Grumpy Cat wins payout in copyright lawsuit | Hacker News Reader

Grumpy Cat wins payout in copyright lawsuit

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146 pointsdcgudeman101 comments

When Keyboard Cat became a thing, I tried making some t-shirts on Teespring or something of the sort. Got a cease-and-desist very quickly.

That's when I learned that behind the facade of cute internet cats and memes hides the cold reality of copyright law.

The cold reality of copyright law is having a chilling effect, causing me to not share content for fear of being sued.

Case in point: bilingual songs.

all of the italic items are illegal

I go to a prayer room in Taiwan, and the musicians there have translated many famous Christian songs into Chinese. I got their lyrics as PDFs and converted those to TXT so I can use it with my http://pingtype.github.io translator app.

They stream their 2-hour sets on YouTube and Facebook. I downloaded those and cut out the MP3s. I want to combine the audio with the lyrics to make lyrics videos to put on YouTube (I already made some, actually, and a few more that I didn't upload).

I got the lyrics from someone in another prayer room in another city, followed by a message saying basically "Oh no! I shouldn't have sent it to you! It's copyright and we don't have the license to share those songs so don't ever share this to anybody!" The reason is that the original English author didn't authorise the translation, so what they're doing is breaking copyright and they're afraid that if they become famous, they'll get caught.

I've procrastinated uploading more lyrics to Pingtype because of these issues. Meanwhile I use my personal copy in church, and it's great to sing along with everyone else and learn Chinese while doing so.

I tried contacting CCLI to get a license from the original authors of the songs, but they don't operate in Taiwan. I'm seriously considering just posting my painstakingly-clipped MP3s and the lyrics files on some pirate sites and letting the Internet do what it does best.

>>> I got the lyrics from someone in another prayer room in another city, followed by a message saying basically "Oh no! I shouldn't have sent it to you! It's copyright and we don't have the license to share those songs so don't ever share this to anybody!" The reason is that the original English author didn't authorise the translation, so what they're doing is breaking copyright and they're afraid that if they become famous, they'll get caught.

Covers are compulsory in the United States. The requirement is that you have to pay a certain portion of the profits to the copyright holder.

I can pay 100% of the profits to the copyright holder! I'm not making any money, so 100% of zero is still $0. The whole thing is fan-made.

But the prayer rooms are arguably a "public performance", and that comes with even more complicated licensing issues.

I'm trying to contact the original musicians, but Hillsong and Bethel don't answer their email - they redirect all enquiries to CCLI, who don't operate in this country.

So there's no way to pay to make it legal.

One thing to note is that at least in the US, the compulsory licensing scheme for recordings of covers involves paying a fixed amount per copy (a couple of cents), even if you charge nothing at all.

(Also, it doesn't apply to things that aren't recordings at all, including live performances, as you say, or written or electronic copies of sheet music / lyrics.)

I think his main concern is about the difference in countries, as it appears he is talking about Taiwan.

You absolutely have to pay performance royalties for live performances. You can ask the dozens of bars that has been sued over this, and go to nearly any bar in LA that bans cover material (at open mics even) over this issue. It's mainly about paying ASCAP and BMI a license

I would think churches are a different story entirely as that is a non-profit center.

In any case, if you post a cover on YouTube, you will be fine. The site wouldn't exist today if it wasn't for the legal wrangling they did to ensure songwriters got paid something.

The whole thing where people insist on copyright for worship songs has bothered me for years. I understand that composers and artists need to get paid, and I'm certainly fine with enforcing copyright for recordings, but the whole idea behind this particular style of worship music is that the songs are easy to memorize and teach orally. It's one thing if you're, say, dc Talk and people learn your lyrics because they're listening to your albums a lot, it's quite another if you're, say, Hillsong and you go out of your way to write melodies and lyrics are easily learnable, and then you (or your agent, I guess) says that you may not distribute written copies of the lyrics.

I've sort of wondered whether writing a bunch of Creative Commons-licensed worship music and trying to make it popular would be a good way to solve this problem.

Please write that Creative Commons-licensed music! I'm also looking more into the old hymns, which are probably out of copyright by now, and also have translations.

Another thing I noticed is that many worship songs use all the same words [1]. Therefore I'm considering making my own (illegal) translations, and talking about those with my Chinese tutor every week. I could then upload it with Pingtype English (which does English->Chinese translation) as a way for people to learn English.

If it's my own translation, at least my friends from the prayer room won't cause trouble for me when I share it - only the original authors. And then I'd just take it down if someone really does send me a DMCA.

[1] See this video for a humorous take on this:

How to Write a Worship Song (In 5 Minutes or Less)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhYuA0Cz8ls

Fortunately, the only worship songs I've ever really enjoyed were out of copyright by at least 200 years, and typically sung in Latin. ;-)

But interestingly, people have talked about creating public domain or free use literature for live music performance. A friend of mine tried to do this. He had the idea to create his own book of tunes (it helps that he's a composer with a music theory degree) so he could book a band into venues that didn't have ASCAP/BMI licenses. This was in the jazz genre, rather than worship music. I'm a jazz musician.

He told me that despite being completely above board, the venues still received a threatening visit from the performance rights organizations, and were talked out of hosting live music.

I don't wholly disagree with you on the Latin. But indeed everything the Wesleys did is long out of copyright; the American Sacred Harp and Southern Harmony hymns are long out of copyright.

I think your problem will be that CCLI is good enough for most people.

It would be like producing Creative Commons videos because you can't get Netflix or Youtube. Sure, it will help you and people in your situation...but most of the world already has easy access.

I found this bit from Wikipedia interesting:

> CCLI has expanded around the world to Australia, Botswana, Canada, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Zimbabwe, South Korea and as of 2016 can now serve most countries.

That's a few countries, and covers most of the big English-speaking ones (yes, India and China are not on the list and have more English speakers than many of the smaller countries) but in what way is that "most countries"?

In 2016, CCLI updated their agreements to allow "most countries"

"Our new agreements with the song owners now enable CCLI to make its resources available to churches in every country."

From: https://us.ccli.com/ccli-news/giving-honor-where-honor-is-du...

Instead of taking that quote out of context, here's the rest.

"Our new agreements with the song owners now enable CCLI to make its resources available to churches in every country. We are currently developing our website to accommodate servicing churches everywhere. And, we anticipate having CCLI Service Centers in India and China over the next several years."

What it means is "in every country [where CCLI operates]".

There is no CCLI in India or China yet, and no plans for Taiwan (Taiwan is not China! But that's another debate.)

> Instead of taking that quote out of context, here's the rest.

I don't think my quote is out of context.

> What it means is "in every country [where CCLI operates]".

The second sentence in your quote references the __websites__ ability to service churches in every country.

The new agreement allows CCLI to operate in EVERY country, even if CCLI does not YET operate there.

That means when CCLI is ready to operate in a new country the new agreement will allow them to do this.

It's bothered me a lot too, given the evangelistic aspect to it.

I think focusing on a CC licence could work, but I always loved John Piper's revenue deal: I believe 100% of the profit goes straight to his foundation.

I think that creation, when the artist has a patron, can accomplish much more than on their own.

But on the flip side, Christians (have a duty to fund work like this that they enjoy, and helps them exist).

Maybe something like GK Chesterton's economic theory of distributism: All property is shared (the music), but the means is distribute is wide.

Maybe perhaps a 1year exclusivity, the put in the CC to be alternates, made new, etc.

Just my opinion though

How is it legal to repost them on the interwebs then? Fair use on the basis of quotation when reposted vebatim, and on the basis of parody when reposted with a funny caption on top?

It's not legal. Most of Internet pictures and memes are blatant copyright infringements. The copyright holders usually don't care unless you try to make money with it.

Ah yes, the chilling, cold reality of being unable to sell someone else's intellectual property for a profit. Curse you, copyright law!

> In 2013 Grenade Beverage, owned by father and son Nick and Paul Sandford, struck a $150,000 deal to market iced coffee beverages with the cat's scowl on its packaging.

I want an article on how the cat’s owner convinced someone to license the cats image for $150K, let alone just for one line of beer. That’s insane.

Beer? Coffee.

My guess is they thought the cat would take off. The article mentioned that the countersuit was about how the cat was supposed to be a star in a big movie.

Oh duh. Yes coffee. I think I just telegraphed what’s on my own mind just now!

There was a movie indeed - Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever (2014) [1].

[1]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3801438/

It’s not that hard to fathom. Literally tens of millions of people know the name Grumpy Cat. Maybe 1% of that number know about Grenade Beverage.

In 2009, I bought a bottle of Barack Obama hot sauce I discovered at the local grocery store, just for the sheer novelty of it. I have no idea if it’s any good, as I never opened it. I keep it as a memento.

Grumpy Cat is a big enough phenomenon that they could probably make back the fee just on purchases like that. Let alone people who would actually drink the stuff.

It's surprising how throwing a random name on something will make you want to buy it. A local pub near my office sells Trooper, a type of ale "created' by Iron Maiden, and the novelty of it seems to result in most people trying at least a pint of it.

For those that are interested, it's alright, but not my favourite. I'd recommend trying it if you get a chance.

I think a lot of it comes down to having many choices with no good way to choose. If I’m faced with a large array of unfamiliar beer, well, why not go for the Iron Maiden one? At the very least it’ll be interesting, and your chances of getting something good are about as high as they would have been anyway.

When I was in Germany, I bought a bottle of Gorbatschow vodka to bring home.

I thought the name was something to do with Mikhail Gorbachev, but it isn't - the brand has been produced in Berlin since 1921 after its founder Leo Gorbatschow left Russia during the October Revolution (thanks, wikipedia).

Fairly decent vodka for the price though; would drink again, but since Stolichnaya and bisongrass vodka are also much cheaper in Germany than the UK they're a better candidate for limited luggage space.

I did the same with an energy drink featuring Tupac Shakur on the can.

Grumpy Cat is a world-wide phenomenon. I seriously doubt that 1% of the people who know Grumpy Cat have ever come across Grenade Beverage.

If a billion people are aware of Grumpy Cat, and 1% of them come across the beverage, that's a lot of brand aware people.

This is the same fallacy as "our TAM is $500 trillion so if we just get 1% of 1% of 1%....!!!!"

I don't know, it worked really well in Office Space. Potentially too well.

For those interested in getting in on the game, you should checkout The Handbook [1], it's a must-read.

[1] http://liartownusa.tumblr.com/post/152912631875/breed-and-pu...

The verdict seems wrong. You can't copyright a cat. Per the constitution only "works" are copywritable. So you can copyright a photo of the cat. Or in this case a sketch of a cat. But unless the owners of the cat also drew the logo they shouldn't have a copyright claim on it.

Defendants should have hired you.

Yes, the drawn graphic of the cat is exactly what the defendent infringed on. See the similarity on page 4 of http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/national/grumpy-c... between the second image and the image used on the coffee.

I feel like this is bullshit. It's very clear that the photo is inspired by the cat, not the photo of the cat. There are many different details between the two images to the point that it is a totally different photo of the cat ( see ear position,left eye ..)

Below is a better comparison of the two images.

https://i.imgur.com/nyD3111.jpg

If the image is the issue, then we're basically not going to allow anyone to draw an illustration of a sad cat any longer, which is absurd.

That being said, I imagine the "Grumpy Cat" text is the concern here. If they just used the cat illustration and "Grumppuccino" text they would probably be in the clear (assuming that text wasn't part of the original agreement). The way it's currently presented, it's confusing to consumers and it looks like an official Grumpy Cat product.

Grumpy Cat is a brand, not a logo.

This is no different to protecting a business name.

I'm bemused that critics of copyright believe that IP Protection is Evil, but have no problem understanding that they're not going to be able to call their startup "Microsoft", "Google", or "Apple" - because that would be an obvious and ridiculous branding infringement.

But copyright of a single work isn't a brand? In a practical sense it is, because the whole point of IP is that it has market value - and brands, individual works, band and artist names, logos, and the rest, all generate income for creators.

(Or more often for middle men and managers - but that's a different problem, and one that's hardly going to be solved by eliminating IP.)

Branding is in the realm of trademark, not copyright. This was a copyright lawsuit, so branding has nothing to do with it.

If Disney finally loses copyright of Steamboat Willie, you will still not be able to use the trademarked Disney Ears. (The one that's three circles.)

This was a copyright, trademark, and breach of contract lawsuit, not only a copyright lawsuit.

> I'm bemused that critics of copyright believe that IP Protection is Evil, but have no problem understanding that they're not going to be able to call their startup "Microsoft", "Google", or "Apple"

A critic of copyright protection could still support trademark and/or patent protection. For example, I'd say that current copyright terms are excessive, but that an entity, whether a person or a company, should have exclusive and perpetual rights to their own identity (i.e. trademark-like protection).

They did own the "Grumpy Cat" trademark though, which does seem to be infringed as far as I can tell. It's a weird case though, to be sure.

trademark is not copyright. This could be poor journalism on the part of the OP.

It was likely both.

Yes but you can license the work of art, a photo. Which they did to the coffee company. And it sounds like that agreement was broken. The courts agreed

There is a law in California against using someone's likeness without their permission. NPR's Planet Money podcast did an episode about it called "Frank Sinatra's Mug":

https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...

The actual law: "Any person who knowingly uses another's name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness, in any manner on or in products, merchandise, or goods, or for purposes of advertising or selling, or soliciting purchases of products, merchandise, goods or services, without such person's prior consent, or, in the case of a minor, the prior consent of his parent or legal guardian, shall be liable for any damages sustained by the person or persons injured as a result thereof."

This particular case seems to be straightforward breach of contract, though. The company had already licensed Grumpy Cat for one product, but then added Grumpy Cat onto other products they didn't have a license for.

The actual complaint is for copyright infringement, a variety of trademark infringements, cybersquatting, breach of contract, and accounting issues. It's about more than just a breach of copyright.

I vaguely remember reading that Tardar Sauce is a retcon of the cat's real name.

Yup the cat was called Tard

I hadn't come across this words before.

[ret-kon] noun a subsequent revision of an established story in film, TV, video games, or comics.

And the possibly illuminating etymology: Retroactive Continuity.

See also: Backronym (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym).

I don't recall the specific context, but I recall learning about the phrase when a tech company had a fairly inappropriate internal acronym for something that ended up appearing in a published chart, and needed to come up with an appropriate explanation for the acronym that differed from what was originally meant.

Grumpy Cat Limited

I genuinely don't know if I'm impressed or incredibly depressed that the owners of a disgruntled looking cat are turning the facade of a discontented feline into a company. Snarky types would point at this and scream "LATE STAGE CAPITALISM" or some such....

but...it's weird, to me.

I understand, but they own the cat, and it has a commercial appeal, the proof being that people sold t-shirts with it's face on it. this is in no way fair use. this is just to regulate proven commercial worth, it's no different then Disney charging to print pictures of their star wars birds with teeth things on t shirts, etc. you find something. you own it. it has commercial appeal that is not against ethical free uses. you make money

Oh no, I don't object to anything you're saying--I literally have no objection on the merits of the lawsuit.

It's just...we've made it to the point of profiting off of a cat. For looking humorously pissed off by cat standards. The year she (she? I think?) came to sxsw and I saw the lines of people spilling out onto the street for people to take a selfie with said cat, I was bewildered (and also slightly disgusted, pondering how anxious and probably stressed out/tired the cat must have been to be handled and fondled all day long so her keepers could pocket some coin and notoriety)

Maybe I'm just getting old and this sort of thing doesn't impress me; not the target demographic. Not here to rain on the parade, just...the whole phenomenon is something to behold.

Grumpy Cat arguably has more substance than, say, Coca Cola, which is little more than a brand + sugar + water + CO2.

Or that other brand which is little more than "three stripes".

That seems...highly subjective but I get your point. It's similar to how my reaction was when everyone lost their minds over the Kylie Jenner Pepsi commercial.

I think it was something to the effect of: "You're getting bent out of shape because a company that makes money selling sugar water had a lukewarm message about protest movements? It's PEPSI, not Sesame Street".

Unless I'm misusing the term, I think this is a good example of the phrase "the optics of a situation".

Yeah I think I'm going to stand by my "It's Pepsi Cola, not Sesame Street". Do the optics look bad? Oh well?? Why is anyone looking for positive optics coming from an advertisement paid for by billionaires featuring the sibling and daughter of millionaires on a commercial that cashes in on the features and 'optics' of a group of people that are one astronomical unit away from being millionaires themselves?

It's Pepsi. Not Sesame Street. If you looked at that commercial expecting a message full of deep moral conviction on the state of affairs that exists in the space between the citizenry and the constabulary, you got played, son.

Coca Cola at least tastes good. I bet Grumpy Cat tastes awful.

Given that the most valuable trademark and brand identity in modern history is a mouse it doesn't seem like we've strayed all that far from Eden here.

Heh. You got me there.

>we've made it to the point of profiting off of a cat. For looking humorously pissed off by cat standards.

We profit off of cow, chickens, etc. because we enjoy sutffing them in our mouths after torturing and slaughtering them.

Circuses have been profiting from (large) cats for many centuries.

Personally, I think the concern with the profit part is abstruse. You can make money from the cat while treating it well, and many harm cats for no gain at all.

What about profiting off a cute drawing of a mouse, specifically Mickey? That's almost 100 years old, so it's not really a case of "having made it to".

Feeling despondent about the hollowness of popular culture is exactly one minute younger than popular culture itself.

What I'm feeling despondent about is the readiness with which so many people read an agenda of decay into every little thing, when there are so many things to be optimistic about. But that's probably also been going on forever.

This case isn't really related to the cat. It's a typical infringement case on a drawn graphic of the cat, just like if you drew a logo for your tshirt brand and a a soda company started using it as a logo.

You got it backwards, cats own people.

Actually the more relevant proof in this specific case is that the defendant signed a contract and paid money to use that cat. The copyright angle here was never at issue except as a creative defense. Clearly the coffee company recognized the IP owner and saw value.

This was a contract suit.

These people better not go to a CFA cat show if this upsets them

Exactly this.

They hired a PR firm to make it famous on Reddit. I actively avoid it because of how much effort has been put into monetizing this poor cat.

Arguably little different from any other brand.

Yea but this is a living creature. I don't mind the branding but traveling all over the world is very stressful for animals.

Not only traveling they were asking money to take pictures and pet it at ny comic con

Considering what we do to farm animals by the millions I don't think this cat is an opportunity to argue animal welfare.

While I essentially agree, the attitude that millions of living creatures are raised and killed in industry so what does it matter that one cat is stressed doesn't help anyone.

Disregarding food waste, farm animals are raised for food and work to produce sustainment for society. At the minimum, their deaths help sustain our lives. This cat wasn't thought of as a monetary gain for the family until only after it became "famous", as the article states. That is when the family started showing it off for entertainment and as revenue.

Take this another way, why should the one girl complain I groped her breast on the train when there are thousands of girls being traded for sex across the world and even country? What's one girl got to complain about when others have it worse?

There are degrees of things. In this case, they are all wrong. Because A is worse than B doesn't make B better, it just makes A worse than B.

I didn't know that aspect of the story. So this is the Kim Kardashian of cats?

Grumpy Cat's company has a whole lot of merchandise[1] including Grumpy Cat books and even a Grumpy Cat film[2].

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Grumpy-Cat/e/B00E952UMS/ref=dp_byline...

[2] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3801438/

They also had some real life events. There was one at Macy's in SF at around Christmas 2015 and one in Berkeley which was named Grumpytown U. S. A. in summer 2016.

The way I heard it, an agent came and found them. The same agent represents Lil Bub and another pet. I'm not sure if this is accurate.

The owners of Kabosu, the original Doge, also let someone commercialize it, but they weren't nearly as savvy as Grumpy Cat's owner, and their mediocre Doge merchandise was on clearance racks at Hot Topic not long after it came out. Despite it not being successful, they managed to get under the skin of Doge/Dogecoin fans with trademark and copyright claims. https://www.dailydot.com/business/doge-trademark-ultra-pro/

meme wars, when the owner of the original Doge look goes after Dogecoin for their cryotocurrency gains

So this opportunity will ~never come again, but if any memers are looking to confuse or annoy older programmers, I made something special for you: https://github.com/strayptr/memes

(I wonder who that Lambda is?)

Nice! I'll try it here. ![](https://git.io/Doge) Oh, right...

I hear you guys, and agree. I find it pretty sad that these days when something novel or cute appears, people's first thought is to copyright/patent/trademark it, hire a PR firm and branding expert, and MONETIZE! I was in the grocery store with my 5 year old daughter and she was singing one of those ridiculous nonsense songs that 5 year olds sing and some lady said, "Dad you should put that on Youtube, that'll totally make a few bucks for ya!" How about FUCK OFF, I'm not monetizing my daughter. Have we lost all grip on reality?

Okay, _this_ is the point where I'll take the intellectually lazy road and scream "LATE STAGE CAPITALISM" at that one.

It is pretty much sure, the women was just trying to be friendly and compliment. Innocent joke/friendly remark of sort with zero serious meaning and should be treated as such.

It's not innocent to inject the thought of MONEYMONEYMONEY in a 5 year old's mind.

Lemonade stands are still popular and 5 years old do it. But beyond that and forgetting parent discussion, of course parents teach 5 years old about money.

Of course they do. They should not support the thought of monetising mindless joy though.

what I find even weirder is people not being turned off the fact that cat is a living genetic dumpster.

Genetic dumpster? Evolution is mutation based.

I know but, when you are selective breeding for stuff like dwarfism, malformed skulls and other plethora of "cuteness" which are not exactly beneficial for the animal.

Humans ended up with the same maladies just trying to keep political power contained.

This is not a refutation, but I thing it's important to point out that Tardar sauce (aka Grumpy cat) is a cat with dwarfism and an underbite, rather than a disgruntled cat.

You may also be interested in the Monkey Selfie case: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16228390

Huh. When reading the headline, I thought "Grumpy Cat" was the name of a company, because, you know, cats do not win many law suits. That was actually what made me read the article, because I thought that "Grumpy Cat" was an odd name for a company.

It seem a little childish to think that the face of a cat is subject to copyright.

Well, it is the name of a company. It's just a company holding the rights to the face of the cat. https://www.grumpycats.com/

Grumpy cat generates and sustains jobs: photographer, the community manager, agent, advertisers, the t-shirt people, and an army of people working in the various products going from books to calendars, the movie cast... you get it.

It also helps people release stress, which improves their immune response.

Grumpy cat is a force for good.

More likely that someone is going bankrupt than someone is getting paid.

Good.

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