“Star Wars” fans are a notoriously rabid bunch. They love the films and the characters in them and often like to play dress up as them. We all know this. “Star Wars” fans also enjoy getting together to watch “Star Wars” together.
So when a few fans decided to get together in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn over the 4th of July weekend at the Wicked Monk bar on 5th Avenue between 84th and 85th Streets to screen all six “Star Wars” movies in succession, a virtual orgy of George Lucas-ness, there was a lot of erection-inspiring anticipation among them. Drink specials and a costume contest were lined up. But then George Lucas himself found out about it and his legal stormtroopers sprung into action.
When George Lucas found out, his company fired off an immediate cease-and-desist order.
Needless to say, organizers were shocked. To put it more accurately it was as if dozens of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced, they said.
The cease and desist order claimed that they couldn’t show the films because they were charging admission. But fliers advertising the marathon indicate that the only cost was for drinks at the bar.
Lucas — who recently sparked the ire of fans when it was revealed that he’s sitting on 50 hours of “Star Wars” scripts — wanted his cut of whatever profits were being made off the event. Translation: “Hey, f*ck you, fans! Now buy more ‘Star Wars’ crap!”
As you might imagine, the geek organizers of the event are pissed. One of them vented his frustration on his blog…
I have been a life long Star Wars fan. At 32 years old, there has been NO OTHER MOVIES that have had as much influence on my life as the Star Wars films. I have loved them since as long as I can remember. I have also had an extreme respect and admiration for George Lucas, creator of Star Wars. I have long felt in debted to Lucas and fellow crew for crafting such a classic series for me to be a fan of. I loved every second of the prequels for the simple fact that it was NEW Star Wars material, regardless of how it stacked up against Empire or Jedi. It didn’t matter to me… I was just happy as a fan to have MORE.
A few months ago some of my friends and I started a movie night at a local bar in my Bay Ridge, Brooklyn neighborhood. We are a bunch of movie fans who decided to gather up on a Sunday night once a month and show some classic films. We charged absolutely NO COVER and just welcomed the chance to watch some great movies with fellow fans. Whats so wrong with that? When the events went well, we decided to undertake a bit of a ambitious project. We decided that on the Sunday of July 4th weekend we would hold the ultimate fan event for a Star Wars addict such as myself and view all six movies back to back… over 13 hours of Star Wars in a row!!! We planned on starting with Episode 1 at 1 pm on 7/3/2011 and weren’t going to stop until around 3 am on 7/4/2011. I have never watched all 6 movies in a row, and I imagined that not many people have done this. So why not put together a viewing event for all my like-mind Star Wars fans, and once again do it with NO COVER WHATSOEVER!!! So we got to work.
…
I was going through the final motions for the event when I got an email at around 5:30 pm on my phone. It was an email from the Anti-Piracy unit of LucasFilms and in a PDF file. In the letter it talked about taking down websites containing copyrighted LucasFilms images and how we can’t show the movies if we plan on charging admission to get in (you can click here to see the full letter). What? How can this be? I was shocked and confused at the same time… my phone immediately began ringing off the hook. The bar owner immediately said we needed to cancel the event. My partners were wondering what we should do in its place. While all this nonsense was going on, I only thought about one thing: I can’t believe this is happening right now!!!!
I couldn’t understand why this was happening… but not because I am dumb or do not understand what copyright infringement is. I couldn’t believe this was happening because I was acting as a complete and total fan of the films. I was only trying to promote a local event that was completely FREE and celebrating the love I have for Star Wars. But here is the thing that really bothered me: They said they went on these websites and saw all the promotion material, yet they accused us of all types of things that weren’t true. If they had gone to these websites that were started, they would have seen FREE EVENT plastered on everything. No admission at all. Not only that, but we were offering drink specials and food in order for the event to be more economical. No required purchases to watch… just things to make day easier. You wouldn’t even have to leave the screen for a second to get refreshments. This is a plus, no?
I was even more disgusted with LucasFilms. I know they are a huge conglomerate that makes billions of dollars… but why do they make billions of dollars??? Because of fans… fans like me. You would think they would celebrate something like this. I didn’t set out in this event to make money. That wasn’t my goal. My goal was to watch all 6 Star Wars films in a row. I wanted to look around the room and see a bunch of people mouthing the words to some of the greatest Sci-Fi films ever made. I wanted to see people’s awesome (and not so awesome) costumes. I live for this geek shit… and this was going to be the geekiest thing I could ever imagine. I just wanted to support a franchise of films that I have loved my whole life. I never expected to be blindsided by their corporate arm, mere hours before the event was to take place. What kind of bitch move was that?
I would have been mad had I gotten this email a few weeks ago… but at least I would have been able to respond. At least I could have contacted LucasFilms and tried to make the event work. Instead I got a letter with three typographical errors that attacked me for my intentions to do something I never intend on doing (charging to see the movies). I got a letter that asked for a response on July 8th even though the event was taking place on July 3rd. I got a letter that showed that LucasFilms does not care about their fans… its all about the money. And while I am not naive enough to make believe that I didn’t know LucasFilms was about the bucks, I did think they would have liked something that promote 6 films they have already made hundreds of billions of dollars off. Nope. I was wrong.
So from here on out, I am done. No more arguing about Lucas getting a bad rap for his character choices and decisions to make the prequels. No more caring about all 6 movies as touchstones of memories in my life. No more indoctrinating my son in everything Star Wars for the sake of having him feel the way I have felt for so long. I’m done. And you know why? Because George Lucas doesn’t give a flying fuck about us. About a true fan. About lifelong admiration and respect. The reason why he doesn’t give a fuck about these things is because they can’t be regulated or spent like the dollars he covets so much. That’s all Mr. Lucas cares about.
Hell hath no fury like Brooklyn “Star Wars” nerds when George Lucas strikes back…
(HT: The 20)
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The Force of Righteous Nerdignation is strong with this one….
I’ve never been very impressed by all the hype about “Star Wars” and Lucas is a douche
This sucks. Someone needs to create an open source scifi universe that doesn’t charge copyright fees!
I wonder how Lucas was figuring on getting money from a free event?
Things George Lucas hates: his fans, puppies, ice cream, kids playing in the street, America, etc, etc.
Does this actually surprise anyone? He’s taking a page out of the apple playbook. Make it feel exclusive, protect the brand. I’ve never seen a star wars movie, but isn’t it a basic script adapted to a sci-fi setting? I remember reading somewhere that it’s very ‘boy meets girl, overcomes obstacles, saves the day’ kind of crap.
I’m sorry, you’ve never seen “Star Wars”?
I thought the Amish couldn’t use the internet.
what is star wars?
It’s about copyright issues. We went through the same legal hoops you have to in order to show things with Serenity for our CSTS event. If you wanna play, you gotta pay. That’s just how it is.
@CWarfield42…But I think there comes a point when it crosses the line, and this does. I mean, these are people who would have gone out and likely BOUGHT STAR WARS MERCHANDISE to wear and/or bring to the party, no? Such events only help the brand flourish. And then you piss all over it?! Look, I’m not a Star Wars fan, but if I were, this would piss me the fuck off.
I had the same problem with the douch bags when we attempted to have a festival based on the Police Academy movies.
@flash bazbo: Guttenberg can be such a dick.
If you purchased the DVD’s, you have the right to watch them whenever and whereever you like. And as long as you weren’t charging admission for the viewing, tell George Lucas to “F*** Off & Die”. You can have a Star Wars party if you want and he can go piss up a rope.
Hey, guess what? You can’t publicly screen copyrighted movies without permission from the copyright owner, no matter how much you love them, or how much a fanboy you are. And it sounds like the establishment was planning on using this to make money, too (drink specials, etc.). It’s just not legal, and Lucas is well within his rights to protect his intellectual property from screenings like this.
Phinn… who let you in here?
You’re all idiots, except for phinn and a few others.
YOU CANNOT PUBLICLY SCREEN MOVIES WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM THE STUDIO (That would be Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox).
Stop making this about bashing Lucas, and recognize that these mooks were breaking the rules. It would be the same if they decided to screen all the Alien movies and charge for drinks and such. You can’t do this. It’s not legal.
Cover or not, this wouldhave been a commercial event.
Also, I am sure Lucas himself and not a team of lawyers shut this event down.
What’s wrong with all of you?
The article makes it sound like Lucas found out about the event and personally sent his lawyers in. I can guarantee he had no direct involvement. He probably still doesn’t know about it.
This was a standard cease and desist order that they probably send out countless times a year.
OMFG! THREE TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS? THE HORROR!
Whether this guy was “breaking the rules” isn’t really the issue, it’s how dick Lucas & Co was about it. In the letter they sent, they state clearly that their issue is with charging admission, yet this guy wasn’t doing that. They sent this letter on the Friday before the event, and didn’t respond to phone calls from this guy to try and clear things up. From the guy’s site:
“We received the letter at around 6 pm eastern time on Friday July 1, 2011. This left us only 2 BUSINESS HOURS to contact LucasFilms and try to come up with a way to comply with the letter and still have the event. They were still open (it was only 4 PM west coast time)…. but did they call us back? Nope. Did they email us a response? Nope.”
Lucasfilms exists purely because of fans like this guy. The classy thing to do would have been to at least make some kind of effort to make the event work, rather than just say “fuck you shut it down.” Lucas may not have known about this specific event, but this is far from the first example of crap like this, so he must be aware on some level. If Lucas really gave a crap about his fans, don’t you think he should make his company a little more fan friendly? Seems to me a company built on the backs of an incredibly (absurdly?) loyal fan base shouldn’t be run like every other heartless corporation on this planet, and sure as hell shouldn’t shit all over said fanbase.
The event organizer was not in the clear simply because he wasn’t charging an admission fee. The bar was benefitting with business by showing the films there. Meaning, there was consideration being received by the commercial establishment in the form of additional business by publicly exhibiting the films. This IS copyright infringement.
Any time you go into a bar and hear music playing? That bar has (or should have) a license with BMI or ASCAP to pay fees to play the music. Or the juke box owner pays the fees.
This is a fan of Star Wars who says he “gets” copyright infringement, but clearly, he doesn’t.
@penal- Three errors in a ceases and desist letter from a multi million dollar company is pretty unprofessional. They can’t afford spell check? Next time you apply for a job, put three errors in your resume, see if they call you back.
Simple copyright law, the organizer is a moron not to see that the bar owner would be making money off this event and would therefore be violating the law. They’re lucky they stopped the event instead of getting a fine afterwards.
Little known fact: If you broadcast something in your bar, via your televisions, you have to pay the license to do so. This is why commercial cable bills are so huge (like 6-8x the same rates that a regular consumer would pay) because the cable company pays a flat rate licensing fee to the various peoples involved.
You don’t have the right to put on whatever movie you feel like in a bar. That is a public performance.
Don’t be pissed at Lucas, be pissed at the idiot who thought this was OK to do.
The real problem isn’t that they were charging or weren’t charging money, it’s that it was a public event.
Wait, a small group of people decided to go on a long journey to a place far far away, setting up food caches along the route, libations and comradeship to soften the pains of travel.
Then a evil dark force steps in, bashes the groups hopes, possibly stopping some romantic situations and crushing others naivety.
You know, there just might be a story worth telling here..
If only..no its to much to ask..but wait..why not!..im a dreamer i know, but..maybe, just maybe Lucas knows that watching that much fail(prequels) before the three great films would cause mass mental damage and was just trying to save the poor unsuspecting public…
You know that thing that appears at the beginning of *every DVD, VHS, or Blu-Ray* that you’ve watched at home that says it’s illegal to show it at a public event? Guess what – it’s illegal to show those at a public event. Whether you’re charging or not, it’s still against the law. That’s why you hear horror stories of Disney suing churches that used to show Disney cartoons in their basements for the kids. Usually for a first offense, Disney *would* donate the amount they sued them for back to the church, but the point is, they *must* enforce their laws.
Basically, if companies like LucasFilm or Disney didn’t try to shut down every unauthorized showing of their IP, others would be able to site sources of people being able to show their films in public and all of a sudden the big company has no legal leg to stand on – they cannot allow a legal precedent to be set.
I quote Sheldon off of Big Bang Theory: “I refuse to watch the Clone wars cartoon. I intend George Lucas to disappoint me in the order he intended.” Is there a copywrite issue? Perhaps. Is it a big enough issue to throw a tissie fit over? No. Whatever happened to the Lucas who “didn’t want to be a part of the Studio Bureaucracy” during the filming of Empire? The director who handed in his SAG and DGA cards because he refused to be a Studio Autocrat? The Dark Side has become strong with this one. Much hate has he been filled with.
@Larry Dickman: Did you not bother to read and understand the full text of the C&D letter? It states that the movies are currently on a moratorium (for broadcast/showing/etc.). A fact that most people who are involved with SW already know, funnily because of these little things called “Blu Ray boxed sets” that are about to be released. This is not the first time that they have done this.
Also, to you, the authors of this article, and the originators of this idiotic (and illegal, yes it breaks copyright law and any owner/manager of a bar that has a TV set up will know what he is and is not allowed to show on it) that want to rail against LFL for giving no notice, a simple 2 minute search on Google gives you the answer. A paper called “The Brooklyn Paper” (funnily enough the same paper who is linked to at the very start of this article with the original ‘breaking’ of this news) wrote about this event on June 30. There happen to be these little things called “media monitoring services” that take every single article from every paper printed and both summarise and keyword link it so that their clients receive information about everything of interest to them. The article summary would have landed on a desk in media relations on June 30, been sent across to their infringement department and the letter drafted and sent out. These letters by default have a 7 day compliance deadline (I should know, I have a sheaf of them from LFL), and frankly a corporation isn’t going to bend over backwards for a small operator especially when they have no intention of bending on a moratorium. The whole issue with “charging admission” could either be from a difference in the wording of the summary, or a completely fair interpretation of the intent of the night (on the part of the bar owner/manager) which is to profit from the specific showing of these films over the regular expected income for the time.
Oh, and the whole other films have been shown with no problems? No, there was never enough publicity for it to be made known to the owners of the other films.
Ah Matt, thanks for demonstrating that little thing called “being a dick”. It’s so nice how the internet is anonymous so you can talk down to people, huh? Just wondering, how does corporate america’s cock taste?
What exactly was lucas protecting his copyright from? a few hundred people watching a few movies that nearly every human being alive is at least aware of if they havent already seen them ten times a piece? Was this event the achilles heel in the lucasarts empire that would have brought the whole shibang down? Were the couple hundred of bucks the bar would clear as drink specials a serious threat to the continued existence of Industrial Light and Magic?
I love the films too but they have grossed all the money they ever need to gross. He could have just let this go and at the very least not have alienated the fans to the point where they may actually not care about any of it anymore.
And I think it is just disgusting that NONE of the producers/copyright holders of the other films he screened ever issued a cease and desist order and the only ones who did were the ones responsible for arguably the highest grossing films of all time. Sadly I agree with the organizer of this event. I am done with Star Wars too. and that is saying a lot.
I don’t know what to think now. I’ve been a Star Wars fan my entire life. Those guys in the bar are not alone. LucasArts has just disenfranchised several 1000s of fans with they way they are closing Star Wars Galaxies MMO. How can George be so disconnected from his enterprise that he has no idea how much it is angering the fans? Can’t get into detail here but come join Official save SWG Facebook group and we’ll give you another story just like the one from the bar. There’s just some things you don’t do to your fans regardless of any damn law. That was meant for all you people here screaming copyright laws.
Heartbroken, frustrated, and angry. Is this how George Lucas wants his fans to feel? The PC game Star Wars Galaxies is a Star Wars fan’s dream come true. Many of the people that play are in their 30′s and 40′s. It’s been our “World of Warcraft”. What do we tell the next generation when they ask “why are you mad at Star Wars, Daddy?” There is still time to right this terrible wrong. http://www.saveswg.org
I shake my head in disgust, regardless if the the bar owner was in the wrong for showing the movies without his permission, George doesn’t care about the fans. That is very clear. All that matters to this man is money, I mean come on, doesn’t he have enough already? People give this asshat their hard earned money because they are fans of his movies etc.. I think he’s forgotten WHO PUT HIM THERE. WE DID!!!