I'm Batman's Lawyer
Legal Dept.
4000 Warner Blvd.,
Burbank, CA 91522
It has come to my attention that a self-published writer
named Joseph David Chadwick (pen name: Sugar Ray Dodge) of Tel Aviv, Israel has
been using your copyrighted trademark names and images for self-enrichment,
which, I believe, is a clear-cut violation of the DMCA (Digital Millennium
Copyright Act) of 1996.
As proof of this, I offer you this URL (http://www.sugarraydodge.com/2016/09/batmans-big-break-parody-of-batman-and.html?m=1)
in which he violates DC’s/Warner’s trademarked Batman franchise to rail about being
threatened with a lawsuit over copyright infringement. It boggles the mind that
one person can hold so much stupid in one skull in doing this but it is what it
is.
Mr. Chadwick is being threatened with a $10,000,000 lawsuit
by Mr. James Nguyen of Los Angeles for the illegal use of his copyrighted movie
Birdemic. Mr. Chadwick had done this
by parodying the movie in his recent self-published book, Mystery Science Storybook. Seemingly giving the heft and weight of
legal viability and consensus to Mr. Nguyen’s claims is the fact that the
filmmaker had successfully prevailed upon Amazon and two other online book
vendors to drop Mr. Chadwick’s book from their sites.
Adding to his burgeoning legal woes is his violation of
the copyright to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 franchise which is now owned
by Shout!Factory and their legal team is looking into it.
As I have not read any of Mr. Chadwick’s books, I am not
in a position to say whether he has elsewhere violated DC’s/Warner’s copyright
of the highly lucrative Batman franchise or how often he has. What I do know is that he had posted on his
blog today a series of original comic panels (presumably not found in his now
banned book, given their topical nature). He fancies himself an artist as well
as a writer and satirist and had put up several panels of a cartoon railing
about his so-called persecution of a certain filmmaker and the latter’s
allegations of copyright infringement.
As stated above, I am gobsmacked that a human being can
be so stupid as to complain about allegations of copyright infringement of a
movie franchise by violating another movie franchise and then to unite that with
an ongoing crowdfunding campaign to make up for his allegedly lost book
royalties.
And that is what makes this illegal: As a formality, I
have gone through your site’s Terms of Service (even though I had a fair idea
of what to expect from it) and realized what he’d posted on his blog was a
clearcut violation of your TOS. In short, he is using trademarked images and
names for commercial purposes as he’s using said copyrighted names and images to
enrich himself.
Now, Chadwick tries to make a point when he says in his
Batman strip that corporations generally don’t sue independent authors for
copyright infringement but my reading on the subject tells me otherwise.
Corporations such as Warner’s will indeed sue violators, regardless of economic
strata, into oblivion for just that reason- Because they don’t have access to
legal representation. However, and this is something Chadwick keeps from his
readers, last May he’d just signed a six figure contract with an Israeli
publisher in Tel Aviv named Masala that came with a staff job.
So he is hardly the poor, persecuted, penniless indie
writer he presents himself as. Warner’s can sue him and sue him for lots.
As a disclaimer, it ought to be said this man is a bully
and an online stalker. He has made my life miserable for over two years now and
had since that time resorted to online stalking, harassment and bullying to
make some vague point. He has written fake one star reviews of my novels without
either buying or reading them in an attempt to cost me book sales and stalked me
where ever I have an internet footprint.
I would like nothing better than for this man, for want
of a better word, to leave me alone so I can devote my fulltime energies to
writing and selling my books. However, his obsessive, incessant, never-ending stalking
has left me little recourse but to alert pertinent copyright holders in the
pursuit of getting this miscreant removed and hounded from the internet where
he may never again stalk, harass or bully any random strangers ever again.
In the interests of thoroughness, I have duplicated this snail-mailed
letter by sending it both to your legal department’s email address as well as
on your website’s online form.
Thank you for your time and please do not hesitate to
contact me if you need more information about Mr. Chadwick and his illegal online
activities.
Sincerely.
posted by jurassicpork @ Tuesday, September 06, 2016
6 comments
6 Comments:
So, how'd this work out, Batman's Lawyer? Did you take down the big bad copyright infringer, like you possibly could? ...yeah, that's what I thought. I win yet again. Because I'm better than you in every conceivable fashion, stray apostrophes notwithstanding.
You haven't won anything, Cheesedick. If one pertinent entity won't file a lawsuit against you, another will because I'm also writing to the WWE, Disney, Sony and others whose copyright you're violating in your never ending begging schemes while you're sitting on a pile of money from your contract.
You asked me a question on Twitter not too long ago and now I'm going to ask you the same thing:
How are the book sales?
Deluded asshole...
My sales are actually still doing quite well, thank you for asking. What about yours?
Sure they are. That's why you're constantly caterwauling about lost book sales and begging your few readers for cash on Patreon and your blog with the industry of a Bowery bum on speed. You are so full of shit I'm amazed someone hasn't scooped you up in a shovel and spread you all over a garden.
Robert, I think it's time to fill you in on something: Nobody is going to sue me. Nobody can sue me, nobody will sue me. You say I am ignorant in copyright law, but look in the mirror, pal. Your letters show an astounding lack of understanding of even the most basic concepts of parody, fair use and what the DMCA actually is. You're a hack who's never had a thought unless it was put in your brain by somebody else, which is why you're all over this lawsuit thing, because ANOTHER lunatic had this idea BEFORE YOU. His case is utter bullshit, he won't be suing me because he can't, and neither can you or anybody else, no matter how many insane letters you write. They'll all be ignored, just like the every letter you've written to a literary agent to get your garbage novels published. You're a failure at that and you're a failure at this.
This has been coming for a long time, Robert, but I think it's time you learned something. I'm. Better. Than. You. In everything. It doesn't matter what it is. When you put our lives, accomplishments, ANYTHING up against one another, you simply don't measure up, Robert. You never have and you never will. Every single time we do this, I win. I've won before, I'll win now, and I'm sure I'll win again. And the saddest part about all of it is that YOU KNOW IT! So come at me with whatever it is you think you have, you don't scare me, because I know before you do anything that you will lose. Deal with it.
Being a blogger means acquiring stalkers and bitter trolls from time to time and this is a classic case of what I have to put up with on a daily basis, people. This reads like something a high school jock in the fourth year of the best four years of his life would write to someone on the chess or debate club on Tumblr. He makes this ridiculous blanket assumption that I've never had an idea that wasn't given to me by someone else. This coming from a clown who just had a book based on Mystery Science Theater 3000's concept jerked offline for obvious copyright infringement.
And he assumes he knows all about my accomplishments when he doesn't know a damned thing about them or my past life other than what little I've chosen to divulge. And if I was feeble-minded enough to solicit advice on how to live my life and manage my career, it certainly wouldn't be from a sneering, right wing bully, stalker and troll, a moocher who lies to his readers and is obsessed with a WWE wrestler named Becky Lynch.
Note: There are a lot of great novelists out there who don't have agents. It's more of an indictment of their idiocy than on literary talent, mine or that of anyone else. In fact, it's their inability to do their jobs is what largely brought about self publishing's explosion. Which, unfortunately, resulted in your books.
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