Today's serving of the Streisand Effect comes courtesy of American Girl, which hopes that no-one will see Adam the Creator's "Karen" parody of its dolls. Read the rest
Universal Music Group is auctioning off a percentage of the royalties to three Michale Graves-era Misfits records: American Psycho (1997), Famous Monsters (1999), and Cuts From The Crypt (2001). The royalties include sales, streaming, and sync rights, and last for the life of the author + 70 years. According to the auction page:
Earnings for this 20-year-old catalog grew year-over-year for the past four years. Last year’s total royalties increased by 27% compared to the prior year alone.
This catalog collects royalties from three types of use, but mechanical earnings are the foundation with 83% of last year’s total. Public performance royalties follow with 16% of earnings. All three royalty sources grew by double digits or more in the last year, with mechanical earnings increasing by 27% and public performance by 17%.
Royalties for the top three earnings tracks are also growing, by 30% or more in the last year. All were released in 1999 or earlier. The top-earning song “Saturday Night” (1999) — accounts for 38% of last year’s returns — an increase of 48% over the prior year.
Last year, this chunk of royalties brought in more than $12,000. Bidding is currently up to $107,200 (as of this writing), and it ends today. So if you want to own a piece of (revivalist) Horror-Punk history, now's your chance.
Misfits Publishing Royalties [Royalty Exchange]
Image: Jonas Rogowski / Wikimedia Commons (CC 3.0) Read the rest
Alan Moore is one of the most well-known names in modern comics. Even if you're not a comic book fan, you've probably at least heard of the guy. There's a good chance you have at least a passing familiarity with his wild, unkempt mane, or the fact that he's a practicing wizard.
He's also known for being, erm, not the happiest person on the planet. He even voiced a parody version of himself on an episode of The Simpsons, reveling in the glory of his own crotchety reputation.
This year, Moore celebrated his 66th birthday by announcing his plans to vote in a general election for the first time in 40 years, in order to stop "this ravenous, insatiable Conservative agenda before it devours us with our kids as a dessert." But the meaningfulness of his actions was largely overshadowed on social media by the fact that Moore is still a miserable old witch and did you know there's a great new Watchmen show out.
Moore's voting pronouncement was made on the social media accounts of his daughter, Leah, who's a successful comic book creator in her own right. So Leah had to deal with a lot of these comments. And she made clear, she's had enough of people slagging on her father. Sure, she's aware of his faults. But if you understand where he's coming from, it will absolutely break your heart — just like his heart was repeatedly broken by the superhero comics he loved so much.
Read the restHe has also clearly never watched any of the rather enjoyable comics based movies, or experienced any of the joy, support or inspiration they bring to millions of people.
And you can bid on the invention's intellectual property rights next week.
Inventor/Artist (Inventist?) Ian Charnas has devised a way for windshield wipers to be in sync with the beat of the music you're listening to. Now, you can't just go out and buy his Dancing Wipers at the store. No, no. But you can bid to gain their IP rights on eBay next Wednesday.
His thoroughly entertaining 15-minute-long pitch video explains it all. You get quite a bit of insight into the creation process which is valuable and fun!
Know someone who has to have this? Is that someone you?
Mark your calendars for that eBay auction: October 16, 2019 Noon EST Bidding starts at $1. The Buy it Now price is $25,000.
Thanks, Mark! Read the rest
Nike, which already has two lawsuits pending against Skechers, filed a third complaint for patent infringement last month. This time, the complaint targets the Skechers version of the VaporMax and Air Max 270. Aside from the Nike's actual chances of winning, the lawyers filing the complaint on Nike's behalf made the curious decision of highlighting a video that says Nike's VaporMax "looks like garbage":
Among other things, the reviewer identifies the VaporMax as one of his "least favorite sneakers of all time, at least visually" and adds, "it also looks like football payers should be wearing this--and not on their feet. In their mouths." He certainly calls the Skechers version a "blatant knockoff," but mostly because he doesn't understand why Skechers wouldn't have "at least tried to make [a shoe] that looked better." Presumably, Nike will not emphasize that part of the video at trial. Read the rest
Why does Ivanka Trump need trademarks for nursing homes, sausage casing, and *voting machines* in China? Or do we not want to know. Read the rest
Sesame Street lawyers are not happy that Jim Henson's son Brian has a raunchy puppet film coming out called Happytime Murders. After they filed a suit against the film, Henson retained a crack puppet lawyer named Fred (above) to defend them. Read the rest
Nicolas Damiens and Julien Sans thought it would be cool to offer inspiring fonts based on the scrawl of some of their favorite recording artists like Bowie, Lennon, and Cobain, whose handwriting appears on the cool cover of his published journals (above). IP lawyers put the kibosh on their SongwritersFonts project real quick-like. Read the rest
Fresh off a decisive victory against a man who used Pepe the Frog in an Islamophobic children's book (previously), artist Matt Furie is fighting alt-right stars for unauthorized use of his Pepe the frog character. Read the rest
Xeni made some great points about appropriation artist Richard Prince's Instagram screenshot art tonight on All In. Prince's biggest (and perhaps only real) crime, said Xeni, is that his latest show is terribly boring. “[It’s] like watching your dad try to rap”
Man oh man, Mr. Mann. I didn't know if it was possible to adore the unfathomably prolific Jonathan "Song a Day" Mann any more, but yes, yes it is. Song a Day #1728, "Destroy all Patent Trolls." Lyrics: Read the rest
Bloomberg reports that Foxconn is working with Amazon on a "wider range of low-priced hardware devices"; even more tellingly, it's just hired Intellectual Ventures' former senior director of acquisitions. Read the rest
Writer and comics creator Brian Michael Bendis (Twitter) is in Tokyo, and tweeted a series of infringment-spotting snapshots today. The Stormtrooper/Star Wars shirt he found and photographed, above, makes me weep with desire. Read the rest
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