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SolipSchism Since: Jun, 2014
2015-05-27 09:02:22

I would just kill that whole first clause. Just begin the sentence with "The existence". They are in a legal grey area and if anyone wants to explain how they're not, they're welcome to do so. I'm not aware of any new US law that magically makes using copyrighted material totally kosher.

wrm5 Since: Mar, 2014
2015-05-27 09:15:58

Well, there are laws allowing free use for the purposes of parody. But that's more about intellectual property, not lifting and redubbing entire scenes...

I think Abridged Series are "legal" in the same way that sprite comics are "legal" - they're not, but it's such a trivial thing that the people who own the property don't really care.

Edited by wrm5
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
2015-05-27 09:41:57

Abridged series, I think, have the benefit of usually being parodies, which have some added protection in terms of copyright.

GnomeTitan Since: Aug, 2013
2015-05-27 09:45:13

I don't think we need to debate this here - as I understand it, the question was not about what the third paragraph actually says about the legality, but whether it's "recent" or not.

Edited by GnomeTitan
SolipSchism Since: Jun, 2014
2015-05-27 09:49:16

^^^ That is like almost literally the definition of "grey area".

If it's so complicated that you can't distill it down to "Yes they are legal except in X Y and Z specific situations" or "No they are illegal except in X Y and Z situations", that's a grey area. Including "No they are illegal but no one cares or prosecutes them." That is also a grey area.

Acknowledging that it is, in fact, a grey area negates the issue of the "recent" phrasing. If someone wants to hunt down what exact law the editor was talking about when they added that line, and change it to a specific timeframe, and explain exactly how they are no longer a grey area, cool, but otherwise, as far as I can see they are in a complicated grey area.

This is, ironically, not complicated.

Edited by SolipSchism
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