Gotta love it when the title tells you all you need to know. “The Existential Joss Whedon - Evil and Human Freedom in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Serenity”. Well, there you go.

This book by J. Michael Richardson and J. Douglas Rabb (224 pgs, softcover) looks at Joss’ themes of evil and human freedom as a continuation of Sartre, Kierkegaard, and Dostoevsky, only with more spin kicks.

Chapters cover such topics as Russian existentialism and vampire slayage; moral choices; ethics; faith and bad faith; constructing reality through existential choice; some limitations of science and technology; love and self-sacrifice; love, witchcraft, and vengeance; soul mates and moral responsibility; love and moral choice; forms of freedom; and Whedon as moral philosopher.

It ain’t cheap - averaging $35 - but it might be interesting. If you enjoyed the commentary on “Objects in Space,” you’ll definitely want to check this out.

I’m not sure I recall any bugs on the Serenity dashboard. Wash seemed to be pretty dino-centric to me, but maybe they were in the deleted scenes.

But The Prop Store of London is offering this beetle, provided by Universal and signed by Alan at a convention, although I notice they don’t claim it had screen time either. Maybe Universal just had Alan sign anything small and plastic? Was this a stunt bug?

See? Problem solved!

BlackMarketBeagles is still around, but they’re reduced their stock and added some nice, safe, generic items so you can express your deep and abiding passion for some show and/or movie without incurring the wrath of any overzealous people with dark suits and menacing briefcases. Wear it proudly!

Or you can check the other designs available and tell the world how your life was changed by a TV show, movie, musical group, or superhero.

Edit: link fixed. I think Adam was doing some redecorating…

As you may be aware, recently Universal’s licensing arm has been contacting Serenity fans who sell Serenity-inspired merchandise with requests to cease and desist. This has caused some uproar among the fan base, and I thought I’d take a moment to explain our concerns.

It’s not that we don’t understand that you must take steps to protect your intellectual property. We do, or most of us do. And we understand that not only do you have the right, you have a duty to do so or you would be doing a disservice both to your company and to the companies who have paid for licenses to produce official merchandise.

The problem many of us are having is with the method used.

A few weeks ago the owner of bluesunshirts.com was contacted by FOX and asked to remove his merchandise by a specified date. He did so. There was some grumbling amongst the forums but there was never really a question of whether he should comply or not. A simple request, and he shut down.

This week the Browncoat known as 11th Hour Art received a Cease and Desist notice from CafePress letting her know that Universal objected to portions of her store and she immediately began making the requested changes. Then e-mail from ther law firm representing Universal Studios Licensing LLLC arrived, giving her 72 hours to produce all shirts and other goods from the store, any promotional materials which refer to Serenity, copies of complete sales records for the past year, and remit $8,750 as a retroactive blanket license fee. She was also informed she could be held liable for attorney’s fees, treble damages, statutory damages, and punitive damages, and $150,000 statutory damages fee per infringed work for cases of willful copyright infringement. This despite the fact that while she referenced the movie in her promotional copy, she sold her own artistic designs that did not use logos, character likenesses, or images from the movie.

Many of the fans, myself included, are disturbed by this move, not because of the legal aspects but because of the serious lack of understanding it displays between Universal and its fans, particularly one who has worked harder than most at successfully and creatively promoting Serenity. I sincerely hope that the action against 11th Hour will be resolved amicably to the satisfaction of all involved, but right now people who have been spending large portions of their time acting as unpaid marketers for your intellectual property — the very same people who are the biggest audience for any licensed material — are talking about organizing letter writing campaigns and boycotts.

I’m not suggesting you stop protecting your property, not at all. But I would like to suggest that picking off respected fans one at a time with a bazooka is not the way to go about it, especially since the official movie site’s encouragement of fan-based viral marketing left the issue a little fuzzy in the minds of many fans. The answer lies in open communication. I think you would have gotten a much better reaction by sending a letter to the major Firefly/Serenity fan sites and forums with something like this:

“Hi! Great to see so many people still love this movie as much as we do. And we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the new official items we have coming along.

But we’ve noticed a number of Browncoats selling unlicensed Serenity merchandise and we have to ask that you cease offering any items containing trademarked logos, screenshots, or character likenesses from the film by such and such a date. Shops and websites continuing to sell items as described after that date will be contacted by our legal department. I’m sure you understand that while we welcome fan-based measures to increase awareness of Serenity, we can’t condone unofficial merchandise that infringes on our copyrights and may lessen the value of commercial licenses.

We appreciate all you’ve done and hopefully will continue to do to keep Serenity in the air.”

I’m sure you’d word it better than that — at least more legally-sounding — but the point would be that it’s simple, direct, and it would get us working with you to increase the value of the franchise, something we all want. We’d be disappointed, but we’re also all eager for new licensed material to come out. Plus we’d be deliriously happy that we were still being included, that we were still part of the whole thing.

When Serenity was being marketed there was constant encouragement from Universal for innovative viral marketing by fans, and that sort of interactivity drove us to new heights of resourcefulness and dedication. By keeping us in the loop and continuing to communicate openly we’d get the word out for you and save you the time and hassle of drafting individual letters for each shop by shutting ourselves down first.

We understand your position, we really do. But it appears obvious that you don’t understand us, and that makes a difference. A large part of why this property and its licenses remain valuable is due to the efforts of the fans. Just talk to us. We’ll listen. You don’t have to yell.

Thank you,

C. A. Bridges

Spotted at Whedonesque: Figures.com reports that Dark Horse has more versy stuff coming.

While no physical prototypes were on display at their New York showroom, Dark Horse did announce that new Serenity product is on tap for 2007.

Items mentioned include possible new spaceship ornaments [...] and a PVC mini-figure box set.

Cheering news indeed, and it speaks well for the sales of the first Serenity ornament. I’ve heard some rumors about the rumors, and I’m looking forward to it. Bring it on, Dark Horse!

Universal’s first run of UK-edition HD DVDs will include our heroes, due out November 13. Don’t have an Amazon.co.uk link yet, but I’ll add it when I do. The usual contents, just shinier:

• 1080P 2.35:1 Widescreen
• Dolby Digital-Plus: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish
• Subtitles: English SDH, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Korean, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese
• Feature Commentary with Writer/Director Joss Whedon
• Deleted Scenes with commentary by director Joss Whedon
• Outtakes
• Joss Whedon Introduction
• Future History – The Story of Earth That Was
• What’s In A Firefly
• Re-Lighting the Firefly
• A Filmmaker’s Journey

Meanwhile, in Australia — where they came right out of the gate with a double-disc Serenity with more features than anyone else and, occasionally, cool tin boxes — they’re gearing back with a single-disc version that’s a bit cheaper on the pocketbook. Dunno yet what features will still be included, if any.

Lot of panicking going on right now, and rightfully so. After years of the careful and unspoken “we won’t notice fan-made stuff as long as it doesn’t compete with our own merchandise, should we ever get around to making any” attitude from FOX and Universal, a conflict has arisen and a heavy hand is making itself known. No longer will fans get away with their own Serenity logo T-shirts or barely-Photoshopped crewmember designs. It’s not worth the hassle and Universal is well within their rights to block such things, even though in the real world I suspect this will end up costing them a lot in good will and fan backlash.

So, they can take our ship and take our crew and leave us to buy whatever licensed items are left over. But, and this is an important but, they can’t take the ‘verse from us.

I see it as a challenge. Can we move on and create artwork and graphic designs that represent what Serenity means to us without actually referencing the movie or its characters? I think we can.

Let’s make our own crews, our own worlds. The juxtaposition of the old west and space is not copyrighted. Nor are courtesans in futuristic settings, beat up spaceships, pretty captains, crazy telepaths, cliche-breaking funny drama, or even the Papyrus font (well, not the free version, anyway). Don’t make a poster of Mal. Make a poster he’d hang up, instead. Show us the glory and freedom of flying through the black but use your own ship design. Can’t use Blue Sun? Fine. Invent their competitor.

Such designs will not sell as easily as Serenity stuff does, obviously. No built-in advertising, no already-known symbols and catch-phrases. They won’t help promote the show or the movie as well. And for many of us, such creations simply won’t be as satisfying because we fell in love with this ship, with these people.

But I don’t want this recent legal action to mean I’ll never see any more 11th Hour artwork ever again. Running this site I’ve gotten to see the work of many insanely talented people, and I want more. Let’s go find it.

And you know what? I bet it’ll be cooler, funnier, and better than whatever Universal finally produces.

Adam of BlackMarketBeagles.com posted this on his blog today:

Dear browncoats, beagles and friends of all types,

It is with great regret that I will be closing the virtual doors to BlackMarketBeagles this Friday, October 27. I believe that I have been careful enough in my artwork to avoid violating copyright, but Universal’s recent crusade to eliminate all fan-based merchandise (and to impose hefty fines against violaters) has made it far too risky for me to continue operating online. This is a crushing blow, which fills me with an aching sadness. This was, as many of you know, my way of giving back to the browncoat community that has given so much to me.

Read the rest of this entry »

As mentioned previously, Universal LLLC is starting to crack down on fan wares. 11th Hour received a pretty blunt notice that she is struggling to comply with, and I’m posting this as a separate entry to try and keep focused on her specific case rather than the larger issue behind it.

Here’s her post about it at the OB, which includes language from the notice. Anyone with knowledge of intellectual property law, please contact her as soon as possible. And on a more personal note, she could use some support from the rest of us. 11th Hour has been brightening our corner of the ‘verse since there’s been a ‘verse, I hate that she was the one drew the next bullet.

Notices from the Universal legal department have popped up for some CafePress Browncoats, and they’re not all cease and desist orders. CP is aware of this and at the moment, searches at CP for “firefly” or “serenity” bring up 0 results. Odds are good that with the recent growth in licensed versy stuff the legal people are cracking down more, possibly at urging from the license holders. Dunno.

But that means it’s time to check again and make sure you’re not using any official logos, character or ship likenesses, reproductions of movie graphics, or other potential copyright infringements. You shouldn’t be anyway, per CafePress’ own rules, but still.

Also not a good time to yell at them. Won’t do any good, and might make things worse. Remember, Universal has every right to protect their intellectual property and they have a duty, as they see it, to protect the interests of companies that have paid hefty fees to make official products.

Although it would be really interesting, just for fun, to tally up how much each of us has worked, hour by hour, year by year, to promote increased awareness and sales of their intellectual property. Maybe submit a bill for PR and marketing services rendered.

Just sayin’.

Edited to add: I’ve trimmed some of my CafePress listings here already. If your site is linked on SerenityStuff and you’d like to lay low for awhile (or disappear completely), please let me know and I’ll pull it.