Davezilla
Davezilla Have you guys seen the article about Davezilla.com getting a letter from Toho owners of Godzilla). People are all in an uproar about it. Most of them assume Toho asked him to stop using the name Davezilla but all they really asked as for him to not use the image and the name together. They only asked him to remove the image, not the name.

What I find extremely sad is that it appears 95% of the responses are pro Dave when it is clear he used their character. His site is a logo of a lizard, standing on two legs with spikes on its back (ie, Godzilla) and then his site is called Davezilla.com Seems to me like he's toast and a sleazeball for thinking he could get away with it. Same for Mozilla which even has the city in the background making it clear it's a giant lizard (ie, Godzilla).

While I think they would be fine if they had only used the name and not
the image the fact that they used both together makes it 100% clear they
meant to invoke the image of Godzilla.

What do you guys think? Am I missing something?
Comments:

[ e ]

On the one hand, it's a compliment to the enduring power of Godzilla. And the fact that pop culture spawns more pop culture.

On the other hand, why bite the hand that's feeding you? They should have partnered up with him instead of getting all American and bringing out the lawyers. I thought the Japanese were smarter about things like this -- doujinshi, anyone?

Feed the madness, don't slap it down. It ultimately isn't going to work. Viacom learned this lesson when it Borged 10,000 fan websites and Trek went into the crapper.

posted by AnOminousReaderOctober 8, 2006 at 16:50

Different countries different laws. [ e ]

AFAIK In the USA if you don't protect your characters you lose the right to protect them. Not so in Japan therefore doujinshi based on un-licensed characters is ok in Japan but in the USA it's not.

But I agree, it would have been better for them to have offered him permission like Lucas finally realized with fan films. Of course he also makes them acknowledge they don't own his characters and are not allowed to profit from them.

What bothered me at the time was Dave's attitude and flat out lying that his logo and site title had nothing to do with Godzilla.

posted by greggmanOctober 8, 2006 at 22:35