AP2HYC: So obviously I wanted to talk about what’s going on with Marvel. Can you tell us a bit about what happened with them and YouTube?
Chris: What happened was basically last week on Thursday, Marvel had pulled 14 of my Marvel fan films, all of them basically, off of YouTube, citing copyright infringement. The irony of it is, one of my videos, the Elektra: The Hand and the Devil video, Marvel’s YouTube channel had favorited it back in 2008 or 2009. They had it on their page where it got 267,000 hits because of them. And they yanked it, now saying copyright infringement. I think it had something to do with either a hater personally contacting them saying “We don’t like this guy, do something about it” or what, I really can’t speculate. I mean, I have all my conspiracy theories, but none of them are verified yet. Ultimately, the videos were pulled and we’ve just been fighting to get them back on. We have our petition and we have almost 800 signatures so far. People who have signed it, they’ve proclaimed that they love this series.
Damian: There’s even been web videos that people have done now in support too.
Chris: Yeah. It sucks that the videos were all pulled, but at the same time, it was nice to have all that fan support and people saying how much they love the series. It’s cool hearing that from people who are taking the time out of their day to make videos and write these wonderful statements. So it’s a trade-off.
Damian: The cool thing that’s been happening with it too is just people in general that might not have watched the series just really like the cause and what we have going on. They themselves have been jumping in and signing it. I have a lot of friends in the wrestling industry and a couple of them haven’t seen it, but they’re like “you know what, I think it’s great the way you guys are fighting for something that you believe in and we’re all about that so we’re gonna sign it too because of what it all stands for in the end.” It’s been amazing, all the support we’ve gotten.
Chris: The dark secret to fan films is that they will gain you exposure because they have built-in fanbases. I’ve been using fan-films for the last 10 years as a platform to get attention for myself. I have all these original ideas, but at the same time, no one’s going to pay attention to that unless you’ve done something mainstream. And the closest thing an independent filmmaker like myself can do to get into mainstream is a fan film. I do it for the fans as well. I love these characters myself. I only make fan films about things that I enjoy. I like Batman, but I have yet to make a Batman fan film, per se, because everyone’s done it. I do the characters that I really care about. And Deadpool being one of them. The Blue Beetle, Joker, Catwoman, Punisher, even Elektra and Daredevil, all characters that I want to see on film and do myself, I’ve made fan films for.
AP2HYC: Have you been in touch with Marvel at all?
Andrea: That’s my question. We’re in touch with Marvel, we’re contacting them about rights and to get further answers about why one was pulled and not the others. We will constantly say that one of our problems that we’re trying to get out there is if we did something wrong, we will always take credit for it. If we crossed a line in this, we will say “You know what, we’re sorry, if you give us another chance we will fix it” and move forward. But our problem is, we haven’t. If you compare ours to other related videos, other Deadpool series that are still out there, it’s the same.
Chris: We’re trying to ascertain permission from Marvel, basically. We want them to give us the thumbs up, say, “Okay, we’re sorry, we may have overreacted. Here are your videos back. Strikes have now been removed from your account. You’re A-okay in our book, keep making these movies.”
Andrea: Or specifically take out everyone else’s. Don’t do one over the other.
Chris: Either all fan-films are okay or none of them are okay.
Andrea: Honestly, it’s as simple as ours is given permission to do it again or we take everyone else’s down. There are thousands of videos out there put up daily, not necessarily on that one character, but so many people do it. It goes down to copyright infringements is what they’re trying to say. But how is it copyright infringement when anyone can portray a character on a certain day of the year, or at a certain convention, or at a party that they attend. How is it that all these people have rights to portray a character for no money, and how is it different that we can’t portray a character for no money?
Chris: I remember when I was a kid, I heard a story of a grade school that had painted images of Disney characters on their walls. It was a kindergarten class that had painted like Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger all on the walls. That school got a lawsuit, a cease-and-desist order from Disney saying “You are in direct copyright infringement by having our characters on your walls.” It’s like, are you kidding me? They’re kids. It’s a public school. Why are you cracking down on them? And it’s the same principle here. If you go to Comic-Con, you want to dress up as your favorite character, you don’t want them to remove the costume from you. You don’t want them the take the Spider-Man mask off your kid because he’s walking around on Halloween dressed like that. Fan films on YouTube are essentially the same thing. The only difference is, some of them, instead of shooting it with a home video, you’re shooting it with a prosumer camera. I’m not making any money off of this, I’m doing this because I love it. And to have that taken away from me is the equivalent of saying “Damian, give me your comic books, you’re not allowed to show them to people.”
