Star Wars Gives Crafters a Free Copyright Pass?

I am going to have to accept that it is simply not possible for an average guy like myself to understand what is kosher and what is treif when it comes to copyright and fair use.

I just wrote about Pez going after a guy with a Pez “museum” for, I guess, making money off of the Pez brand and not sharing that money with Pez.  Although, seriously, how much money could this guy be making?

Now, just a few minutes later I come across an announcement for a Star Wars themed craft fair called Stitch Wars.  Cute, right.  Well, not only are hundreds of crafters showing up with their own, handmade Star Wars puppets, plushies and pillows, but many of these people are selling those items.  Obviously, they are only able to sell these items thanks to their Star Wars connection but it doesn’t look like LucasArts et. al. have let loose the lawyers on this band of pirate knitters, crocheters and stitchers.

On the one hand, this feels so reasonable and right and on the other hand, considering the way corporations sling around copyright infringement suits like their a dime-a-dozen, a part of me is shocked that Stitch Wars is allowed to exist.

That makes me sad.

MPAA Wonders Why Public Views Them (and RIAA) So Poorly

There is a devestating post in response to comments made by Fritz Attaway, executive vice president and senior policy adviser for the MPAA at the World Copyright Summit, who said:

”The enemies of copyright have really done a good job at creating the false premise that the interest of copyright holders and the interest of society as a whole are antagonistic, and they always talk about the need for balance.”   LINK

ZeroPaid’s Drew Wilson asks, “Gee, why would the public view them as antogonistic?” He then answers with a few possibilities:

…destroying Napster and Audio Galaxy and not creating an alternative for the get-go, raiding people’s homes because they uploaded Star Wars (not necessarily leaking it in the first place), hacking the URN hash and polluting FastTrack, hacking The Pirate Bay, having Viacom serve DMCA notices to people posting video’s of people eating in a restaurant on YouTube, suing tens of thousands of average American’s including fining one individual $222,000 for sharing a couple songs, saying that files in a shared directory is copyright infringement in court, saying that evidence is too hard to get and that the industry shouldn’t be burdened to prove their cases in court, suggesting that iPods are little more than little pirate ships…

And that’s just  a taste of the entire post.  When people of the future look back at how the massive entertainment industries of the late-20th Century crumbled, this post would be a good starting point.