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 Forum index » Chaotic Fiction » Slender Man Mythos
[DISCUSSON] Slender Man copyright issues
Moderators: ChildOfAtom, Cougar Draven, DavFlamerock, Dixie_Wolf, ndemeter
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kira1000
Decorated

Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 255

[DISCUSSON] Slender Man copyright issues

I was wondering, has anyone heard anything about Victor Surge or anyone else copyrighting Slender Man or related material? I have seen 2 movies set to feature him so far being shut down because of "legal issues". The first was "The Slender Man" by Super Movie Bros, the second was "The Entity" by Easy Bay which was cancelled last year for copyright. If not, what do you think the issues could have been?

PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 4:26 am
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A Slender Editor
Boot

Joined: 09 Jan 2015
Posts: 34
Location: A series of tubes

My understanding is that it's because they explicitly called him "The Slender Man" in the films. MH gets around it by calling him "The Operator", in TT it's "The Administrator", etc.

I'm not sure this is the only thing that's made the difference, but since MH has a movie coming out, you could probably ask THAC how they avoided copyright claims (or if the studio had to make a deal to license the character).

PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 9:34 am
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Hunter_Omega
Unfettered


Joined: 24 Jul 2014
Posts: 305
Location: Iowa, USA

From what I understand, the Slender Man is free and open to use in any and all non-profit films and / or adaptions. Victor Surge has made allegations to owning copyrights to the Slender Man of the Something Awful Mythos. This theory, however, was demolished by the EMH guys contacting him. He in turn said that he had no copyright claim over the Slender Man.

PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:18 pm
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kira1000
Decorated

Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 255

The weird thing is though, afaik The Entity NEVER called him Slender Man, just "The Entity". If they did call him Slender Man they never mentioned that in any trailers. Maybe the MH boys didn't like their use of the Operator Symbol.

PostPosted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 8:57 pm
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A Slender Editor
Boot

Joined: 09 Jan 2015
Posts: 34
Location: A series of tubes

kira1000 wrote:
Maybe the MH boys didn't like their use of the Operator Symbol.
It's a mathematical symbol, so cannot be copyrighted. It could be trademarked for a specific use, but single-character trademarks are rare and are easily looked up (the USPTO has a database), and I'm sure we would have heard of it happening.

PostPosted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 8:40 pm
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bombersis
Kilroy


Joined: 04 Mar 2015
Posts: 2
Location: Newcastle, Uk

It's pathetic to see all these third hand movie studios trying to make a profit out of Victor's work.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 18, 2015 1:56 pm
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ReverendJ
Unfettered


Joined: 04 Aug 2011
Posts: 558

Maybe because there was a 1982 movie called The Entity....

PostPosted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 11:08 am
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A Slender Editor
Boot

Joined: 09 Jan 2015
Posts: 34
Location: A series of tubes

"The Entity" is too generic to trademark - it's basically just a single English word (a/an/the don't count). It's why you'll find tons of movies with the same names on IMDB, sometimes even in the same year. ("Entity" shows up four times, for exanple.)

PostPosted: Fri Mar 20, 2015 12:51 am
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