once, on this very page, there used to be a
bunch of very pretty andy lee' paintings depicting and paying tribute to charles schulz'
peanuts. they were a gift from my good buddy andy lee and brought a lot of joy and beauty
in my life. i put'em online so that they might bring more of the same to other people who,
like me, grew up on charlie brown, linus and the whole gang.
unfortunately, this page had to be shut down: united
feature syndicate wrote in one of those polite "cease & desist" letters,
intimating to take the images down because of copyright infringement. here's the text of
the email i received:
- From: "Gordon, Angela"
- To: "themuffinman@libero.it",
"lemmyfan@libero.it"
- Subject: Unauthorized use of PEANUTS®
intellectual property - http://andylee.redsectorart.com/htm/peanuts.htm
- Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2003 145630 -0500
-
- Dear Mr. Salvini,
- United Feature Syndicate, Inc. dba United
Media ("UFS") is the exclusive owner of all copyright, trademark, and other
intellectual property rights in and to the world-famous PEANUTS® properties. The rights
owned by UFS strictly prohibit any individual attempts to reproduce, transmit, copy, or
otherwise utilize the PEANUTS® comic strip, or the characters appearing therein, without
the expressed written permission of UFS.
- We were recently notified of artwork
depicting PEANUTS® characters that was created by Andy Lee up on
http//andylee.redsectorart.com/htm/peanuts.htm.
- Mr. Lee is not licensed by UFS to do such
work. Because this artwork is unlicensed we must ask you to remove it from your Web site.
We understand that you have the art up as a "tribute" to Mr. Lee, but because it
is not licensed, the rights of UFS are being infringed upon.
- Also, please do not sell this work. We
have browsed through your site and did not find any of the PEANUTS® artwork for sale, but
we want you to be aware that if you were to sell these unlicensed products it would be
illegal.
- Attached you will find a formal letter
from us explaining everything in further detail. If you can not open the attachment please
contact me as soon as possible.
- Thank you,
- Angela Gordon
- United Media
i must've caused a lot of grief and damage to
both ufs and the schulz estate if they had someone take the time to write such a letter. i
don't know if i'll watch "it's christmas, charlie brown" (or any of the other
cartoons) anymore: what used to be a joyous moment would carry, from now, a very foul
taste. let's chalk another one to "the man". |
