Old News? … Not for some!
Don’t you just LOVE a good April Fool’s joke?
Heh… yeah, me neither. Oh wait, you do? Hmm… guess it’s just me, then. LOL
I’ve never really seen the point, personally. I find that on the whole they’re mean-spirited and often leave someone being the brunt of a joke, left to feel stupid or hurt, both emotionally and physically (and that person is usually me because I’m SUPER gullible and way too trusting). I’m not a big fan of them for that reason, but this one caught my attention last year because it was believable and it spread like wild-fire across the interwebs and had an entire world full of geeks up in arms, freaking out. The topic was licensed artwork regarding DC characters.
Here’s the article to refresh your memory:
http://www.comicmix.com/news/2011/04/01/dc-comicsto-prosecute-tattoos/
So okay, this website posts the article and EVERYONE flips out. Then a lot of us went about our daily lives, saying, “well that sucks” and we all forgot about it, but believed it was still true and because we had too much to do and maybe didn’t keep up on current events, we didn’t realize this wasn’t real. So now a year later, the myth is still out there and people are still thinking DC is going to CHARGE fans for sporting character tattoos and require artists to only choose from the DC approved artwork provided for tattoos going forward. Dude. Right?? Okay so that seems insanely impossible and now that we know it really was a joke, we can all breathe a sigh of relief and move on with our lives.
Or can we?
See, here’s my problem with this… we ALL THOUGHT IT WAS REAL, even if it was for just a second, we accepted it. We all thought the potential for it to be true was real enough to believe the story. So I thought, okay… how likely is it something like this might actually happen?
Check out the comments made by fans on this blog page when they posted how it was a hoax;
http://dontbearuiner.tumblr.com/post/19582469985/tall-dark-and-bishoujo-dc-comics-to-prosecute
Some of them thought it could never happen… but over half replied that they felt it COULD and they believed it because it was a probable scenario. How sad is that?
So I emailed DC and asked them if they ever put out an official statement regarding the hoax. I mean, I figured they must have considering it’s been over a year now and I’m still hearing people talk about it as though it’s a legit issue…. so I asked them to direct me to it so I could put it all to rest once and for all.
So far, no reply. If I get one, I’ll letcha know.
How likely is it that a company as deeply rooted into our culture as DC would suddenly turn on it’s fans in such a horrific way? Has it happened before? How desperate would they have to be financially to pull a punch this harsh?
Turns out, not that desperate and yes, it’s happened.
It doesn’t take too much brain power to figure out which company would hold such a tight grip on their product that someone attempting to reproduce it, even for their own personal pleasure and not for sale, might come after them. Disney attempted and failed when suing a fan not once, but multiple times for body art but each time, they failed because the law just isn’t in their favor when it comes to “an artist’s interpretation” of a character. Also, the law is specific and only protects the art from being used for profit. If someone is using it simply for pleasure, such as a tattoo, then it’s totally acceptable… as long as the artist doesn’t advertise that they are able to do it. If they advertise it, the artist CAN get sued and the company or artist who created the character, would win the suit.
http://christwire.org/2011/04/disney-prepares-to-sue-skin-off-tattooed-woman%E2%80%99s-back/
I guess my point here, is even though this piece last year about DC was false from the beginning, many of us considered it a given that a large company like DC would do something like this and to me, that is a sad reality of the times we live in.
Everywhere we look, there are companies doing all they can to make money at the consumer’s expense. We see this in gas prices, GMO foods, pesticides, the overall quality of workmanship in the clothing we buy and the integrity of the items we purchase for our homes. Nearly every time we turn around, a company is there trying to pass off cheap or dangerous merchandise at premium cost and I think at this point, we’ve just sort of resigned ourselves to believe that is just the way it is… so when something like this floods the internet, we all just sort of shrug and dismiss it as another unfortunate example of how much big business has failed us all.
But take heart, dear ones- for this at least, was a complete lie and will never happen.
We hope.
Do you have any Comic, Disney, other random geek culture-inspired tattoos?? We would LOVE to see them! Please check us out on our Facebook page and post your geek tattoos there!
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