Furthering its digital extensions of its franchise primetime hit series LOST, ABC debuted this week a web series primer, LOST Untangled, taking a lighter spin on catching up confused newbies. The recap series blends comic book graphics with LOST action figures spoofing actual scenes from the show.
This sounds familiar. Oh wait, haven’t The Fine Brothers been spoofing LOST with action figures for over a year now? Their hit web series parody LOST: What Happens Next? has racked up over 4.5 million views on YouTube and other sites since its debut last January. Both use the same action figures licensed to a Chinese manufacturer, shaky hand-held figurine movements and silly exaggerated riffs on the actual characters’ voices. Interesting.
From a legal standpoint, it’s not clear if there’s any direct recourse here for either party. In terms of who owns the intellectual property of the show and its characters, ABC in fact has every right to derive content from that IP. And on the flip side, The Fine Brothers’ parody series was a derivative work itself that most likely falls under fair use provisions of US Copyright Law, particularly after the 1994 Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music case which confirmed the idea that a commercial (for profit) parody can be indeed be fair use.
The Fine Brothers, Benny and Rafi, wrote a compelling blog post today about the situation, after hearing about it from a concerned fan. An excerpt from their post:
Here we are, on the web for over 4 years, having created one of the most popular web series with millions of views, and LOST of all places actually comes through with this brilliant form of additional content for their established show, and rather than come to the source, to us, the web creator hungry for the opportunity to break into television- no. They do it in house, and on their own.
Moments like these showcase how the web has not come close to being what many of us were hoping it would be; the new place for our generation to be discovered (in our teenage years we stopped entering the celebrity filled film festival circuit and decided to put all efforts into the web instead–which is now becoming celebrity driven itself). That is why we are here, why most of us are here, but now all we can do is ask what more can one do to be discovered and not be slighted for creating content on the web?
There are bigger questions here of course than whether or not ABC ripped off the LOST parody concept. It’s a wake up call that it may be time to examine, and perhaps update our current understanding of intellectual property protections in the age of the social internet.
Is the web becoming easy picking grounds for lazy staff writers looking to tap the latest meme? Are the fundamentals of social media—free sharing of ideas, media and information—contradictory to Hollywood’s idea stealing paranoia?
Hollywood has been lifting, borrowing and “adapting” ideas, for years. Japanese films, Lovecraft, you name it. That’s part of how entertainment industry works. The greater issue is whether web series creators are putting their work at risk of pillage simply by sharing it. If that’s the case, then it may be time to dust off the law books and sort this all out.
What do you think, should there be greater protections for original content on the web? Are web series creators at risk by freely sharing their works?
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Unfortunately, the Fine Bros. in this case handed this to ABC. Let’s not forget ABC head of legal, Howard Davine’s internal memo telling his development teams to carefully scrutinize a piece of IP before optioning it, essentially giving them free reign to ‘tweak and steal’ show ideas. ABC is currently being sued as a result of that memo.
With that said, ABC owns LOST in this case. The Fine Bros. don’t own the medium of ‘action figure reenactment’. There is very little the Fine Bros. can do here.
I do believe however that this helps their cause rather than hurts it. People now know who they are in a better way and will come to them first.
It’s a shame this happened. I think in the end it’s good for the Fine Bros. And I hope it’s a wake up call for ABC that there is wider community out here. You start pissing off young producers and when they get a little bit older, they’ll decide decide not to create for you or your network in the future.
The web IS a place for people to get exposure and jump forward. This is just an unfortaunte set of circumstances.
Did the Fine Bros. pitch their idea to ABC before posting the series?
Okay, I’m going to make enemies here…
Having worked in television I’ve seen such egregious idea stealing it would raise the hair on your neck. And perhaps it’s true that the Lost creators saw The Fine Bros show and stole from it. But let’s be honest here, The Fine Bros show, whether it falls under fair use provisions or not, would not exist were it not for Lost. And not in a way that it’s ‘inspired by’, or ‘borrowing from’, but literally living off of like a lamprey on a whale. So much so that I’m willing to bet that the moment Lost goes off the air, The Fine Bros show, though it may continue, will significantly lose its viewership.
So, frankly, I find this indignation a little thin. While we can’t say that The Fine Bros have stolen from the Lost creators, we can definitely say they owe their success, nee, their very existence, to Lost. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in support of what Lost did and I agree with the larger argument here regarding the stealing of ideas, especially from fledgling, or even not so fledgling web creators. And Lost should have at least acknowledged its cribbing of The Fine Bros show on some level. However, I just think this particular case is too muddy to address the larger argument in a compelling and unbiased way.
While we may not like what’s happened with FineBrosgate, I can’t help but feel like it’s a little biting the hand that feeds you in this case. And this brings me to the other component to this, which is the question of perception. If we in the web community raise a stink over something that rides a line like this egg-and-chicken case does and the public perceives it unfavorably for us, then we’re kind of letting the terrorists win.
What the Fine Bros have done with their show is creative, no question, but it’s creative with someone else’s idea. No offense guys. So, though it’s original, it’s not groundbreaking or game-changing…it’s a spoof. And as such, I think, will continue a prevailing perception of web entertainment as a stepchild of movies and television as opposed to its own viable, vital and vibrant medium.
I guess for me, the hope here is that if anything actually comes of this, it will be that a real dialogue will begin, not about the stealing of ideas though, but about the very real existence of a talented and entertaining community of original creators on the web. And with any luck that will be due to the very fact that Lost, a mainstream cultural phenomenon, and the The Fine Bros show, a successful entry in the burgeoning medium of webivision are so deeply related. And this may be idealistic, but perhaps the elevated perception of Lost will somehow rub off on The Fine Bros show and have the effect of elevating it from just another web spoof. And maybe that will help spread the word that there is a very real, respectable new form of entertainment out there that’s growing and getting stronger by the day.
I have to say that what the Fine Bros said in their blog is very compelling. They weren’t blaming or pointing fingers or talking about suing or anything like that. They seemed to simply be saying that it’s sad that even with the fantastic success of their Lost Parody Series, and it seems similar successes of other Web content providers, that it is sad that the internet is not turning out to be what so many young people imagined it could be (a place where you can “get discovered.” My opinion is that ABC had to know about the Fine Brothers, and yet, it is still unbelievable to me that what ABC did with the action figures was just plain too exactly the same as the Fine Brothers, almost like they didn’t know!! But they had to have known. Just doesn’t make sense to me. I hope that this turns out to help the Fine Brothers because I am a fan of their comedy.
Would we even know the Fine Bros. if it wasn’t for “Lost”?
Jonathan — you’re missing the entire point. The Fine Bros. don’t exist at the whim of LOST. They have a number of shows, many of which have aggregated big viewership numbers. This LOST spoof just happens to be the latest.
The point, however, is not that they hijacked existing IP, i.e. LOST. It’s that ABC is clueless. Granted, there were probably a number of political factors at play over there from the studio to the network to the showrunners. I would be curious to know who spearheaded this effort out of those three. But the point is, someone over there said, “Fuck them, we’re doing this on our own.”
Now, ABC is not in business with the creators and they’ve said to the creative community, like they’ve done time and time again, “we don’t respect you.” (please google the Howard Davine internal memo)
Some of the best creatives of our generation are coming out of the online world and the networks and studios are scrambling to figure out how to harness that potential. This was a move in the wrong direction by ABC.
FACT: 85%+ of time shift enabled homes (DVR) do NOT watch commercials. LOST is a $3 million per ep show with, let’s assume $8 million coming in from advertisers. Those advertisers are getting well below a million dollars in value out of their spend. Not the $8 million they’re paying for.
What does that mean? It means ABC is in for a rocky road over the next 2 years. It means that if they want to survive they need to rely on producers and creatives like the Fine Bros. to maintain their relevancy. In this tiny instance that’s lost (no pun intended). All of the press; newspapers, blogs, views that the Fine Bros. accrued on their show has no value to ABC. They’re starting from scratch without the knowledge or expertise from the original creators.
And the original creators not only have issue with ABC now, but they’re free to make a deal anywhere they want. It is the group that snatches them and their ideas up that will survive in the next few years.
To suggest that because the LOST Action Figure Show lived off of the cultural cache of LOST somehow makes the Fine Bros. indispensible or less relevant, is crazy.
The only thing that happened here is ABC cut themselves out of a deal with some internet creators that would have put their orig. online efforts on the national map. For now, ABC will have to continue its orig. online efforts in obscurity until the next opportunity arises.
Ideas are hard to own, execution isn’t. Typically execution can be more important than the initial idea. In this case, perhaps they now must coexist. Maybe there is an audience for both of these?
It’s pretty cut and dry to me. The Fines are funny, ABC is not.
to everyone on this blog.
if you just search youtube on parodies with action figures, you will find thousands… the fine brothers are getting so much fucking traffic now..
and their ideas and writing are intended as a spoof… including star wars and heroes action figures… abcs version and the “creative” or “writing” involved is a way to dumbify the whole show to help viewers who are confused catch up with it… they didnt steal shit.. just because they used action figures that they own all rights to? benny and rafi fine’s comment is fucking ridiculous.
are they all of sudden these super innovative spoof comedy story tellers?
heres a link to a search i did on youtube : “action figure parody”
and “action figure animation”
http://www.youtube.com/results.....y&aq=f
http://www.youtube.com/results.....n&aq=f
hype.. is all it is.. and now benny and rafi are reeling in the hits because of all of this attention they are milking because they think that abc stole their idea? they need to also remember that they wouldnt even have their hit series if it werent for lost… they are not fans trying to inform viewers about the show in a funny way.. they are spoof comedic videos
that are meant to be stupid and slapstick…. but arent all “action figure”
videos playing off this same idea?
once again, benny and rafi are getting more exposure than they ever would have now, and based on the comments they made seem to think that they are
the originators of this type of content… do they actually think that they are the “source” of this type of content… fucking wankers.
This is interesting. I had written a blog post about Lost Untangled and have since written another one giving credit to the Fine Bros. My guess is that ABC was very aware of what the Fine Bros were doing but decided they could better control the brand message if they produced it in house. I’m not saying that’s the right decision, but knowing our fiercely defensive Disney is about their brands and IP, they probably just didn’t want to trust this to external creators. That especially true since the Fine Brothers produce a parody and Lost Untangled really isn’t a parody as much as it is a quick summary of plotlines. Just my take.
So ABC is bad for using action figures? Maybe Robot Chicken should sue the Fine Bros for using action figures. Or maybe I should sue everybody because I took recreated movie scenes with my action figures back in the 70’s. Or maybe my Dad should sue because he recreated scenes with his action figures.
Maybe the Fine Bros. should enjoy their traffic spike because frankly, their stuff (specifically the Lost spoof) is neither funny nor entertaining.
Uhhh what traffic spike? I’ve been a subscriber for a while I don’t see any more views than usual. All the millions of views came long before this happened. And to YOUR MOM, they actually had action figure content long before Robot Chicken did!
i agree with john g.
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lost untangled = lost unfunny. last i checked no network has hired al yankovic to do show recaps, silly or not.
Not so good idea and bad developed. I think that is also not original, I’ve found something like the cide and similar. Vote 4 :(
Jeez, I wouldn’t want to be the judge if this ever went to trial.
Sure, ABC owns the intellectual rights for the characters and story, and sure, action figure parodies have been dozens of times before. But the timing of their “Lost Untangled” bits really reeks. The memo others have pointed out certainly doesn’t help their credibility any. But at this point in the show, would action figure spoofs really get any potential new fan up to speed on what’s happened the past four years? I don’t think so. I would have to believe ABC ripped them off, but would still win because they’re the ones spending millions of dollars to produce each episode the Fine Brothers are potentially profiteering from.
That said, neither one is particularly clever, but at least the Fine Brothers’ clips are sorta funny, in a lame way.
ABC is awful. They let King of the Hill die by refusing to buy it when Fox decides to cancel. Look at the commercials for their new animated series they’ve “invented all by themselves” that they’ve launched this week.
I’d detail the similarities between “The Goode Family” and the good family of the Hills but you’d all vomit. ABC is the worst. At least they didn’t put the Fine Bros out of business so their thievery would have more sticking power like they did to King of the Hill.
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