Fox sues Skatebook
Bart Simpson skate illustrations incur the wrath of intellectual property lawyers.
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Independent skate publication Skatebook is being sued by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation over its use of Bart Simpson in one of its issues.
The media giant, owned by News Corporation, is suing the media minnow of Skatebook – ie. publisher Mike Ballard – for unauthroised use of Simpson's likeness in the Skatebook Lance Mountain Edition.
The images show the spiky-haired trouble-maker shredding some legendary skate spots such as Hubba Hideout and Sunset Car Wash.
Says Ballard: "So more than likely Skatebook is a wrap because of the legal fees and cost this suit will bring down on this non profit dig. [...] We will keep everyone posted on the case, pray for us that we can somehow survive the wrath of the Fox Intellectual Property Department, they seem to think Skatebook is a big company with deep pockets."
So Skatebook may have infringed the letter of the law, but in today's new media world with such artistic licences as Creative Commons, Fox's actions seem completely unnecessary and regressive.
And have Fox really lost out because of this?
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Fox sues Skatebook (text) by Ed Andrews is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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