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....
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?
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.
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.
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/
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
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.
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 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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.