It's acceptance of Frozen fan-generated content, though, indicates that they might be finally seeing how community use can actually build a brand, and sales with it.
I'm sure the lawyers are still watching carefully, and how far this can be pushed remains to be seen (or litigated). But it's a long-term good change for Disney.
Reshared post from +Les Jenkins
It does seem that letting fans express themselves creatively with your IP is a good strategy. The people making those videos are the same people who are buying your product in mass quantities and they only add to the exposure of your IP. Also the good PR from being tolerant of this sort of thing can only help your image in the long run. Disney seems to have figured this out.
How Disney learned to stop worrying and love copyright infringement
For years, Disney was notoriously heavy-handed in defense of its intellectual property. Then along came “Frozen”
What happens if you can’t protect your brand
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27026704
@LH – There are certainly risks and a balance that needs to be taken.
On the other hand, the examples given in the article are, at least on this side of the Pond, not quite definitive. Most folks I know “vacuum” the floor; Jacuzzi is used casually in a generic sense but “whirlpool bath” is used in any formal / commercial description. And while “Frisbee” is most commonly used casually, Whamm-O is the only company that gets to put that label on their flying disks.
For that matter, much of the SE US uses “Coke” as a generic term for any carbonated beverage, but heaven help anyone who tries to actually _sell_ a soda called “Coke” that isn’t licensed by Coca-Cola.
Its one of the knotty problems of the ‘post scarcity’ society. If I sell you a paper book, I no longer have that paper book. I can send you a digital file and still retain my copy. This has caused an increase in dickery on boths sides- though I tend to side with content producers.
I don’t believe ‘copiers then but the product.’ There are plenty of ways to make your mind up without copying first. They have the product – who actually then sends the money? What particularly rankles is the collective whine of ‘Fair Use’. If you read what fair use is, it is mostly limited to critiquing.
I actually have little problem with the idea of DRM – If you can use the product fairly, does it matter if attempting to copy has been made harder?
On the flip side the publishing industry needs to be less draconian where their income isn’t harmed. Quoting one line of a song in a book can cost hundreds in rights, even though no one buys a book for the quoting of music.
Part of the problem is that if you don’t protect IP 100% people then get to use that as precedent.
The problem with much DRM is that use of the product is reliant upon an infrastructure maintained by the publisher — systems that check back with the mothership to make sure it’s a valid associated code. This means that when the publisher ceases to maintain that infrastructure (or ceases to exist), that purchase is no longer valid. We’ve seen that with any number of music services in the past.
I do agree that we need some way to deal with the copyability of digital media (books, movies, music, whatever). Technologically, there doesn’t seem to be a good answer — cracked versions of such media are relatively easy to come by, regardless, without much more draconian oversight of the Internet by the government and/or IP holders (neither of whom seem particularly trustworthy in this regard, given the number of bogus takedown orders that occur on places like YouTube).
The only answer there would seem to be social, making it a moral issue as to stealing work without somehow compensating the creators or the intermediaries who have invested in it. That seems difficult to do on a global basis.
The traditional idea (or excuse) for vigorous IP protection is just what you suggest. Disney’s current stance toward fair use / parody / extended use seems to belie that very narrow idea. It will be interesting to see what comes of that.