Bad News re: BronyDoc

[~Master~ Button Mash 2,307]

People can say what they want about the documentary, but I still liked it. As a relatively new brony, it helped me get acquainted with the community. I can see how it might be seen as lackluster to someone whose been a brony for a long time, but to me (who only first watched the show in November 2012) most of what was discussed was new, and informative. 

 

I bought a legit copy, BTW.

[FoxyCryptid 4,330]

h

I haven't seen the movie but i agree with the statements that no one should have to pay something that's terrible when you can  check it out yourself, make your own opinion, and then decide to buy it if you'd like to see it again. It's 2013 people should be aware that this is how the internet and piracy works.

 

All the drama and a couple of cringe-worthy moments(which 90% were more "that came out wrong" then bad all together)aside, it's worth it just for the feeling watching gives. I found it really heartwarming just watching everyone have fun and celebrate, it re-created that awesome feeling of first finding the community all over again for me, If the DVD does turn out to only be $15, I'll probably put back a little and look into it. 

Edited February 8, 2013 by Shoboni

[Harmonic Revelations 8,835]

I am disappointed in anyone who is angry with John DeLancie, he tried very hard to potray us in a positive light and we repay him and the team by pirating it?

[FoxyCryptid 4,330]

I am disappointed in anyone who is angry with John DeLancie, he tried very hard to potray us in a positive light and we repay him and the team by pirating it?

I don't mind the people that did it quietly because they couldn't afford it, it's the people that brag about it and spread it everywhere that annoy me in the matter, someone didn't have to go and put it on Youtube like that. 

Edited February 8, 2013 by Shoboni

[Somerled FireMane 1]

Whilst I liked the doco, I didn find it to be rather biased.

[DeiStar 248]

I am disappointed in anyone who is angry with John DeLancie, he tried very hard to potray us in a positive light and we repay him and the team by pirating it?

 

It's not like DeLancie did the documentary from the bottom of his heart.

 

He did it solely for the money, acting like the hero of the bronies.

 

That's the reason why he's so upset.

[Harmonic Revelations 8,835]

It's not like DeLancie did the documentary from the bottom of his heart.

 

He did it solely for the money, acting like the hero of the bronies.

 

That's the reason why he's so upset.

It doesn't matter, at least he did it at all. You have to remember that doing such a thing was actually a very risky thing on his part, considering the controversy associated with the brony community in general.

Edited February 8, 2013 by Harmonic Revelations

[None42069 520]

It's not like DeLancie did the documentary from the bottom of his heart.

 

He did it solely for the money, acting like the hero of the bronies.

 

That's the reason why he's so upset.

 

Looks like someone's mad about the project being canceled. Either that or you simply hate John De Lancie. Either way, Harmonic, I'm stealing your violin-playing crab.

 

[Somerled FireMane 1]

One thing that boggles my mind is, seeing that DeLancie is like a uber rich celebrity, why did he have to go to kick starter for the funds? and as such, they should've done a more professional documentary, and included a lot more cultures/countries....

Also, guys, PLEASE calm down, I am far from perfect myself but and hate to sound cliche, but love and tolerate! Also, please do remember that we have childrenon on this forum, and some of us have children who look over our shoulders, so please keep the swearing andattitude to a bare minimum. Thanks

Edited February 8, 2013 by Somerled FireMane

[FoxyCryptid 4,330]

One thing that boggles my mind is, seeing that DeLancie is like a uber rich celebrity, why did he have to go to kick starter for the funds? and as such, they should've done a more professional documentary, and included a lot more cultures/countries....

Also, guys, PLEASE calm down, I am far from perfect myself but and hate to sound cliche, but love and tolerate! Also, please do remember that we have childrenon on this forum, and some of us have children who look over our shoulders, so please keep the swearing andattitude to a bare minimum. Thanks

 

Bingo, people need to stop acting like he should be the perfect, flawless, human being that never makes mistakes or says anything wrong. 

[RockinRarity 1,605]

Whilst I liked the doco, I didn find it to be rather biased.

I think that all documentaries are biased.

 

Shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that they only portrayed the good side of bronies. Not that anyone needs to see a documentary about the bad side, since more people seem to know more about that anyways.

[FoxyCryptid 4,330]

I think that all documentaries are biased.

 

Shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that they only portrayed the good side of bronies. Not that anyone needs to see a documentary about the bad side, since more people seem to know more about that anyways.

Exactly, were looking at a situation where it's about something that everyone has already drug through the mud, it didn't need to bring the negatives up. 

[Somerled FireMane 1]

What I meant by biased is that it only showed straight and white bronies, yes there was in black couple in it, but their part was very short, and it kind of made it look like there was something wrong with being homosexual... not that I'm homosexual or anything, I just thought they could've interviewed a wider range of ponie... just my thoughts though, make of it what you will.

[FoxyCryptid 4,330]

What I meant by biased is that it only showed straight and white bronies, yes there was in black couple in it, but their part was very short, and it kind of made it look like there was something wrong with being homosexual... not that I'm homosexual or anything, I just thought they could've interviewed a wider range of ponie... just my thoughts though, make of it what you will.

I don't think they meant to be homophobic, but in a world where being gay can get your ass kicked, people taking offense to being called that is side effect of the problem.

 

Now, on the other hand, you have to question why the shrink even felt the need to bring it up(like I said, her getting out of line a little bit, and not thinking before she spoke was the one major problem I did have with it). 

[Pixel Stick 927]

One thing that boggles my mind is, seeing that DeLancie is like a uber rich celebrity, why did he have to go to kick starter for the funds?

 

My guess is that, since he's been paid by Hasbro to provide voice talent for the actual show, funding the documentary with his own money might have represented a conflict of interest.  (BronyDoc would likely have been considered a "derivative work" when done by a member of the cast, guest or not.)

 

I'm speculating since I haven't seen the doc itself, and only saw JanAnimation's video, which was posted with official permission from BronyDoc LLC.

[Riken 27]

I thought the whole point of the Kickstarter was to pay for the documentary so I don't know how it lost money.

 

When I first heard about the documentary I was hoping it would be like "Trekkies" because that documentary had a really good balance they interviewed the original cast on there first experiences with the fans and they shared some preity interesting stories. They showed some of the crazed observed fans that have their entire lives dedicated to Star Trek they even interviewed a guy who writes Kirk and Spock Shipping fanfics. But they also talked about the good that Star Trek has done. It has a nice mixture of both sides the good and the bad.

 

Now that's what I was hoping the Brony Documentary would be, a look at all sides of the Brony culture so I was looking forward to seeing it but then I saw the trailer and just by seeing the trailer I could tell what the documentary was all about. Now the reason I think the documentary talks so highly is because the bronys paid for it so they didn't want to offend the bronys. While in comparison "Trekkies" was made by Paramount Pictures so they probably didn't have to worry about alienating anyone.

 

If you like the Brony documentary fine but I would have liked to see all the sides of the fandom.

[Pixel Stick 927]

I just thought they could've interviewed a wider range of ponie

 

One thing to consider is whether or not the Brony community is actually all that diverse.  I'm new, so I don't honestly know much about its diversity, but what if it really is full of predominantly white, heterosexual people?  That wouldn't mean that the documentary is inherently biased - we'd need to know actual demographics about the community it represents before we can claim bias.

It's not like DeLancie did the documentary from the bottom of his heart.

 

He did it solely for the money, acting like the hero of the bronies.

 

That's the reason why he's so upset.

 

I'm not sure I agree with this.  John deLancie, like many TV and movie stars, has much more money already in his pocket than he could ever hope to make from a Kickstarter project.  I'm given to understand that he enjoys the show just as much as any of us, and as a member of its cast and a talented actor and voice actor, he's in a pretty unique position to represent the fan community.  Stars don't do things like this just to make money.

 

Perhaps he'd make some money from it.  But would he actually be ALLOWED to make money from it, given he's also on Hasbro's payroll?  Furthermore, he has a reputation to consider, money or not, and he took a risk by getting up and speaking on our behalf, to whatever end it served.  It's one thing to portray a villain or act like a goofball on TV.  It's another to actually be John de Lancie, a fan of My Little Pony speaking on behalf of an entire community.  Given what they said they raised for the project, I find it hard to believe money was his motivation.

[decoherence 183]

Done work! Back at the hotel! Woohoo!

 

Lots of interesting points brought up since I last checked the thread but it's already 10:30 and I have an early day tomorrow. As such, rather than replying to specific posts (and I really want to, i'm just sooo tired) I'll just explain why I'm disappointed and maybe make a few general comments about some of the points various people have raised. Don't worry, this will still be an annoyingly long post

 

First of all, I'm not going to talk about the merits of the doc. I consider that a different topic. Moving on.

 

For me, piracy is not the issue. Whether John or Mike or whomever has been paid enough is not the issue. The issue -- the reason that I'm disappointed -- is that John, Tara, Lauren and Mike all asked us in various channels not to pirate the video. Not only that but they explained why we shouldn't pirate the video and why pirating the video, at least immediately, is actually counter-productive to getting it seen by a wide, diverse audience (rather than the people who are searching for ponies on youtube anyway) and why it's unfair to certain members of the project who deferred their pay. What happened? It got pirated anyway.

 

Now don't get hung up on the word 'pirated.' It's as simple as this: We were asked for something by the people who bring to life the characters and stories we love and, collectively, we couldn't give it to them. That is why I'm sad.

 

Based on the size of our fanbase and number of donors, there's obviously going to be some donor who didn't read those kickstarter updates, or Lauren's DeviantArt or whomever's whatever and truly thought they were doing the community a service by distributing the doc once they got their hands on it. I'm not mad at that person. As I said, I hoped they didn't consider themselves a brony because if they did go back and read those pleas to not pirate the video and understood the reasons for them, they would see that what they did was far from a service to their community. I would hate to be that person -- I'd feel really bad if I was part of the reason why the doc didn't fulfill its potential.

 

Like I said in my first post, I figured it was inevitable that it would end up in the wild but I still hoped that it wouldn't, at least not until it had secured some kind of mainstream distribution. Based on the comments of the 'BronyDoc' account on YouTube, which at one point said something along the lines of "no, it won't be available on YouTube. At least, not legitimately" I believe that Mike or whomever is behind that account was perfectly aware that it would probably end up on YouTube. But maybe there was a chance, because we're bucking Bronies, that we'd be able to pull together enough to make the near-impossible actually happen. Well of course it didn't work out like that but I'm still sad.

 

However, before we throw up our arms and say 'well, it was just an impossible request to ask of that many people' consider this: it is now much harder for the doc to get mainstream distribution, including film festivals, theatrical and network television, because it is now freely available. We know that. If you were a hater, that would be MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Not saying that's what happened but the possibility of it ought to inform our perspective. One shouldn't assume that in every case the motivation for piracy was a kind of pro-piracy ideal or even simple ignorance. In fact, I'd be very surprised if deliberate sabotage WASN'T the motivation in at least some cases.

 

Okay, next point. Our community was founded on piracy. Sorry but I don't buy that for a second. Our community is as large as it is because Hasbro allows more-or-less free distribution of the source material (aka piracy), but our community is most definitely founded on creativity and the love for ideals that are better than what we see in typical day to day life. At the beginning we expressed those ideals in a highly ironic and/or provocative way but we're largely a much more earnest group now which I think is part of the reason why the cast and crew of the show reach out to us as much as they do. John de Lancie didn't make a doc about /co/ because that isn't who we are anymore.

 

Next point, slightly related to the last. BronyDoc LLC making legal threats when Hasbro doesn't bother. First of all, I saw this on reddit so I take it with a block of salt. Assuming it's true, the answer is still easy: Hasbro leverages brand recognition in to sales, be it merch or ads or licensing or whatever -- they are masters of it and have been for decades. THEY WOULD BE NUTS to bring the legal hammer down on us -- we can't stop outselves from putting these highly recognizable characters (who are brands themselves) everywhere we possibly can. Hasbro loves us, we're a better publicity engine than they could have ever dreamed of.

 

BronyDoc LLC on the other hand has just one product for which they'd like to be fully compensated for creating. They do not 'owe it to Hasbro' to give it away for free just because Hasbro does (for all intents and purposes) -- I'm pretty sure that using copyright materials in a documentary is well covered under fair use laws in the States, though I'm not American or a lawyer. The legal threat I saw on reddit was logically itemized (number of views times the price to legitimately buy the doc) and had the effect of encouraging a rapid removal (the more views, the more damages sought.) It also looked like it was written by someone who was drunk, which makes me more suspicious of its veracity (if someone has an actual link to that or another legal threat, rather than some screenshot posted on reddit, please share!)

 

This post is more than long enough now and while I could ramble on in to the wee hours, I'll end with this:

 

Obviously I don't decide who is or isn't a brony. I would never suggest that someone is not a brony because they watched a pirated version or even distributed it online. If anyone got the impression that I was even implying that, I apologize for not making myself more clear.

 

Goodnight, everypony and thanks for all the thoughtful discussion!

Edited February 8, 2013 by decoherence

[Pixel Stick 927]

Next point, slightly related to the last. BronyDoc LLC making legal threats when Hasbro doesn't bother. First of all, I saw this on reddit so I take it with a block of salt. Assuming it's true, the answer is still easy: Hasbro leverages brand recognition in to sales, be it merch or ads or licensing or whatever -- they are masters of it and have been for decades. THEY WOULD BE NUTS to bring the legal hammer down on us -- we can't stop outselves from putting these highly recognizable characters (who are brands themselves) everywhere we possibly can. Hasbro loves us, we're a better publicity engine than they could have ever dreamed of.

 

I *completely* agree with this point.  I've been saying for years that companies of all sorts should embrace the Internet communities and let their IP spread through private distribution and public channels.  Not because I don't want to pay for it, but because allowing and even encouraging "piracy" in the way Hasbro is doing accomplishes two things:

 

First, it increases brand recognition much more quickly and effectively than advertising does.  Word-of-mouth advertising has been proven to be far more effective 95% of the time than TV, radio, billboard and banner ads, largely because it's a lot less annoying to people.  "Hey, you should really check out this cool TV show!  Here's an episode."

 

And second, by not only allowing it and encouraging it as Hasbro seems to be doing, but even incorporating the resulting community into the show in various subtle ways, Hasbro gets much more positive press.  In the eyes of many of us, they go from being another money-grubbing mega-corporation to suddenly being a pretty cool company.  I don't doubt they're still a greedy, money-grubbing megacorp, but honestly, they've gained a lot of respect from me by doing something I see as pretty darned awesome.  In fact, I'm far more likely to buy a piece of MLP merchandise because of this than I would have been had I heard that Hasbro was sending out Cease & Desist orders.

 

On the other hand, BronyDoc LLC, as a for-profit company, does have the right to protect its material.  It's not a megacorp, so losing some potential profit due to piracy can hurt them a lot more than it would ever hurt Hasbro.  And whether it's actually good to get it out there for people who, once having seen it, would still buy it out of the goodness of their hearts, distributing the BronyDoc through private torrents and putting it up on YouTube without the company's permission is still illegal.  Whether we agree with their motives or not, I don't think you can be too harsh on them for doing what any company in the creative business would do in the same situation.

 

That said, I agree with previous posters that it seems like they could have planned this out better and handled it better.  I haven't seen the BronyDoc and don't know what to think of it, but so far it sounds like they basically just took their ball and went home.  I find that disappointing.

Edited February 8, 2013 by Harvan

[Prismatic 49]

I've watched the documentary and one of the things I will state is that I felt that was very disorganized (granted I rarely view documentaries and I understand that bouncing from one part to the other does in fact keep the viewer from getting too bored or stalled in a particular part).

 

The page was offline and it came back online and I see no notice of the announcement?

 

 

About 80%+ of the convention footage was about BronyCon in addition the few select people were already core members of the fandom.  Don't get me wrong but I think just having more than four samples would get a better understanding of the fandom and going to B.U.C.K. and Galacon were a rather huge sunk cost.

 

I also felt that I only really enjoyed one of the four members that
they interviewed.  Celebrities in the fandom and someone being a bit too
open (i.e. a target) weren't really my cup of tea I guess.

 

 

As for the piracy issue I've had significant difficulties in even downloading the documentary and burned up three of my 1080P slots (note:  The package includes 4 downloads of 1080P, 720P and 400P videos) on failed downloads.  I had to switch to a completely inactive/idle system because it doesn't disconnect that way (lol...I know, weird).  Mike is in fact a good guy and I've relayed a few emails back and forth about the situation (as a side note emails to BronyDoc have to have the subject indicated on their site or else it's ignored).  I would of agreed to a client that would allow a full/resume download that's linked to the account (i.e. the download 'key' expires in 24 hours) rather than firing blanks with the browser.

 

Overall though the focus puts too much on the bronies themselves rather than the fandom it represents.  When I finished I was kinda sad because they're having a good time (despite the fact two of the people who went to BronyCon I know have an immense hatred of me) and ironically for a such loving fandom I am on the run currently from at least two sites and mostly struggle to sometimes get things across to my local bronies.  Seeing that the bronies come from the internet there should of been more focus on that.

 

I do respect John de Lancie...I might see him in August.

Edited February 8, 2013 by Prismatic

[RockinRarity 1,605]

What I meant by biased is that it only showed straight and white bronies, yes there was in black couple in it, but their part was very short, and it kind of made it look like there was something wrong with being homosexual... not that I'm homosexual or anything, I just thought they could've interviewed a wider range of ponie... just my thoughts though, make of it what you will.

I don't think that The Living Tombstone is considered white, you know, being Israeli and all. Other than that you do make an interesting point about the lack of racial diversity. Then again, they probably didn't want to do, say, one person from each race just to get everyone in. That would have made it too contrived and politically correct. I would have liked to see one black person from an urban area be interviewed though. That would have been interesting.

 

As for it not having gay people, I bring you back to my original point about it only showing the side of bronies that people aren't totally aware exists. People assume that men who watch MLP are gay. Even when they are for gay marriage and claim to be tolerant of gays, they will still assume that a man who watches MLP must be gay. They didn't need gay people to be interviewed IMO. They needed to have straight guys who love MLP, because that is what the majority of the fan base is.

 

I do wish that there were another woman or two... but the documentary was only an hour and a half long. If we had room for more people, it probably would have been twice as long.

[EmmerichWolfe 47]

Okay, next point. Our community was founded on piracy. Sorry but I don't buy that for a second. Our community is as large as it is because Hasbro allows more-or-less free distribution of the source material (aka piracy), but our community is most definitely founded on creativity and the love for ideals that are better than what we see in typical day to day life. At the beginning we expressed those ideals in a highly ironic and/or provocative way but we're largely a much more earnest group now which I think is part of the reason why the cast and crew of the show reach out to us as much as they do. John de Lancie didn't make a doc about /co/ because that isn't who we are anymore. Next point, slightly related to the last. BronyDoc LLC making legal threats when Hasbro doesn't bother. First of all, I saw this on reddit so I take it with a block of salt. Assuming it's true, the answer is still easy: Hasbro leverages brand recognition in to sales, be it merch or ads or licensing or whatever -- they are masters of it and have been for decades. THEY WOULD BE NUTS to bring the legal hammer down on us -- we can't stop outselves from putting these highly recognizable characters (who are brands themselves) everywhere we possibly can. Hasbro loves us, we're a better publicity engine than they could have ever dreamed of.

.

 

The community wasn't founded on piracy? I'm sorry, but that's just wrong. I'm all for making the fandom look good, but let's not make saints out of sinners. This fandom got its start on 4chan, pirated episodes, uploaded them to youtube, and we still do the same thing with the comics. The creativity you see in the fandom is the result of that. If it weren't for Hasbro having actual business sense, the fandom wouldn't even be half of what it is now. I don't know many people that are willing to shell out extra cash just to get one channel, do you? 

 

And, yes, you're right. Hasbro is smart enough to realize what we do for the franchise. They know piracy won't kill their business. In fact, they're one of the only corporations around that recognize what "piracy" is: free advertisement. I know what John and Michael were planning to do, but when you slap Brony on a documentary, it's only going to appeal to bronies and those curious about bronies. Most of the general public either doesn't care or have their minds made up. Throwing it on the internet guarantees a wider viewership, which Hasbro itself has accepted. 

 

Like you said, piracy isn't the issue. Lack of foresight is.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 8, 2013 by EmmerichWolfe

[decoherence 183]

The community wasn't founded on piracy? I'm sorry, but that's just wrong. I'm all for making the fandom look good, but let's not make saints out of sinners. This fandom got its start on 4chan, pirated episodes, uploaded them to youtube, and we still do the same thing with the comics. The creativity you see in the fandom is the result of that. If it weren't for Hasbro having actual business sense, the fandom wouldn't even be half of what it is now. I don't know many people that are willing to shell out extra cash just to get one channel, do you?  

 

We might just be splitting hairs or disagreeing on semantics. I think the point where we disagree is what we mean by 'founded on.' My Little Pony episodes didn't spontaneously appear on YouTube -- early fans saw them from a legit source, loved them and posted them. So sure, piracy was a part of it early on and, as I said before (somewhere in that stupidly long post,) it's the reason the community is as large as it is (and why it grew so fast) but it wasn't piracy that appealed to those original fans. It's the things I talked about.

 

So I don't really think we disagree here.

 

Also, when you mention comics, I'm not sure whether you're talking about fan art or the official comics. I don't really know anything about how the official comics are getting pirated but that can't really have much to do with the early days of the community. I would hesitate to call fan art 'piracy.' Some lawyers would argue against that and some lawyers would argue for that. However, my understanding is that fan art, while still copyright infringement, is judged on a case by case basis if it is brought to trial.

 

In any case, I'm not saying the piracy isn't a big enabling factor and I'm not trying to make 'saints out of sinners.' I don't think there's anything particularly sinful about piracy or saintly about creativity or the ideals represented in the show. I think  that the statement 'the community is founded on piracy' is a very bold sounding, very vague statement that doesn't do anything describe why the show was pirated in the first place and why those pirated episodes were as popular as they were. So again, I think the only point we disagree on is what we mean by 'founded.'

 

Like you said, piracy isn't the issue. Lack of foresight is.

 

That certainly seems to be the case. We'll see if BronyDoc decides to figure out how to make lemonade out of this lemon.

Edited February 8, 2013 by decoherence

[Prismatic 49]

I've always felt that piracy had to be a direct copy (even if it is captured by means of a camcorder in a theatre) of a copyrighted work.  Fan art doesn't really fall into piracy but it would fall under copyright infringement if someone tried to sell it (with that said; fan-made shirts come to mind since obviously there has to be a profit somewhere else it wouldn't be sold).  Might be wrong though.

[decoherence 183]

I've always felt that piracy had to be a direct copy (even if it is captured by means of a camcorder in a theatre) of a copyrighted work.  Fan art doesn't really fall into piracy but it would fall under copyright infringement if someone tried to sell it (with that said; fan-made shirts come to mind since obviously there has to be a profit somewhere else it wouldn't be sold).  Might be wrong though.

 

My understanding is that you don't have to be selling it for it to be infringement, just distributing or exhibiting it. When judging a fan art case (at least in the US... i'm a bit ashamed to say I know more about how it works in the US than in my own country but I expect it's similar) various things are considered, one of which is whether the work is commercially distributed. Other factors include how transformative the the derivative work is, what its economic impact on the original work is and other things, all of which are considered.

 

Frankly, the place where fan art and copyright law meet is legal quagmire. Unless you can make the case that what you're doing is parody, in which case the person producing the fan art is in a stronger legal position, the best policy is simply "try not to piss of the guy whose work you're ripping off." Copyright holders don't HAVE to enforce their copyright -- it's up to them. So best not to make them want to.

 

I love you, Hasbro

 

EDIT: I am, of course, not a lawyer.

Edited February 8, 2013 by decoherence