Braineack
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Couple takes pics of Star Wars figure they bought, gets DMCA notice from Lucasfilm
On Tuesday, a Star Wars Action News staffer saw something he shouldn't have—and bought it. A 3 3/4" action figure of "Rey," a female character from The Force Awakens, was on display in a Walmart in Iowa, apparently earlier than it should have been. The staff member bought it for $6.94 plus tax, no questions asked. The following day, he posted pictures of the Rey figure on Star Wars Action News' Facebook page.
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A short time later, Carvalho got a surprising message.
"A friend texted my husband saying, hey, are you getting sued?" said Carvalho in an interview with Ars. The image from the Facebook post was gone. "We looked and noticed we'd gotten a notice from Facebook saying our image violated copyright. It was confusing because our staff member, Justin, he took the photo."
The image had quickly spread through social media—and just as fast, Lucasfilm, its owner Disney, and at least one third-party content policing company have blanketed the Internet with Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices.
Carvalho's husband replaced the Facebook post with a note telling her followers the images must be kept off her site.
"Those photos have gone viral—they're out there," he wrote. "But they aren't here. And we will not be posting them again as we consider Hasbro a valuable partner in our coverage of Star Wars toys."
(There was some initial confusion about who sent the notices, but they were sent by Disney, Lucasfilm, and copyright enforcement agents—not Hasbro, which produces the toys.)
Not everyone reacted so amicably. Jeremy Conrad, who runs a fan website called Star Wars Unity and an associated Twitter account, got a DMCA notice from Lucasfilm when he re-tweeted photos of the figure. That notice, sent by a third-party enforcement company called Irdeto, described the infringement as "a screen shot of an unreleased figurine for Star Wars: Force Awakens."
"It's not unreleased if you can walk into Walmart and buy the damn toy!" wrote Conrad on his website. "Due to this I urge all Star Wars fans to avoid Hasbro product and not purchase any of their Star Wars releases. Until Hasbro grows a brain and stops bullying fans online, they do not deserve any of our money."
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A short time later, Carvalho got a surprising message.
"A friend texted my husband saying, hey, are you getting sued?" said Carvalho in an interview with Ars. The image from the Facebook post was gone. "We looked and noticed we'd gotten a notice from Facebook saying our image violated copyright. It was confusing because our staff member, Justin, he took the photo."
The image had quickly spread through social media—and just as fast, Lucasfilm, its owner Disney, and at least one third-party content policing company have blanketed the Internet with Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices.
Carvalho's husband replaced the Facebook post with a note telling her followers the images must be kept off her site.
"Those photos have gone viral—they're out there," he wrote. "But they aren't here. And we will not be posting them again as we consider Hasbro a valuable partner in our coverage of Star Wars toys."
(There was some initial confusion about who sent the notices, but they were sent by Disney, Lucasfilm, and copyright enforcement agents—not Hasbro, which produces the toys.)
Not everyone reacted so amicably. Jeremy Conrad, who runs a fan website called Star Wars Unity and an associated Twitter account, got a DMCA notice from Lucasfilm when he re-tweeted photos of the figure. That notice, sent by a third-party enforcement company called Irdeto, described the infringement as "a screen shot of an unreleased figurine for Star Wars: Force Awakens."
"It's not unreleased if you can walk into Walmart and buy the damn toy!" wrote Conrad on his website. "Due to this I urge all Star Wars fans to avoid Hasbro product and not purchase any of their Star Wars releases. Until Hasbro grows a brain and stops bullying fans online, they do not deserve any of our money."
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