Dice Age — Indie Gaming Project vs. Hollywood 47
ArrowBay writes "Dice Age, a independent game project that raised nearly $35K through Kickstarter, is apparently facing some scrutiny from a certain movie studio that has produced movies with a similar name. From the latest project update: 'As if the Ice Age was exclusively the name of a movie, or if Dice Age was a movie itself, the 20th century fox has just asked for an extent of time (till 10-26-2011) to oppose to the registering of our beloved Dice Age game name. My point of view, as a scientist, is the Ice age is a geological era before it is a movie.""
Simple solution! (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh... wait, [wikipedia.org] that won't work either. [escapistmagazine.com]
Don't play along (Score:5, Interesting)
Why should anyone pay to see a motion picture from a major studio ever again?
If they're going to have this kind of hostility to society, by claiming all of culture as their own private property, I don't see a single reason why I should respect them in any way.
I have said before, and believe more strongly all the time, that pirating movies is a political act of civil disobedience against elements of private industry who have attacked us first by stealing our shared culture.
They can take a story from Aesop, turn it into a movie, and then sue anyone who uses the phrase "The Tortoise and the Hare".
They have declared cultural war against us. I think we should strike back.
Reminds me of Groucho's letter to Warner Bros.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Don't play along (Score:4, Interesting)
Why should anyone pay to see a motion picture from a major studio ever again?
Because the paying customer gets to vote on future productions.
The paying customer gets The Incredibles, Wall-E, Up and Toy Story 3 with a $200 million dollar production budgets. The paying customer gets ten years of Harry Potter with impeccable British casting.
The paying customer gets the theme park and the Broadway production of The Lion King.
The remake of True Grit.
He gets The Dark Knight Returns.
Batman and Batman: The Animated Series. He gets Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill and Heath Ledger as The Joker. Batman: Arkham Asylum as the video and PC game tie-in.
They can take a story from Aesop, turn it into a movie, and then sue anyone who uses the phrase "The Tortoise and the Hare".
No they can't --- and the geek knows better.
What they can do is copyright their unique interpretation of the characters and story, as Disney did in 1935 and Warner Brothers in 1943. The Tortoise and the Hare [imdb.com]
Disney's animated "Cinderella" was released in 1950. The Rogers and Hammerstein musical was produced for television in 1957. Jim Henson's "Hey Cinderella!" with the Muppets in 1969.