IMO, they weren't parodies, they were perversions. I know that's a loaded term, and has no legal application - but I can fully understand why Mr. McEldowney would be highly offended that someone had used HIS ARTWORK and replaced the original text with gutter-talk.
*** It's not an issue of free-speech vs. censorship - nor can you claim "admiration" when the use you make of someone's work is to pervert the dialogue into something that causes an unwary reader to feel disgust.
*** I followed two of Adam's addresses to see what the discussion was about (both of Luanne's comic - I never saw what he did to 9CWL), because it was possible the first was a one-time thing. The second was as bad or worse, and both qualified as "soft-porn" at a minimum - hardly something you would expect to find HERE, dammit!
*** The troll speech was also getting more than a bit thick on the ground there - and I've noticed some of it spilling over here, as well. Many of you posted to both sites. Someone who's reached the high point of their day when they've managed to accumulate 10 or more thumbs down on a post is a pretty pathetic creature - and yeah, they poison the ground they touch.
***Luann is a comic strip about a "typical teenage girl" and her friends. Some of you have apparently forgotten that fact. It's SUPPOSED to AMUSE you - or maybe make you say "hmmm..." -- it's not supposed to engender comments that wish one or more of the characters in the strip would die.
JARCM66: I have no intention of quarrelling, we most evidently have respect for each other, and will take further discussions with you offline after this. I only have time while running slide scanning batch jobs. Maybe do another 30 hour shift today, halfway through. Briefly (I hope), my response in this relevant public place has to be:
As a provider of photographic art services, I reckon the vitriol was warranted. I personally know photographers that have won substantial legal cases in very similar situations to what has played out here. 1. MAD magazine (which I have loved over the years) does not publish the music, it is up to the reader to do acquire the knowledge. No copyright issues whatsoever. 2. There is no issue with where the material originates (maybe second hand), but how it is re-purposed. 3. I won't debate my original analogy. 4. Adam stole in exactly the same was as if he went to my website, found some photo portraits, put speech balloons onto them, and re-published on Flikr, with or without credit to me. I would promptly direct Flikr to remove them. (If someone shot my kind of image with their camera, then the worst I could do would be to comment on their originality.) Between you and I, this is our biggest sticking point, I cannot back down that he has done theft. It may or may not be of negligible consequence, but it is against the Artist's wishes, so it is also morally invalid. There is no flattery through imitation, but there is usage and re-purposing of the original that is completely unaltered. We agree that the original is of merit, and even that it could bear spoofing, but only if it could not be not mistaken as the original work. (Oh, BTW, I may photograph women in all manner of ways in my profession, so prude I am not. And I grew up on a pig farm, after living in my parents' pub, so ripe words are no problem for me.) 5. My sign-off "on behalf of BMcE" was meant as a joke, should have emoticon'd. I can guess what "old saw" means. What I said was like you saying, Ottodesu is an cranky old man, I would respond, don't you dare call me old. Time for a nap.
Ottodesu: I don’t want to get into a quarrel. I don’t have the time that some of you have. I entered this simply to do Adam a small favor, and I was disturbed by the inaccurate vitriol of some of the remarks over what is, essentially, a harmless amusement.
1. MAD magazine does use its own artwork, but it asks its readers to sing its words to copyrighted tunes.
2. There are many parodies—a famous case of Falwell vs. Flynt—which use photographs or artwork not taken by the parodist.
3. Your analogy has many problems, but I won’t argue about it, because (see above), and because you admitted that it has no legal bearing. You may find Adam’s acts immoral, but that’s in the eye of the beholder.
4. Adam didn’t steal anything. The cartoon exists same as ever, and his parodies, using the artwork but without the signature, steal nothing, and even imitations that don’t intend to flatter, do so, because the act of imitating signals that one finds the original worthy of attention. No one parodies that which has no merit to begin with.
5. I’m afraid that I wasn’t clear in my last message. An “old saw” is a saying, a maxim or truism.
Okay. I won’t get involved in the chatwars here. I won’t post the addresses—NOT LINKS—to Adam’s parodies here. I will give out my e-mail address (Yahoo): flakenjudy1966. Anyone who wants to read Adam’s parodies in full can e-mail me there, and I will tell them the addresses of each parodied strip. (Have I said the word “parody” enough?)
Thanks, Otto for clarifying what I was too sleepy to do. If anyone takes a work and reproduces it in some way giving an immoral meaning to it which was not intended in the original, it is a great crime aginst the artist.
JARCM66: Thanks for your considered comments, but I am firmly of the opinion that you are in error in most respects. 1. Perhaps it could be argued that they were attempts at parody of the dialog, but the artwork was entirely original. MAD Magazine does not use either original dialog nor artwork. 2. Claude is correct: Adam was getting gain from re-publishing these images, even if only glory. 3. My analogy holds. It may not be a legal point, but at least a moral one. (ie., I said below that my creation is not open for degrading abuse in its original form.) It does not consequently mean that COMMENTS sites should be shut done, if there is no theft of artwork. In any case, the Artist/Author is entitled to decide how his work is represented, and he is well within his rights here to close the comments area. 4. Your newest post: Adam was NOT imitating, he was using actual stolen artwork! And he was certainly not flattering. 5. On Behalf of Mr McEldowney, I take issue with what you called him, he is not old.
Oh, Adam asked me to tell everyone, especially Mr. McEldowney the old saw, and I can't believe that no one has said this already, that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
CurlyFries & ClaudeCat, people are throwing about some terms very loosely. Adam’s strips were parodies. They were not pirated or stolen. To pirate is to create a cheap copy of the original in order to make money for yourself. If I photocopy a poem, for example, and then sell copies of it (without any permission or paying any royalties), then I have pirated the poem. If, however, I parody the poem (for instance, if I change Williams’s “Red Wheelbarrow” from “so much depends / upon // a red wheel / barrow” to “so much disgusts / about // a big fat / ass”), then there has been no piracy. Parodies are legal. They are in the highest literary tradition. About what Mr. McEldowney’s said on his blog about copyright infringement & libel, well I’m sure that he knows better than I, but, again, all the copyright information was removed (I just looked at them all. Adam had left the signature on one strip, but he has removed that from his page). Adam didn’t try to sell these images or present them as anythign other than parodies, and I’m not sure about libel. Again, this is Mr. McEldowney’s business—and Adam’s—not mine, but I was under the impression that proving “libel” requires proving that one has made a false statement of fact that one knows to be false. I’m not sure that Adam’s parodies ever reached any level of fact. I thought that they were his versions of what the characters might say.
Ottodesu, your example is interesting but not analogous to what Adam was doing. You would claim 9 Chickweed Lane to be Mr. McEldowney’s child, which is already a poor analogy. It must make its way in the world without him. Also, this child--without Adam’s announcement of the address to his parody—already has about a hundred comments—taped to his/her back. Who would want even that? Your analogy argues for the closing of ALL comment sites.
CAT43ULLUS, I agree with you theft is serious. There was no theft here. All Adam wanted to do was amuse. He saw some stuff in these two strips, and he thought that it waould be an interesting exercise to write some meta-jokes about them.
I'm sorry that this message is so long and I expect to get lots of thumbs down about it, but i don't think that Adam's stuff deserrves all this reaction. Laugh at it or ignore it.
Ms. sunshine, you make very good points, and I think there was some misunderstanding going on. I'm sure you will agree with me, that there are multiple ways of looking this whole mess. I guess now I can see both sides of the stangeness. But, you're right it was childish to shut everybody out because of one person. Here we go into tomorrow.
