Where's fair use?

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Ryu
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Where's fair use?

Post by Ryu »

Hi, I have a question to ask about fair use.
I liked to make a godzilla fan comic, inspired by one of the unused scripts. I asked several comics artists from Portugal for help and second opinion, but many of the answer was always not to do it or it was contempt. I myself managed to talk to Matt Frank on a live stream, where I explained the situation and said to do the comic. But then you went to ask youtuber Kaiju Noir for a second opinion.
His answer was not to do it. And he explained why the artists from my country responded negatively. Because of copyright and original comics they are more respected in the community, for being original creation. And that he is a rare fan art / comic artist, he becomes a professional artist in comics.
And that I could never make money, with my fan art, which is stepping on the line.
And it was my question is if anyone made a godzilla fan comic or elements and terms, without later taking a cease and desist?
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Cryptid_Liker
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Re: Where's fair use?

Post by Cryptid_Liker »

^
As long as you don't try to make money off of it, it seems you'll be fine. The most famous example of Toho cease-and-desisting someone for their fanwork, Godzilla: Heritage, was due to the movie being crowdfunded.

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Kiryu2012
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Re: Where's fair use?

Post by Kiryu2012 »

Cryptid_Liker wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 5:54 pm ^
As long as you don't try to make money off of it, it seems you'll be fine. The most famous example of Toho cease-and-desisting someone for their fanwork, Godzilla: Heritage, was due to the movie being crowdfunded.
Actually, according to one of the people behind the film, it was brand confusion that caused Toho to step in.
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goji1986
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Re: Where's fair use?

Post by goji1986 »

Kiryu2012 wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 7:24 pm
Cryptid_Liker wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 5:54 pm ^
As long as you don't try to make money off of it, it seems you'll be fine. The most famous example of Toho cease-and-desisting someone for their fanwork, Godzilla: Heritage, was due to the movie being crowdfunded.
Actually, according to one of the people behind the film, it was brand confusion that caused Toho to step in.
That's a very fancy way of saying that they were infringing on Toho's copyright.
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airforce111
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Re: Where's fair use?

Post by airforce111 »

My favorite excuse in these situations is "you're not paying for the copyright characters, you are paying for my EfFoRtS" another fancy way of saying"I'm making money off this and it's infringing on copyright, need an excuse somehow".

I'm not bashing op, but I say it depends on the company. It's too bad toho are known to be lawyer hungry. Sure you can try selling your stuff based on toho, but go ahead and press your luck. Maybe it won't get on the radar, maybe it will. The higher the quality and profesional looking/uniqueness of your fan product of copyright characters, the more risk it poses when you try to make money off of it. The worst thing is when companies see it, cease and desist order and then also force the author to hand over everything they've done and the author no longer owns it and.it become's the company's property.

Not worth making money off of it imo.
Last edited by airforce111 on Fri Jun 04, 2021 3:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Gojira1604
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Re: Where's fair use?

Post by Gojira1604 »

Do you all believe Toho would get mad if I uploaded full length reactions to Godzilla & Mothra movies on Patreon ? I know that site is generally good for full length reacts to Hollywood movies but Toho?

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Thatguy4683
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Re: Where's fair use?

Post by Thatguy4683 »

Gojira1604 wrote: Sun Apr 17, 2022 8:41 pm Do you all believe Toho would get mad if I uploaded full length reactions to Godzilla & Mothra movies on Patreon ? I know that site is generally good for full length reacts to Hollywood movies but Toho?
I think it wouldn’t go so well, Japan has these copyright laws that are out of touch to the public.
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Gojira1604
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Re: Where's fair use?

Post by Gojira1604 »

Thatguy4683 wrote: Sun Apr 17, 2022 10:29 pm
Gojira1604 wrote: Sun Apr 17, 2022 8:41 pm Do you all believe Toho would get mad if I uploaded full length reactions to Godzilla & Mothra movies on Patreon ? I know that site is generally good for full length reacts to Hollywood movies but Toho?
I think it wouldn’t go so well, Japan has these copyright laws that are out of touch to the public.
So do you think the reactions would be more acceptable if they weren't full length? Chopped up like all movie reactions are on YouTube?

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Thatguy4683
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Re: Where's fair use?

Post by Thatguy4683 »

Gojira1604 wrote: Sun Apr 17, 2022 11:38 pm
Thatguy4683 wrote: Sun Apr 17, 2022 10:29 pm
Gojira1604 wrote: Sun Apr 17, 2022 8:41 pm Do you all believe Toho would get mad if I uploaded full length reactions to Godzilla & Mothra movies on Patreon ? I know that site is generally good for full length reacts to Hollywood movies but Toho?
I think it wouldn’t go so well, Japan has these copyright laws that are out of touch to the public.
So do you think the reactions would be more acceptable if they weren't full length? Chopped up like all movie reactions are on YouTube?
Probably not it’s sort of like the music industry each one clip and you could get copyright infringement
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Gojira1604
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Re: Where's fair use?

Post by Gojira1604 »

Thatguy4683 wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 4:22 am
Gojira1604 wrote: Sun Apr 17, 2022 11:38 pm
Thatguy4683 wrote: Sun Apr 17, 2022 10:29 pm
I think it wouldn’t go so well, Japan has these copyright laws that are out of touch to the public.
So do you think the reactions would be more acceptable if they weren't full length? Chopped up like all movie reactions are on YouTube?
Probably not it’s sort of like the music industry each one clip and you could get copyright infringement
There any way around that? Maybe by like putting text over the (smaller) screen displaying the movie?

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shadowgigan
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Re: Where's fair use?

Post by shadowgigan »

Are you trying to sell it? Yeah, I don't think that will go over well with them. I don't see them coming after you for making a fan comic and releasing it for free. Even if they did, I doubt they would do more than send a cease and desist. You may be able to sell it on the down low at festivals, etc but even that is probably a risk. If you decide to do it, I'd suggest just releasing it for free.

Added in 1 minute 1 second:
Oh, wow, relpied to OP and not the actual question at hand.

Added in 3 minutes 27 seconds:
I think you can get away with reaction videos under fair use, but not if you upload the entire movie and just talk over it the entire time. Make sure to disclaim that you do not own the characters and that your usage falls under fair use. I'd say you could probably use short clips and stills, but not the entire movie lmao.

T_Wylie2014
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Re: Where's fair use?

Post by T_Wylie2014 »

Gojira1604 wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 4:25 am
Thatguy4683 wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 4:22 am
Gojira1604 wrote: Sun Apr 17, 2022 11:38 pm

So do you think the reactions would be more acceptable if they weren't full length? Chopped up like all movie reactions are on YouTube?
Probably not it’s sort of like the music industry each one clip and you could get copyright infringement
There any way around that? Maybe by like putting text over the (smaller) screen displaying the movie?
In short, yes, there is a way around copyright actions taken by Toho on YouTube: Block your content from being shared in Japan.

If you're on YouTube, you can control which regions receive your content. So long as you block Japan from receiving it, Toho can't do anything because it's outside of their jurisdiction and legal rights to come after works which are not shown in their own territory.

An example of this process would be what happened to TotallyNotMark, an anime reviewer. He was attacked by Toei over his DBZ reviews, and they flagged and manually blocked/demonetized over 150 videos on his channel for a while. After consulting his YouTube rep, the solution was to block the videos in Japan. And it worked. He got almost all of the videos back, if not all of them by now, and is again making money off his work as he should be.

So yeah. Block your content in Japan and Toho can't act without breaking YouTube's guidelines. Any actions they take can be dealt with using a simple appeal. And while it's not always swift, it will end in your favor once YouTube sees that the content isn't airing in Japan where Toho has jurisdiction/legal rights to request take-downs of said content.

It's a weird thing with YouTube copyright laws and guidelines that in order for the strikes and take-down requests to be granted they have to actually be airing in regions where the original copyright owner actually has legal standing. Outside of their own region, they have no legal standing because it's on the copyright laws (and the people who govern them) in other regions to say whether or not it's worth doing anything. Even if Toho were to go around to these other regions and say "this guy's sharing our content, strike him," they would govern the situation based on THEIR copyright laws. And if there's any grounds for fair use they'll give Toho the middle finger and leave your content alone.

For Patreon, you're safe there. Upload whatever you want. Patreon is more of a private than public entity. Because you're receiving money from your Patrons directly merely for your presence on the platform, Toho will have no legal justification for coming after any content shared on Patreon because it's not the content that's monetized. It's your account that's monetized. They can't attack your existence on the platform. There's no legal precedent or grounds for it. So upload whatever you want on Patreon.

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