When an artist uploads their creation online, it’s anticipated that it might get circulated or repurposed. In essence, that’s part of the process of creating art. However, a distinction exists between a meme being shared or new content being created based on someone’s work, and a large corporation using a full audio clip from the content for a promotional item, earning revenue from it.
Jason Steele, the man behind Charlie the Unicorn, was bothered when he spotted a clip from his work in Warner Bros. advertising material for their brawler game MultiVersus. He brought his concerns to public attention, criticizing the “company with an annual revenue of around 40 billion dollars” for not seeking his consent to use his work in their game’s promotional material.
We all play fast and loose with intellectual property law here, but when you’re a billion dollar company advertising your Intellectual Property Horde game you should at the very least get permission to use other people’s work.
— Jason Steele (@FilmCow) December 22, 2024
The original tweet from the MultiVersus account has now been deactivated and currently, the social media team for MultiVersus continues business as usual. However, being the internet, screenshots were taken, one of which was shared on Reddit, indicating Steele’s dissatisfaction with the deleted post, stirring a discourse on the legitimacy of his frustration.
Steele responded on the thread, sharing his perspective, highlighting how U.S. Copyright law protects big corporations and singling out Warner Bros. for allegedly using IP law as a means of bullying smaller creatives, even eliminating fair use parody content from the web.
According to Steele, he’s fine with companies referencing his work and provides an example of a reference in World of Warcraft. He also has no objection to his works being used for non-commercial uses. Yet, in the case of Warner Bros., who “vigorously enforce copyright law”, he argues they should abide by the same rules and simply should have asked before making the video.
Uncommonly fair for internet conventions, Steele rounds off his post by reflecting that he doesn’t think Warner Bros.’ top management was directly involved in the decision process, more likely an “overworked and undervalued social media team member” was behind the post. Despite this, Steele maintains that the company should be held accountable since they set the team’s budget, which in turn determines if they are able to license media for their social endeavors.
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