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.
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.
Plagiarism is theft, idiot.
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.