Assorted repairs, : Lawyer Friendly Cameo

Issue 1: The lede describes the trope in a Japan-centric manner, when the trope is anything but.

Issue 2: The trope is supposed to be "characters who are not merely an imitation of a character from a popular show, film, or comic [...] but literally are that character". As I understand it, that means that if a look-alike is given a name that is not the one of the character being homaged—for example, if the there's an Obelix stand-in that is called Columnix—then it's not an example, since the work denies the cameo. And yet, there are a lot of examples which do precisely that, suggesting that there's confusion about what the trope means. The laconic doesn't help, since "using obvious parodies instead of the actual celebrity to avoid a lawsuit" could just as easily apply to Captain Ersatz.

A sample:

Am I misunderstanding the trope, or are they, and is there a solution to this that isn't "cut the bad examples", and maybe adding a warning?

edited 21st Aug '11 7:24:43 PM by DoKnowButchie

Aaaargh, yet another member of the easily confused mess that is Captain Ersatz and Expy. And whoever wrote that description should be summarily shot.

I frankly don't even want to try to tackle this one.

What makes it "Lawyer-friendly" is that just enough has been changed to not make it an exact reproduction of the copied character, but what's changed just underlines the remaining similarities.

In Murder By Death, each of the parodied detectives were all but identical to the characters being parodied; Sam Diamond was an parody of Sam Spade, and the name underlined the similarities, rather than hiding them. It made it very clear that this was not a parody of Mike Hammer, or any other Hard Boiled Detective, but of Sam Spade.

If that's the case then, Madrugada (and I'm not sure I agree, since I still feel the Murder by Death example and others like it would properly be cases of Captain Ersatz) I feel the description could stand to be made clearer. Japancentricity aside, the fact that it stresses the fact that a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo occurs when CharacterMakingACameoA is CopyrightedCharacterX, and not a Captain Ersatz is problematic, since the statement apparently has more than one valid interpretation. What's more, there's plenty of examples where no attempt is made to "not make it an exact reproduction of the copied character", either because they're purely visual cameos, or because the author just didn't care to make the distinction; would those then be examples of a different, unlisted trope, or just a distinct kind of Lawyer-Friendly Cameo? Also, where do the examples claiming to be Lawyer Friendly Cameos of real people fit on this? Should they stay, or do they belong on No Celebrities Were Harmed?

edited 22nd Aug '11 4:17:57 AM by DoKnowButchie

As it's currently written, the trope description sounds like "Captain Ersatz or Expy, But In Japan." Since the concept's not actually Japan-specific in any way, it's not surprising that the examples are all over the place.

Trying to figure out how this trope might be rewritten to distinguish it from other tropes Possibly:

• Focus on the "cameo" part - e.g., it's a de minimis violation. Technically the lawyers might object, but if the Ninja Turtles just appear as a one-panel background gag, no point in raising a big fuss. Murder By Death wouldn't fit this criteria, as it's all about the characters.
• Or maybe focus on "It's lawyer-friendly because it's parody," which enjoys a lot of protection. Murder By Death would fit, as would pretty much every parody ever done in things like Mad Magazine or Cracked (e.g., the Star Wars parody featuring the pilot "Ham Salad", etc.)

Another trope to consider while pondering this: No Celebrities Were Harmed, although that seems to be about real-life celebrities, rather than borrowed characters.

Definitely think that after we sort this all out, we should make sure all these tropes are properly and obviously interlinked, so that if someone stumbles across the wrong one, they'll be quickly directed to the right one.

I do think the thing comes off japan specific. However due to the way Japanese Copyright laws work it's very different than in the US in what they can or can not do compared to western TV with mosaics, bleeps, distortion, name changes etc. Keeping it separate from and easy western specific trope would be a good idea.

Japan is signatory to the Berne Treaty, just like almost every other county in the world, so I seriously doubt that their copyright laws are as different as you seem to be suggesting. (Nor do I believe that mere cosmetic differences in how this trope is handled justifies splitting.)

I'll be checking in infrequently because Tropical Storm (Hurricane now?) Irene has knocked out the power to my house (everything else is fine), but some comments:

Raso, if you're discussing the legality of certain techniques, I don't understand how the way Japan deals with it differs from anywhere else's. People like Adam Warren use the same type of techniques all the time—I remember his Magical Drama Queen Roxy mini-series featured an extended speaking cameo by Sailor Moon, her eyes hidden behind black bars. Name changes, as we've mentioned, are also commonly used.

Xtfr, I mentioned No Celebrities Were Harmed in my post, and I feel most examples found in Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of real-life people can be moved there, particularly if the names are slightly altered. Plus, as I understand it, there's no legal concerns when it comes to depicting real life public persons in fiction, particularly in parody.

Whoops, sorry, I missed that you'd already mentioned that trope.

I agree that the Murder By Death examples do seem more like Captain Ersatz. (I doubt the names were changed for legal reasons, but more to emphasize that they were parodies.)

As for this trope, maybe the thing to do is emphasize that appearances are brief (a cameo) and played down. Like, the character appears in one panel, and is clearly recognizable, but isn't named, or the character is briefly named but never actually shown.

Something like that, anyway. Just thinking aloud.

Yeah, barring any other suggestions, I could see that totally working: not only would it give us something concrete to fix, it would definitively help set the trope apart from Captain Ersatz.