Florida Joker is in the news again, this time demanding to speak with Rockstar Games, or to be given $1-2 million over his likeness in GTA 6.
Is this article AI generated? It’s absolutely awful. Ending with youtube-style engagement bait is just embarrassing, you’re the journalist, you should be the one to reach out to a lawyer and get an opinion.
“Please like, share, and subscribe! Every little bit helps!”
🤢
Idk I’d like to at least think AI can spell “grand theft auto” correctly unlike how they spelled it in the article.
Either bad AI or just a bad writer with no proofreading.
I don’t really know what the Florida Joker did other than look horrible, but I kind of agree that Rockstar took his likeness to the benefit of their game. He should be compensated.
I’d be pretty upset too if someone used my likeness in a game and applied it to some fucked up scenario.
And it’s funny how it doesn’t apply both ways. Go make a parody of one of Rockstars IP and see how fast you get cease and desist.
It’s almost like the law doesn’t protect equally
Something something “it’s just as illegal for the rich man to sleep under a bridge as it is for the poor man to sleep under a bridge.”
The law does. Lawyers don’t.
The real issue isn’t an actual cease and desist, but DMCA takedown. I hate almost everything about the DMCA and think it should be repealed. W/o the DMCA, fair use would be a lot more favorable to smaller content creators.
Unless it’s posted somewhere dmca doesn’t apply is my understanding, but if RS finds out about your fan project, that’s what cease and desists are for. Stop working on it, and if you don’t you’re screwed. You couldn’t even “leak” it at that point.
Cease and desist is the far worse one to receive was my understanding.
Sure. But a cease and desist requires a lawsuit, DMCA just requires filling out a form, so the burden of proof is much lower. That’s my point.
RS may be able to win even sketchy cease and desist suits, but that costs them money, so they’re less likely to bother unless you get really popular.
A cease and desist is literally a letter. The court is not involved in any way.
A DMCA claim only applies to copyright infringement, not any other illegal use of IP, and you can counter claim with just as little work if your usage is legitimate and force them to actually go to court to be able to require to website to remove it.
Yes, a cease and desist is just a letter with no legal obligation whatsoever. I could send one to Rockstar today. The interesting part is the threat of legal action, so I wouldn’t send one unless I had a solid case. The letter itself isn’t interesting, the judge’s order during or after the ensuing legal battle is.
And yes, a DMCA should only apply to copyright infringement, but there’s no legal obligation to actually prove that in court before sending the request. Since the request is sent to the hosting service (e g. YouTube or GitHub) instead of the creator of the content, the content is often taken down before the creator even hears about the request. It is not in the hosting service’s interests to fight such claims, nor look much more closely than to verify that the sender seems like they likely own the allegedly infringing content.
If you host your own content, yes, you’re responsible for whether you take it down before being legally obligated to. Most people use a popular hosting service, especially for something like a video where any form of popularity will likely overwhelm their hosting. That’s why people use services like YouTube, they don’t want to deal with scaling if demand takes off.
The threat of legal action is the same with or without a formal letter. It’s 5 minutes of a lawyer’s time. The barrier is zero. Anyone can send one for any reason with no cause.
The hosting provider is not obligated to investigate or defend against DMCA claims. If they receive a valid counter claim, they are permitted to host it again until actual legal action is initiated, in a courtroom. They don’t receive them for the exact same reason people don’t respond The barrier of a DMCA takedown after the trivial counter claim is much higher than a cease and desist.
No a cease and desist doesn’t require a lawsuit, where does that apply? You have your lawyer draft a letter and if they ignore it, than you have to go to court and deal with it, but these aren’t used frivolously like DMCAs so they are usually followed.
You can’t DMCA something that isn’t copyright infringement, if you’re hosting it yourself, a DMCA doesn’t even really apply to you either. It’s for third party hosters. And you still need proof regardless, you can’t just dmca stuff and not follow through with proof and enforcement.
Your point is inherently flawed it seems.
It’s for third party hosters. And you still need proof regardless, you can’t just dmca stuff and not follow through with proof and enforcement.
Most content is hosted via a third party, and the more popular third parties (e.g. YouTube) don’t seem to check the proof, they just take it down.
The cease and desist requires a judge, so it needs to actually have proof, so the barrier is much higher.
If you self-host, sure, but very few people actually do that, especially for something like a parody where reaching a broad audience is the entire point.
You can get a judge to order and injunction for a cease and desist which make it’s legally binding, but it’s not the only method available.
I can send you a cease and desist to stop commenting on my comments, if you don’t I would either than take you to court, or drop it.
A dmca means nothing to the person who did the copyright infringement, great I can’t put the video on YouTube, on to the next one… how inconvenient and obstructive to their work.
You realize you’re on the fediverse where anyone can Self host instances… yeah?
Parody is protected. There have been a few made.
How many fan/parody games have made it to light instead of being C&D’d?
Parody is protected, but not when you have vastly more expensive lawyers who will bully you into compliance.
Hundreds, I would estimate.
Can you provide a single one?
Yes? Unless you’ve been living in a box this is not a surprise:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1926680/FUCK_PUTIN/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1151390/Putin_Life/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2469880/Putin_Must_Die__Defend_the_White_House/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1540060/Angry_Putin/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/805820/Putin_VS_ISIS/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/866310/Putin_Run_Away_From_Trump/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/515040/Make_America_Great_Again_The_Trump_Presidency/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/769980/Lock_Her_Up_The_Trump_Supremacy/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/705410/World_War_Party_Game_Of_Trump/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/844260/Rustler_Grand_Theft_Horse/
You’ve also got Saints Row, which parodies GTA pretty well.
None of those are parodies of games……
And no saints row and rustler aren’t parodies, those are games in the same genre. You don’t think just because a game is a same genre it makes it a parody does it…?
Different face, different tattoos. Sure, it’s definitely inspired by him but looks legally distinct.
With GTAV, Kate Upton also sued for her likeness being taken for one of the loading screens. I don’t recall how that one ended.
Looked it up, apparently Lindsay Lohan sued them and lost. The image is without a doubt Kate Uptons face traced over a real life photo though from what I just saw, but she herself hasn’t tried to sue them…
It was Lindsey Lohan who sued
https://www.unilad.com/celebrity/news/lindsay-lohan-grand-theft-auto-five-lawsuit-110273-20230907
He just realised that’s the only way he can make money off a terrible decision.
He should be compensated.
But why
Put yourself in his shoes for a second. You have appeared on TV over something you did. Good or bad, it doesn’t matter. Then you realize some game company that’s making a parody of the society you live in use your image and personality traits that are directly identifiable to you to create a character that parodies YOU. And they put this other YOU in various scenarios that you may or may not agree with. And they’re going to pull a hefty profit from using this version of YOU while you don’t receive a penny.
Does that sound fair?
Yes? They’re not using his likeness, they’re using a parody.
Should Trump be compensated if they use a parody of him in a video game? E.g. should Trump profit from this game?
I can understand if they use an actual likeness, but a parody isn’t an actual likeness, it’s a new character that’s a satirized version of an actual person, so their actions in game wouldn’t be construed to match the actions of the satirized person. That’s how parody works, and it’s absolutely protected speech and doesn’t require compensation.
This guy is just a guy, trump is a ex-preseident. If Rockstar was “parodying” a sick old man and uaing their likeness in agame that they will gain incredible amounts of money from would that be okay? If they’re adding a version of this guy in a game that’s identifiable that its him, than he needs to be compensated or straight up not consent to this bullcrap and Rockstar shpuld be removing him from their gsme. Calling it parodying doesn’t make it okay snd parodying a political figure is totally different from using the likeness of some guy with tattoos in their game.
Use of someone’s likeness without their permission isn’t illegal in and of itself, it’s only illegal if it causes them some form of harm, in which case it is defamatory. And this wasn’t even an exact replication of anyone’s likeness, but instead a similar but quite different rendition, to the point where it’s absurd to think that any of the actions portrayed by the character are defamatory to the original person.
Yeah, it’s weird, but from my understanding there’s nothing illegal about it. I could design a model based on a sick old man I saw at a hospital or something, and as long as my use of that model is not defamatory or otherwise causes harm to this individual, it’s fair use. That’s the law. It would be weird, but AFAIK totally legal.
And yeah, parodying a political figure is different, it’s just the one I could find. You can still be sued for defamation against a political or other public figure, and in fact that’s probably more likely, though the burden for a political figure is a bit higher (i.e. criticizing their policies is usually protected speech, even if otherwise defamatory in nature).
Ah. Good point. You might be right. Well we’ll see how it turns out.
It’s a likeness, not the same. It’s a parody which is clearly covered by law and there are thousands of similar examples.
Rockstar just stole Florida’s likeness and made it a game. Congratulations on trying but failing being creative or edgy. Feels like Rockstar has hit their 40’s.
How’s that different from they always did? Isn’t Vice City based on Miami, 4 based in NYC, and 5 on LA? They’ve always just taken the likeness of a city in America and called it a game.
