Electronic Media: "Twentieth the Web Slayer"
ALFORNOS
Dec. 6, 1999
column
The Little Picture
Aaron Barnhart
Twentieth, the Web slayer
Studio shifts its crusade to ‘Buffy fans’ Web sites
Twentieth Television’s legal eagles are swooping down on some easy prey and
raising the ire of yet another vocal group of super fans. The targets are Web
pages maintained by devoted fans of shows produced by Twentieth Television,
including "The X Files" and "The Simpsons." Just before Thanksgiving,
Twentieth’s lawyers took aim at pages run by fans of "Buffy, the Vampire
Slayer," a show Twentieth produces for The WB network.
The trouble started three years ago when Twentieth employed a firm to snoop out
"rogue sites" that it believed were illegally using intellectual property from
Fox shows - especially sounds and images that home technology has made easy to
capture off the air.
Cracking down in Texas
In October 1996 the crackdown began in earnest, when Twentieth persuaded
officials at the University of Texas - El Paso to take down a student’s tribute
page to "Millennium," a show that had premiered that week on the network.
That raised a furor among fans of "The X Files," which like "Millennium" was
created by Chris Carter. And once word got around that "X Files" sites were
being targeted, too, the Internet seemed to rise as one against Fox. The
broadcast network had to close down its mailbox after it received tens of
thousands of angry e-mails from fans.
"I think it’s absurd," says Shawn Sampson, a more recent target of Twentieth’s
attorneys. His "Buffy" site featured screen shots and two-minute video
excerpts from recent episodes until Fox ordered him to remove the material this
summer.
"They are losing more fans than they are gaining," Mr. Sampson says. "Short
video clips do nothing more than boost ‘Buffy’s’ popularity."
Conversely, there may be few PR problems thornier than a fan who’s been
spurned. The Web is littered with the residual bad feelings of past battles
between Twentieth and the fans of its television series.
"This site has been shut down by the friendly people at Fox," declares the home
page of Brian Wilson, a student at Wake Forest University whose "King of the
Hill" tribute page was served a cease-and-desist letter in the fall of 1997.
Several of the Web masters targeted by Twentieth have shown me identical copies
of that letter, which states that because of its "many contractual obligations"
to the creative community, the studio has a "legal responsibility" to go after
unauthorized Web sites. (A Twentieth spokesperson confirmed the existence of
the letters but didn’t elaborate on which sites had received them.)
Going its own way
But Twentieth is the only major TV studio or network that seems to feel that
way. Most promotions departments are delighted to have an entourage of
cheerleaders out on the Web. Besides the thousands of hours of unpaid effort
they represent, these pages have excellent cred among young viewers, who often
perceive these homegrown Web sites as more "authentic" than the official ones.
Small wonder, then, that many official sites include links to their fans’
sites. In fact, The WB network has built a whole online community, AcmeCity
(www.acmecity.com), around this concept, offering images and other resources to
viewers for building their own tribute pages.
Perhaps no WB program engenders as much Internet ardor as "Buffy, the Vampire
Slayer." Two years ago, a young fan of the show, Alexander Thompson, began
transcribing every episode of "Buffy," word for word, then posting it on the
Web. It was a painstaking operation that took hours of video playback each
week, but fans were thrilled with the results.
So was the show’s creator, Joss Whedon, who met Mr. Thompson at a national
convention that was sponsored by the official Buffy.com site. Mr. Whedon even
signed one of Mr. Thompson’s transcripts.
Shooting themselves in the foot?
What Mr. Thompson didn’t know at the time was that Twentieth, not Mr. Whedon,
controls the show’s intellectual property. This summer, Twentieth’s lawyers
contacted the Web site where the transcripts are posted, demanding their
removal. (A spokesman for The WB was unaware that Twentieth was taking action
against "Buffy" fan pages.)
"I understand they have the right to do this," Mr. Thompson says, "but in my
opinion, they’re just shooting themselves in the foot."
Mike Godwin, author of the book "Cyber Rights," says that Twentieth can use
copyright law to prevent others from using its copyrighted material. But Web
sites can counter that with a "fair use" argument if the material is being
excerpted for purposes of criticism, reporting or other non-infringing uses.
"It is highly unlikely that [Twentieth] has lost a dime in revenue or in the
value of their intellectual property because of the fan sites," says Mr.
Godwin. "The converse is vastly more likely."
Reining in the Net
Beyond the legal questions, one must ask whether Twentieth’s aggressive stance
is all that practical.
The Net seems infinitely more vast than it did three years ago. And with the
ability to create Web sites anywhere in the world (such as Tonga, home to such
popular domains as come.to and welcome.to), renegades will always be able to
stay out of the reach of Twentieth’s lawyers.
Melissa Boysen was one of those who led the protest against the close of "X
Files" pages in 1997. Today, she notes, many of the sites that were closed
down simply found new Internet providers and set up shop again.
"Judging from [Twentieth’s] lack of updates on the official page," says Ms.
Boysen, "I think they don’t really care that much anymore." #
Aaron Barnhart’s column appears monthly in Electronic Media. He covers
television for the Kansas City Star and his Web site (www.tvbarn.com) covers
television topics daily.
alfornos
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<snip>
> Most promotions departments are delighted to have an entourage of
>cheerleaders out on the Web. Besides the thousands of hours of unpaid effort
>they represent,
:::::::Exactly!:::::::::
>these pages have excellent cred among young viewers,
>, who often perceive these homegrown Web sites as more "authentic" than the
official
>ones.
--------
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"There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep".
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