@BESW Restless I don't remember by name, but the rest are definite highlights. I think there's another stand-out, but I can't remember its name.

@Adeptus Restless is the season finale episode where everyone dreams.

@BESW Oh, that one. Yes.

That was a twist on the typical season ending. Usually it's, "fight the big bad, save the world, see you next year". That season was "fight the big bad, save the world, and there's still one episode to go"

morning

good your morning XD

@trogdor oh, how sorry I am....

Can't you see I am sorry? What you means "you are eating a cupcake and all the room is filled with streamers and balloons" ??

lol

hopefully that doesn't mean other videos will also be taken down

@trogdor Well, while it is possible, they seem to have specifically picked out the most infamous clips that were littering the net, and kept appearing in search results for generic searches like "mlp fan animation" or even just "mlp"

mm

Trust me when I say I won't miss Cupcakes.

that sounds like a step in the right direction, I just reserve the right to be worried XD

eh, neither will I

was not my thing

The point wasn't "It is my thing". I still stand my idea: if you want to do creepypasta and random violence videos, at least do like the Happy Tree Friends author did and create yours characters.

Furthermore, I am totally thinking that the guy had chosen the clip names on purpose, hoping kids will actually see them.

"Cupcakes" and "Smile" are names of actual songs in the show.

Unfortunately, your points, however valid, are totally irrelevant to the inappropriateness of Hasbro citing copyright violation as a justification for taking them down.

If it ever actually went to court they'd have a steep uphill battle against a simple Fair Use defence. Companies using copyright as a blunt instrument to bat down anything they don't like is, in the long run, going to destroy the meaning of copyright infringement.

I'm not saying creepypasta or anything like that is nice. Just that a DMCA is the wrong tool for the job.

@BESW probably not the right tool, but still one they have. I am totally fine if people gets mad ad C&D letters sent to people that were just doing funny animations (while, I must also add, many of the most famous C&D in the past gets a little shady if you actually try to research them a little. It is really so strange that a video using "stolen" flash puppets from the show got a C&D?).

Still, until they have such power at hand and they use it to shut down content that is actually doing harm to the brand, I say go for it.

I don't know if you actually have a vague idea of the contents of the two videos quoted in the post above. Cupcakes over anything else.

@BESW Also, about the "Fair Use" thing, I get your point and all the like. But I also think that Cupcakes may even violate Youtube TOS for displays of... animated torture. I don't know if the defense would really stand "fair use" against a "Thank you for taking our kid show and turning it into this ..... something."

I also understand that given that, they could have acted in a way that would put the focus on the content before the copyright, and that would probably have been more effective at giving a message.

I am just saying that from my point of view, I accept the fact that the copyright holders have the power to shut me down if I create fan works - at least they can in many countries (Japan is a lot different - see the whole fan comics market there). At any time and for any reason.

Legend of Equestria is a pony based mmorpg, they changed the names, changed the layouts but kept the art styles and many places are obvious references to the original ones (Cantermore? Really?). They know they may get acted upon at any time, they have their defenses ready and they even contacted Hasbro firsthand in the past. I will be sad and everyone would if they will ever get shut down, but is still something you knew when you started.

What I am saying is not that I think the copyright rules are wrong or right (I for once think I have already stated that for me the most important part is avoiding creating content that is untrue to the original soul of a work. "It is a show about friendship, not about killer psychopaths") - I an just saying that I accept them as existing.

Trad: *Dear Cupcakes maker, when you created your video you knew that Hasbro could act at anytime. You also decide to tickle the sleeping dragon, by choosing to associate your work to an actual song name, and by creating a video that not only is offensive to the MLP friendship theme, but will probably feel unsettling for many people that don't even know what MLP is. Don't cry now, for I am sorry to say you that you should have seen that one coming".

@BESW yeah and YouTube has had an issue with immediately bowing to every strike request for a while now

sometimes the strike request has been more valid and sometimes not

US Copyright Office is taking comments about how well the DMCA is working. "What would make the DMCA better? Tell the government—and tell us in the comments."

@Derpy Then it should be taken down for violating YT terms. And yes, I do know what it contains. I'm not arguing that it's a nice thing. I'm saying that I'm unhappy it's being taken down for the wrong reasons: DMCA should not be used as a cudgel for censorship. The copyright laws are almost certainly not applicable, so your acceptance of them isn't relevant.

@BESW Again, I do understand your point. What I don't feel the same about is the second step. I admit I lack specific knowledge about copyright laws and especially how those differ based on nationalities and region of application.

To me, Intellectual Property protection (which, based on my understanding should include copyright among the other things) should allow the original creator (or people that he sold the rights to) to protect a work from offensive derivative parodies or such, especially when said parodies are offensive even without taking in account the original material firsthand.

Not saying that a DMCA claim or a C&D letter is the best approach, and I may also add that I would have expected YouTube to act before Hasbro needed to (but they are fine to have poisoned ads on their pages, so I don't think they want to take responsibility for the works they host. After all, was suche the case, a famous homophobic youtuber in our country wouldn't constantly get first page...).

Should a different clause be used for such cases? Possible, maybe it even exist already (I may research what was invoked in the old Two Souls? ps3 scandal, but that was a little different in the way it involved a representation of an actual person) - it is sure that IP related laws could be better...

But my whole point here was just pointing out that I will surely not cry a single tear if those clips gets taken out.

@Derpy All parodies are derivative by definition. USA courts have a mixed history of allowing or ruling against parodies which are offensive, it's risky, especially given the ambiguity of what's offensive and what isn't. DMCA is, however, almost certainly not the legally appropriate way to respond to an offensive parody.

@doppelgreener Again, I don't know what parts of IP protection DMCA handles and what are left for other laws to act on. I know that Intellectual Properties recognize something called reputation/ social capital which should include the right to not have your image damaged by derivative works.

Having a fan work that: 1) appears in mlp related searchs on the most famous video hosting site, 2) originally wasn't even tagged as adult (may have hopefully changed), 3) uses flash puppet that are very close to the actual show one (if not even ripped ones) , 4) "promotes" violence, torture and gore to my view is damaging the image of a kid safe show. For that reason, I think it is deserved to have a way to shut down such content.

You probably know US laws better than me, and probably know what DMCA covers and what is covered by other laws. You can also probably tell me if there was any other ruling that may be called out for such cases (note: I am not talking of just contacting the current "distributor" - Youtube to remove the content, I think there should be something allowing for a wider ban)

So, I trust you if you state that there are alternatives to the DMCA. I just don't accept options like "just contact youtube" or "just do nothing, they have the right to do parodies, even offensive ones".

(also please notice that the fact I don't accept those view doesn't mean that I am right you are wrong, just that I am sadly not willing to think that way)

Oh, there's plenty of alternatives to the DMCA, they usually just involve C&D orders, and court proceedings that call out various things that are very specific to what's going on.

@Derpy What kind of wider ban do you mean? Bear in mind that what you might be proposing could also damage plenty of legitimate use, as well as bar various things the USA considers sacred (like free speech) or which other countries just generally consider unnecessary content censorship.

@doppelgreener so the C&D is not part of the DMCA thing? Then I think it is worth waiting a little. Usually Hasbro is know for sending C&D letters. Since the event is still pretty recent there is a not-null possibility that the terms used aren't the right one. I think it is still possible it was a C&D letter, until the sources I linked have posted updates proving it was a full "DCMA act?"

@Derpy DMCA and C&D are usually sent together, but they are entirely separate things.

@doppelgreener that is the whole point here. You see, my morality is pretty on the "your rights stops where the right of others starts" - I am for disproving anything that can cause sadness to others.

DMCA takedown letters are sent to content providers (who are not themselves the producers of it) to tell them to remove the content. Cease and desist letters are sent to the content producers to tell them to stop doing whatever it is they're doing.

@doppelgreener Wouldn't that be a little useless? Telling someone to stop doing bad content without asking them to remove what they already did?

Ok, think the edit makes it a little clearer.

@Derpy You might find a dearth of laws saying people have a right to be happy all the time. It's kind of a difficult proposition. (Do you disapprove of sad movies, sad music, sad theater productions? Is it incorrigible to play a sad pop song on the radio or over the mall intercom? You see where the edge cases start to hurt legitimate expression. I have depression, should I sue the government for it? I am unhappy because I'm just a jerk, should I sue someone for it?)

@doppelgreener that is a little to extreme. I think I actually may already have (probably very poorly, as usual of me) stated my view in the past.

@Derpy In a real life analogy: C&D goes to the factory producing the product, DMCA goes to the stores selling it.

@doppelgreener yep, understood. Was already posting that question/idea before commenting to the above post - thanks for the notice.

Anyway, about the question above - I think there was a phrase attributed to Jesus "Love and do what you want". I think most would agree to not harm other physically is a moral choice.

@Derpy Unfortunately, you're arguing that you're okay with "offensive" content being handled through the channels as "illegal" content.

And that it's a company which should get final say in what's offensive. And that "challenges profits" and "promotes violence" are equally offensive.

These are all really dangerous things to be sanguine about, just because in this particular case the result aligns with effects you approve of.

Did I? Then it is time to focus on my English.

> And that "challenges profits" and "promotes violence" are equally offensive.

You've repeatedly said that you think both of those are good justification for a company to censor a parody work.

The Fair Use defence exists in large part to keep big companies from being able to squash people who say bad things about them.

(the fact that DMCA is compromising Fair Use is widely regarded as A Bad Thing, except by the big companies.)

DMCA is being used wrongly in most YT takedowns associated with it.

Nope, they aren't. "promotes violence" is offensive, and both deserves a way to fight back. It doesn't need to be the same, but they need to exist. Again, I lack specific knowledge of US laws to handle discussion about what specific article is most appropriate to defend against what content, so I won't go for "DMCA is the way/FakeAcronym is better".

(If you haven't seen A Fair(y) Use Tale, I suggest you do.)

Let me explain my view from a different point of view then.

I firmly stand my idea that if someone creates a world, a character, some form of "artistic content" or else, he/she has the right to see that work respected. Not just unused, the work deserves respect as it is a part of a person. Maybe some just write for making money, but to me it is pouring a part of you in what you write. It is empathy between the author and the work. Probably I won't cut my ear for a painting, but I hope my point is clear.

@Derpy This is a majorly controversial concept, especially but not only when the "creator" is a corporation rather than an individual and the creation is long distanced from its original innovator.

By the argument of "empathy" between author and work, Bonnie Zacherle should be policing the MLP fandom personally, or at the very least Lauren Faust.

To that idea, if the world was populated by people that actually cared about each others and each others felling, I would assume that no one would mock somebody just for fun. Sadly is not the case, and I think I don't need to bring for examples of that.

Sadly this leaves us just with laws.

Which is lame.

Very lame.

I understand the emotion behind the concept, but it's a simple fact that the act of sharing a creation means you don't get to control how people interact with it.

And early copyright law recognised this was good.

Copyright law as it currently exists is a perversion of the original intent, which wasn't about creative control.

It was designed to give an inventor time to profit from their work, and then release the work to the public so others could improve it.

What is more important, freedom to create anything and have that creation respected or freedom to create anything in response to another creation? This dilemma cannot be solved by a blanket law, it will always be a case-by-case scenario. The modern world runs out of its capacity to police creative works sensibly, as it is demonstrated both by inappropriate use of IP rights and by how widespread content intended to cause offence is.

The notion that your idea is yours and yours alone forever and forever was recognised as a quick road to stagnation.

@BESW there is a subtle difference between "improving" and "reducing something to a revolting parody of itself".

@Derpy That is an accusation of quality which cannot be legislated. To Anne Rice, ANYTHING that anyone did to her characters other than her was an abomination.

@Derpy That becomes wholly a matter of being totally opinion-based, and you being upset something compromises your opinion of what should happen.

@Derpy -- book suggestion: amazon.com/gp/product/…

We create new ideas by building on earlier works. That's essential to any culture's advancement, whether in art or science or any other field.

@BESW Are we really arguing about the difference between "you character now is wearing eyeglasses" and "Aslan is now a horned demon, touring people and killing the weak" (yes, I have chosen Aslan on purpose)? Because i won't thing this would be worth discussion. If it instead the point is the impossibility of establishing a shared rule for each case and the need to rule each case as a separate entity... yep, I will agree on ruling this one for now.

@BESW so to advance in animation you need to use the same names, the same graphical stile and such but changing the content? Seem to me Happy Tree Friend reached the advancement Smile HD had without the need to reuse third parties characters.

@Derpy .... what's wrong with Aslan being a horned demon, touring and killing the weak?

@Derpy You're arguing from a specific case toward a general one. That's... not useful.

@doppelgreener Just the fact that the author clearly stated for him to be a representation of Jesus... nothing much more.

Especially since you're arguing for a case where the rules in play are being used out of context.

There's loads of stories which reinterpret creatures of fable as evil or malevolent even when they weren't already. There's an amazing FABLES comic that does a lot of that. Maleficent's the opposite, a lot of people would call that a revolting parody but only because they'd consider it a bad movie. c(:

@Derpy [shrug] That's not my sacred cow, I don't care.

@doppelgreener Just because it isn't yours?

@Derpy Okay, I'm done. You've got at least three different arguments going on, and any attempt to talk about one just means you flip to another. Nothing's going forward, you're actively shifting the goalposts and refusing to focus on any subject long enough to get a common ground for a useful discussion. I'm out.

If you ever actually want to talk about the relationship between author and work, or censorship on the grounds of moral pulchritude, or the nature and purpose of copyright law, or the role of beauty and gore in art, I'd be happy to. But if you won't even try to distinguish between them, I can't help you.

@BESW yeah -- you can't legislate taste.

@BESW Actually, I fail to see the disagreement points. If it is the way it was handled, I have stated that I don't know the US laws well enough to recognize what the most appropriate way of action is, what is lacking in the system and what is needing for changes. (continue)

If it is the distinction between Lauren Faust and Hasbro as the creators, I also agree - I am just willing to give Hasbro credit for having so far followed the intent, at least from a macro-view point (yes, I know there was only two alicorn originally intended, that Scoots had a physical handicap and so on) (continue)

@Shalvenay You can, but you tend to wind up with an oppressive government in the process. ;)

@Shalvenay why legislate if you can just ban bits you don't like with executive orders?

If it is the whole "what is offensive and what is not" I think that I can't agree. It is indeed true that a general rule can't be drawn, or we would be able to define morality in the first place, which is a mayor discussion point among pylosophers.

@Derpy No, it's nothing like that at all. When I'm trying to talk about the rationale behind copyright law, you change the subject to moral censorship. If I try to move with you and talk about moral censorship instead, you jump to the relationship between author and work in the public arena.

But I still think this one case was offensive

You're not sticking with one subject long enough to have enough of a discussion for there to be a coherent disagreement. So I'm not going to keep trying.

Was just trying to give my whole view, but if you prefer a more structured approach, I am fine with that.

Plus you kinda deliberately picked up a Jesus analogy and then proceeded to apparently change tact again when I provided an unsupportive reaction to you choosing that expecting it to go flawlessly. I don't want to see what would've happened down that route, so I have not responded to it.

The specific ideas are no longer the issue, because there aren't any coherent ideas anymore. It's a mush of whatever that you pull from to change the subject whenever we get close to a point.

That would be another discussion about responsible usage of cultural and religious imagery. Which started off with an analogy to that cultural and religious imagery, in condemning another analogy to that analogy.

@doppelgreener Actually, you can take the whole phrase out of the discussion if you want, I still think that "It is not my sacred cow" if meaning really "I don't care because it is not my religion" as it seemed to me (hopefully wrong) is lame. Very lame. Sorry about that. I also respect your point of not pursuing that road of discussion.

Also, I accept your view. I still think that the whole "change subject" tact you saw wasn't intentional, if it really was there. Anyway...

@Derpy Sacred cow means "an idea, custom, or institution held to be above criticism (with reference to the Hindus' respect for the cow as a holy animal)." You have super strong feelings about a particular character from a book, and their analogous representation in another book, such that it would offend you deeply to see them represented in a way you consider disrespectful. I deeply respect a number of religious figures. I just don't get offended when they're portrayed as evil in stories.

Then sorry to have misunderstood. I actually took the cown part as a reference to Asian cultures and religions (sorry, I prefer avoiding to be more specific in locations to avoid errors), some of then do consider cows sacred afaik. For that reason, the whole statement seemed like "Since it is not my specific religion, I don't care if someone "mock" it"

Sorry if the reply seemed harsh then, probably I was overthinking it.

You were misunderstanding, yeah.

easy misunderstanding to make though.

I have an easy out here in that I don't have any religion, but that's not to say there aren't figures I deeply respect.

@doppelgreener Actually, I think they still deserve respect even if one isn't into any religion in the first place. That said, I can also understand the logic behind some thing like the Pastafarian movement, caused probably by begin forced into a religion.

but I shouldn't meddle again.

Sorry for having wasted any time you may had at hand.

Namárië.

Late addition: several gaming youtubers (Jim Streling, TotalBiscuit, ...) have had DMCA takedown notices against videos who were critical of certain games.

Ok, so what's the moderator troubles? I guess my usage of rpg.se has rather dropped off when I didn't embrace 5e.

One of the moderators has a several-years-long history (recently improved but still noticeable) of being rude, condescending, and inflammatory. Some citizens (myself not included) suspect that he's also abusing his moderation powers to influence the content of the site; he's been very vocal about his opinions on certain playstyles and folks figure he's probably moderating toward those biases.

Not all citizens are civil in their attempts to deal with this challenge.

The moderators as a team have mostly ignored the whole thing.

After a couple years of this, it's no longer just about that one moderator or those specific playstyles.

There's a LOT of confusion over the whole thing, because it flares up in response to specific topics like the use of a tag, when the problem is more accurately a several-year-old conflict between a handful of personalities. Throw in misunderstandings about the nature of Stack moderation mechanics, and it's a great big ol' mess.

It's exacerbated by the mod team's long-standing policy to discuss their stance privately and then present a united front to the citizens; this means that if someone disagrees with a moderator stance, there's no impression of room for discourse. The discussion's already happened behind closed doors, so the instinctive response is that argument is the only option left to us.

The mod team seems to feel that the individuals who offer inappropriately aggressive responses to these concerns invalidate the concerns--and in multiple cases have said that it justifies equally aggressive retaliatory behaviour.

By now nobody involved seems willing to trust anyone else to act in good faith, which leaves me unhopeful regarding the success of Smurfton's attempt to start the dialogue GraceNote suggested in his meta.se thread.

...and I guess that's about it in a nutshell.

We're currently in the middle of the latest in a series of regular flare-ups that happen every several months over the last couple years, which get progressively worse.

Does that help?

@doppelgreener For you: