As I’m sure you noticed, the episode 6.11 review/summary that we posted yesterday was removed. So forgive me while I verbally vomit my outrage. Rainbow Holdings Media, LLC aka AMC, filed a DMCA Notice (Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998) with Facebook to remove the content due to copyright infringement. I got a pleasant little notice from Facebutt this afternoon. We’ve gotten them before, but this was different. What we posted was someone’s review of an episode. The work that AMC claimed was copyrighted and infringed upon? “A character my organization or client created.” Seriously?
Here’s my beef. AMC sends out screener copies to media outlets. Why? (So glad you asked.) Because they want people to view them and then write about them to create buzz and get them more ratings. Pretty obvious. So my question is, how is what we posted any different. Because ours had more detail? Where is the line? The reason in the Notice said nothing about spoilers, or publishing prior to an episode or whatever fancy wording they want to wrap around it, just “a character.” So using that same logic, wouldn’t an episode review published AFTER an episode has been aired be the same violation? Do the words *SPOILER ALERT* have magic meaning?
It’s a bullying tactic used by a big corporation who apparently gives zero fukks about a portion of its fan base. Specifically aimed right here. Facebook really doesn’t care about the validity of the claim, it really doesn’t have to be proven when a DMCA notice is filed; just the claim is enough. (Especially when it’s from someone with deep pockets.) Corporations use this Act against individuals every day. What we publish here is for Fair Use. By that I mean we publish stuff for the purposes of “criticism, comment, and news reporting.” According to the law, it doesn’t matter if the work is unpublished.
We may be a small percentage of the fan base, but when someone messages us thanking us for spoilers because they have an anxiety/panic disorder and couldn’t watch otherwise, I feel pretty damned good about what we do. None of us make a fukking dime from this. We are on alert 24/7, we put up with all kinds of BS from angles and places you would never believe on a daily basis and try our best to stay on the legal side of things in order to provide something that a part of the fan base wants. The general audience may not see it, but there are people who get tired of Gimple’s “non-answers” and the droll hype and buzzwords that TPTB spout off and want real info. Hell, if they wouldn’t give interviews that said absolutely nothing, maybe people wouldn’t seek out answers.
And now we get this bag of ass.
We don’t want to spoil people who don’t want to be spoiled, but I and the rest of the team are grateful we get to spoil for all of you who want it! So think about this, Fox Television gets to put out a picture of Carl with his eye bandaged and it’s all hunky dunky, AMC spoils Beth’s death for the general audience on its own Facebook page (whoops), but we post an episode review and big bad television studio yanks out the lawyers. That kind of violates the don’t seem right rule.
Spoiling isn’t over. As long as you want it, we’ll bring it.
~ShinyFirefly