Cosplayers could be fined

[CosmicSpark 2,120]

I have recently come across an article on a new Trans-pacific partnership copyright law that will be passed later next year. If you read this article it will explain that there cracking down on intellectual property theft and cosplayers can be imprisoned and/or be fined up to $100,000 if you don’t hold a licence to cosplay. I am sorry not good with words.

 

Please feel free to discuss this and hopefully this has been helpful.

 

 

http://donthatethegeek.com/oh-no-geeks-trouble/

[Venomous 18,813]

People can be fined for not having a proper licence for this?

Wow.

[PROJECT: Simon 3,953]

This is.. really shocking for me. I want to see more and more people cosplaying league of legends~ ;~; 

[One-Punch Man 316]

Well...there goes my dreams of walking around town dressed as Rick Sanchez.

 

Unless everyone just thinks I am a loon or something.

[Tiny 55]

Well, hopefully a petition will be in placed so people that are into that can get a law change.

[Malinter 3,064]

i'm pretty sure dressing up as someone you like is not against the law. I'm pretty sure this is going to crash with freedom of speech in some way. I can understand them targeting the suit makers ( they make money from it if they sell them to order) but charging people wearing the suits themselves should not fly. And at a convention with 1000's of people, there is no way to enforce it.

[Odyssey 5,713]

Ick. Just how sad can this possibly get? I mean, fan art gets a free pass, but cosplay is against the law? This is really pathetic. The next thing you'll know it, there will suddenly be a law where fan art is prohibited. Yay.

[Catpone Cerberus 23,427]

here will suddenly be a law where fan art is prohibited

''The lawyer basically stated if you cosplay, make fan art, fan story’s, doujins, or make props from any show or movie you are infringing on this new copyright law and could be arrested, fined , and sued.''

Edited October 6, 2015 by The Cerberus

[Redacted321 105]

You're joking right? Any company that pushes this is failing to see their cutting off a leg one of the big reasons people get into any fandom is the fandom, the art, cosplay, fanfic all fan creations draw new people and create a diverse fanbase. If this gets pushed it's going to be a sad day for everyone.

[Sir Hugsalot 8,621]

Really? Fucking really? 

 

I... have no words on this. Greediness has reached a whole new level. I am really grateful I live in Europe now since this law seem to not be a thing here. But still... USA, Canada, Australia, those places have biggest fanbases from what I know. So big loss ;/ 

 

Just... fuck that. I am sorry. 

 

 

Oh, wait... nvm.

I took a look at  comments section and it looks like someone just tried to start panic >< 

[CosmicSpark 2,120]

I really should have read the comments before I posted this :( I am sorry everypony for this stupid post 

[Codelyy 1,281]

I highly doubt this law will be around for long when it's passed.

 

I can see the riots now.

[Rizoel & Crepuscule 490]

Meh. I'm not worried. I have no doubts that if it does affect cosplayers and youtubers and all that, they will all speak up about it. And that's a lot of people. You can't keep a law when almost everyone is against it. Usually.

 

It reminds me a lot of SOPA and all that. Especially in the sense that the only reason that SOPA didn't pass was because everyone in the universe ever spoke up about it. And, like this law, they tried to keep SOPA a secret(last time I checked, passing laws without permission from the people is, like, the opposite of democracy. Maybe even fascist, actually ._. ), because they KNEW that everyone ever would say no, since it actually does NOTHING to enhance profits of business' except the biggest ones in a given industry. Which is probably why massive companies like Comcast and MPAA are in complete support of this bill, yet smaller business' are not. Not even a little bit.

 

However, I have a feeling that this article is exaggerating(this is a news article folks, their job is to blow things out of proportion, I mean c'mon). There is no evidence that this guy actually talked to a lawyer about shit. I mean, things like;

 

"This new law will also impact web sites that review product. With this new law, it will also make it impossible to review an item without the written consent of the copyright holder."

 

Like, really? No way. This goes completely against Fair Use. It basically overrules it if that is true. You also won't be allowed to put gameplay videos on YouTube. And videos about games, reviews or otherwise, is where most ad revenue for YouTube comes from. Many people on YouTube have a lot of fans, and they WILL speak up against it, and then everyone will know about it. And then it will hit the fan.

 

But, again, even if everything in the article was true(which it very well could be, don't get me wrong), no one is gonna let it pass(even if it already has). The people won't let it fly. You can't keep something that affects essentially everybody that uses the internet a secret.

 

So yeah, I'm not that worried. It's not gonna happen. And if it does, it won't be for long. A year at most. And if it goes on for longer than a year, then I think it says a lot about us, the people. Because at the end of the day, whether or not this happens and for how long is entirely in our hands. And, again, once the people with big voices on YouTube know about it (like TotalBiscuit, to name just one), they WILL tell everyone. And then their fans will tell everyone they know, and so on, and then everyone will know about it, and no one is gonna be happy, and then we're all gonna' rock the boat, and then the bill will be gone.

 

Unless we're idiots, and do nothing. In which case, maybe we deserve this kinda' thing to happen to us.

 

But no, I don't think we'll let it slide. We did it with SOPA, we'll do it again.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Rizoel & Crepuscule

[Wonderbolt 68]

 Even if they did pass this (they more than likely won't because it would infringe people’s rights of expression and companies would alienate their fans) it would be impossible to police, would they hang outside comiccon arresting hordes of cosplayers or trawl deventart to find perpetrators of fanart =p

[superdogz1999 551]

This might be unconstitutional in the United States.

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution states that people have freedom of speech and thought and Cosplaying is protected under free of thought.

The cosplaying laws however are baloney, no one would enforce it and if companies were sending Cease and Desist orders and lawsuits to cosplayers. Those companies would lose customers and therefore lose their profits from selling their items to the consumer as having companies do lawsuits could cause the customers to boycott the company completely.

Edited October 6, 2015 by superdogz1999

[10InTheTardis 509]

Does this mean that the people who own James Bond can sue people for wearing suits? Can Hasbro sue people for dying their hair pink or rainbow or whatever? Can the BBC sue people for saying "Who"?

[Guest]

Good news everyone, this has been talked about before and this only presents the "possibility". It would still need to be taken to court, etc. No judge worth more than two peanuts will allow such a thing to pass. Can you even imagine the court case?

 

"You see your honor, but this man dressing like Sailor Moon, he has lost us considerable profits."

 

 

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution states that people have freedom of speech and thought and Cosplaying is protected under free of thought.

 

This is actually a misconception. Freedom of speech does not take precedent over other laws. It is a known logical point that if a law contradicts another law, an exception is made. Similar to the laws of robotics if you will:

 

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except when such orders would conflict with the first law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second laws.

In this example the first law states that a robot can not harm a human. However it also has the right to defend itself and it must obey humans, EXCEPT when it can not do so without violating the first law. So if a human commanded a robot to destroy itself, despite the third law stating a robot must protect its existence, an exception is made because not following that order would conflict with the second law.

 

Laws in real life work very similar. Your freedom of speech is limited when it conflicts with other laws. In this case technically speaking you are not "expressing yourself" you're expressing through a copyrighted work that is someone else's that paid and registered it. So naturally you actually never WERE protected by the first amendment when it came to cosplay, companies just chose not to give a damn because it would do them more harm than good to go after it.

 

That being said, remember guys: laws do not equate to change in the system. It is still up to copyright holders to press charges, which many of them are not stupid enough to do because it would be PR suicide. Those who are, well they clearly were draconian enough to do so before these laws were made and all this will do is show us who we should stop doing business with. Think of this law as a good thing, companies have now been given the rope to hang themselves with.

[DJW 142]

That being said, remember guys: laws do not equate to change in the system. It is still up to copyright holders to press charges, which many of them are not stupid enough to do because it would be PR suicide. Those who are, well they clearly were draconian enough to do so before these laws were made and all this will do is show us who we should stop doing business with. Think of this law as a good thing, companies have now been given the rope to hang themselves with.

Indeed.

Though given that US companies are obligated to 'defend' their copyright or face loosing said rights (afaik?), they may find themselves in the position (like Hasbro frequently does) where they clearly see how daft it is, but their legal team (probably a contractor) sees a legal requirement (and a paycheck).

I can see many companies being against it, but the legal scene rather interested.

Edited October 6, 2015 by DJW

[Castle Bleck 19,167]

Fining me would be one thing.

 

Actually getting a single cent from me would be another.

Edited October 6, 2015 by A.V.

[Red Cedar 1,407]

So, the text of the relevant section in the TPP is:
 
“Any reproduction, remastering, modification, alteration, reselling, and/or manipulation of an original copyrighted item will not be infringed on, or will be punishable by jail time, and/or a fine of up to a $100,000, and/or be sued by the copyright holder”
 
The key words here are "Original Copyright Item". That means of the book, movie, television show or comic itself.

Long story short: there is no change to copyright law whatsoever. This is the sort of thing already protected under most countries' existing copyright laws. Cosplay on!

[FoxyCryptid 4,327]

Guys, calm down.

 

This is whole write-up is complete and extraordinary here-say with no sources, name given to the supposed lawyer, or qoutes from the actual bill (of which the leaked version we have is ancient)  

Edited October 6, 2015 by Shoboni

[CuriousPony 156]

Whaaat? They can't seriously.. okay. Well....

 

I think this is a futile effort on their part. People are going to cosplay, license or not. And like, what about kids on Halloween? Will they need licenses to dress up as their favorite characters? I'd call cosplay free advertisement and proof that your characters are a success, not a breach of their intellectual property. :/

[Bird Mom 900]

This isn't going to happen. It's strictly unconstitutional. 

[cider float 2,535]

WTF so what's stopping them from fining a person that's dressed the way they normally are but can represent any of the trillion fictional characters out there?

 

A high school girl can dress like Misty from Pokemon. Looks like they'll have to fine every U.S. marine for dressing like in Call of Duty. If this does become real then the creators of the fictional characters dressing like real life people should also be fined for plagiarism of how real life people dress. I think that would be fair then. It's time to turn every game into tetris or moving colored blobs unless some blocky or colored blob aliens come and say that they are infringing on copyright material.

Guys, calm down.

 

This is whole write-up is complete and extraordinary here-say with no sources, name given to the supposed lawyer, or qoutes from the actual bill (of which the leaked version we have is ancient)  

Well I can't access the site so I don't really know what's on it.

Edited November 29, 2015 by cider float

[Hovershy 3,812]

The TPP is horrible in so many ways. I was unaware about this particular part of it, but it just means we have another reason to stop it.