometimes with real names. But do most people understand what copyright means? Lets answer a few common questions...

While (re)writing the review of _Life of Pi_ that I promised the kind readers of Flayrah, I was suprised to come across this news story. Martel's story of a hindu boy trapped on a lifeboat with a tiger has been acused of blatently lifting from Brazilian Moacyr Scliar's _Max And the Cats_ which is about... Er... A jewish boy trapped on a lifeboat with a panther.

Martel's reply, "why put up with a brilliant premise ruined by a lesser writer?".

Noted science Fiction Author, Harlan Ellison, is spearheading an uphill battle against people illegally posting protected works online. Although he got into the fight to protect his own literary works, this has escalated into an all-out battle for creator's rights everywhere.

Visit harlanellison.com/kick for more information on how you can help fight the good fight.