Christ, way too many fucking assholes!
Was there any communication from the charity to MGM prior to this? If the charity didnât even send them an e-mail, then they deserve the shutdown.
Iâm sick of charities pretending that they are the victims when they havenât even done the common courtesy of contacting the property owner. If the property owner says no, then complain. But donât go to the media and pretend the evil corporation is oppressing you if you blindsided them with your action.
Iâd hardly call it a charity, and more just a thing that happened. People donât even pay money or register.
MGM has seen its success and has partnered with a for-profit company to launch a non-charitable version
Per the Rocky Run website, they do have a charitable beneficiary: Special Olympics Philadelphia. How much and what percentage of profits arenât stated though (as is often the case, unfortunately).
It is really crappy how a lot of for-profit races throw a nominal donation in their materials to make it look like a non-profit race.
Stay classy, MGM.
The only thing at stake here is the name (and any assorted imaging from the movie), since I donât believe you can copyright a route.
Call it the Rocky Road Run and put pictures of ice cream on all your promotional materials and say youâre doing it to work off extra calories from ice cream.
BoycottMGM
I wonder if they could find a picture of Stallone eating ice cream.
Yeah, Iâm sick of small groups of people who live near the location where a famous movie was shot deciding to organize something for charity that refers back to the film as well.
I mean, when these people said, âHey, we live near where the guy* did his run in the movie, letâs do that run,â âYeah, we might as well collect something for charity while weâre at it.â Why didnât think think about how MGM deserved to be making money off of the thing they decided to do? Iâm pretty sure MGM essentially owns that tract of land, given the fact that they shot a movie there once. Plus thereâs the name! There is no way someone should mention a movie without paying the people who made it money.
Canât we think of the real victims - those whoâs letter-of-the-law right to profit has been ignored?
* Youâll notice I didnât actually say the guyâs name, because that would be wrong unless I paid MGM for the right to do so, and I donât quite know what mechanism I should pay them through. Actual people who have that name in real life must owe MGM a lot of money.
There you go:
Oh, the poor charity. A simple email would have broken their little fingers.
Stupidity is not an excuse. I donate exclusively to the Red Cross/Red Crescent because they are smart enough not to fuck this shit up.
Here, let me write it for you:
Dear MGM,
Are you using [this idea]? If not, weâd like to use it for our charity thingy. Let us know if you can accommodate us or if there are any pre-existing conflicts. Thanks.
Sincerely,
A competent charity that doesnât piss on everyone
Contrast this with
OMFG! MGMz IZ SO EVILL!!! THEY HATE CHILDRENZ! WE WANTED TO HELP THE KIDZ AND THEY ONLY SUUUUEEED!!! CALL THE MEDIAZ!!!
Pretty sure thatâs not a Rambo, dudeâŚ
And contrast your examples to what the actual person who organized it was quoted as saying in the article:
âI canât be negative about this,â she says. âMy mom was like, âHow cool is it that you did something that got a cease-and-desist?ââ
So youâve fabricated a caricature of a person screaming like a little kid to justify getting angry that a small group of people who did not and never intended to profit decided to have a small event for charity that invoked the name of a movie.
I am pretty far from convinced that MGM even has any legal right to send this. Anyone is allowed to run that route and anyone is allowed, while doing so, to remark upon or even advertise that it is the same route as the one Rocky ran in the movie.
This is on par with someone holding a Rocky Horror Picture Show themed halloweâen party and collect voluntary donations for a food bank at the door. Does that warrant a letter to lawyers first?
This is on par with someone offering a tour of a city that mentions what movies were filmed in what locations. Do they owe royalties to the makers of all of those films?
Rocky was filmed in Philadelphia, that does not give MGM any kind of permanent rights over the city or the people in it. And having a copyright on a piece of media doesnât let you control the way other people mention it or reference it - only the way other people reproduce it.
What Iâm sick of is people with lots of money using legal threats to bully people without money because they know the people without money canât take it court. Another thing I am sick of is people imagining that having copyright over a piece of media gives carte blanche to any absurd action so long as that piece of media is peripherally related.
You sound very angry, but entirely at the wrong people. Have you considered a career in law enforcement?
I think itâs not really about asking for permission. Any corporate lawyer will tell you you need permission for just about anything. It looks bad because MGM essentially used their perceived IP to âstealâ a good idea. You think if this âRockyâ run had never existed, that MGM would have done it? Remember ALS and the âice bucketâ copyright? I think this should be under fair use.
Just to be clear Humbabella, the lower quote is you (and the other people who are kneejerk reacting).
Well, itâs good that youâre being entirely clear and ensuring thereâs no confusion on how your insulting uncivil response was to be read. Any response to the actual meat of the objection, ie, thereâs no legitimate intellectual property to infringe here?
Iâve already stated it. And it wasnât an insult, it was an acknowledgement that the kneejerk reaction is by people who refuse to acknowledge that a simple e-mail could have de-conflicted this situation. You and every other reply to my post have not given any reasonable explanation why this wasnât done. There are tons of cease-and-desist letters that warrant our concern. But when the receiver hasnât even done the simplest of groundwork, I canât feel much pity for them. When they havenât done this groundwork, it certainly doesnât deserve the âMGM is evilâ flip-out party you are having right now.
MGM was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and could barely scrape together the money for the last Bond film, if I recall correctly. It is at least vaguely understandable that they would want to be cautious when it comes to use of their IP.
(Of course, said Bond film did end up being the most successful film in the franchise ever.)
