I tend to be in the “fuck corporations” camp, but this doesn’t really look like they’re stealing his work. It looks nothing like the original Charlie the Unicorn. The original Charlie was gray, while this creature is white and rainbow. This is just a reference.
As an analogy, Borderlands 2 has a sniper rifle names The Storm, and it has the red flavor text “tut tut, looks like rain”, which is a quote from Winnie the Pooh. I personally wouldn’t call that exploitation. You could try to make an argument, but it’s so minor and indirect that any argument wouldn’t hold any water
I think the combination of calling him Charlie, making him a unicorn-like creature, and going to a place called Candy (Kingdom instead of Mountain) makes it a little more than mere friendly homage for my liking. Probably not enough to give rise to a legal claim of copyright or trademark infringement, but enough to be ethically very shaky.
It’s like if that Borderlands sniper was also an anthropomorphised polar bear from the 100 Acre Tundra.
They mention a character Charlie, unicorns, and a candy place. I don’t know why they are being so careful to avoid accusations of stealing the author’s work, because that’s exactly what they’re doing. People who are familiar with Charlie the unicorn are supposed to recognize it here, and spend their money on Warner Bros merchandise. How could you possibly not see this as theft?
I’ve seen a number of references to my work in big-company projects before. For example, there’s a dead unicorn with an enchanted kidney named Charlie in World of Warcraft. This is fine! It’s completely within fair-use laws. Using my audio directly is not fair use.
Copyright law, at least in the United States, is heavily weighted towards protecting large corporations. Warner Bros is one of the largest media companies in the world, and it often uses IP law like a weapon against smaller artists. Notable examples include MeatCanyon, whose clear fair use parody video “Wabbit Season” was forcibly removed from YouTube, and Vera Drew, whose parody film “The People’s Joker” received a cease and desist letter from WB, initially derailing its film festival premiere schedule.
So WB wasn’t just making a reference, but also lifting audio from Steele’s work while also shutting down other’s fair use parodies.
I tend to be in the “fuck corporations” camp, but this doesn’t really look like they’re stealing his work. It looks nothing like the original Charlie the Unicorn. The original Charlie was gray, while this creature is white and rainbow. This is just a reference.
As an analogy, Borderlands 2 has a sniper rifle names The Storm, and it has the red flavor text “tut tut, looks like rain”, which is a quote from Winnie the Pooh. I personally wouldn’t call that exploitation. You could try to make an argument, but it’s so minor and indirect that any argument wouldn’t hold any water
It’s not clear from the screenshot but the advertisement used audio directly from his original video; that was his issue.
See https://www.reddit.com/r/MultiVersus/comments/1hk71b8/comment/m3czdlk/.
I think the combination of calling him Charlie, making him a unicorn-like creature, and going to a place called Candy (Kingdom instead of Mountain) makes it a little more than mere friendly homage for my liking. Probably not enough to give rise to a legal claim of copyright or trademark infringement, but enough to be ethically very shaky.
It’s like if that Borderlands sniper was also an anthropomorphised polar bear from the 100 Acre Tundra.
They could have just licensed Charlie from Steele. It would actually look good then.
They mention a character Charlie, unicorns, and a candy place. I don’t know why they are being so careful to avoid accusations of stealing the author’s work, because that’s exactly what they’re doing. People who are familiar with Charlie the unicorn are supposed to recognize it here, and spend their money on Warner Bros merchandise. How could you possibly not see this as theft?
Are pop culture references theft? No.
There’s more going on.
So WB wasn’t just making a reference, but also lifting audio from Steele’s work while also shutting down other’s fair use parodies.
Did they use that flavor text to advertise the game?