News
Check out the episode capsules for season 8. They will be uploaded within a few days after an episode airs.
Fox has finally put it's long delayed Offical Simpsons Site. More content is supposed to be arriving all the time, but we'll see...
Take a look at the 3-D effects put together for "Treehouse of horror VI" by the people at Pacific Data Images.
Jeanette Foshee made several sets of wonderful Simpsons icons for the Mac and PC platforms. Fox has issued a "Cease and Desist" order to Jeanette ordering her to destroy all copies of the icons.
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Jeanette Foshee made several sets of absolutely beautiful
Simpsons'
character icons, which were previously available here and elsewhere. She
recently received one of the storied "cease and desist" letters which have been
rumored to exist. I thought you might like to see and hear what this is about,
and to ruminate on the chilling effect it has on fan activities. Fan activities
as you might be aware, many times lead to the financial and popular success of
a program and it is always enlightening to see a major film studio pulling
little pebbles out of the face of a dam that can engulf them. |
| If you're unhappy over Fox's cease and
desist of Jeanette's icons (or any other Simpsons fan material), make yourself
heard! Send a protest to Fox.
foxnet@delphi.com. |
From Jfoshee1@aol.com Mon Oct 23 12:01:38 1995
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 11:03:20 +0100
To: og@digimark.net
From: Jfoshee1@aol.com (Jeanette Foshee)
Subject: All good things must come to an end.... *sigh*
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Well, I have some bad news for you. There won't be a Volume 5.
Friday I got home to find an overnight letter from Twentieth Century Fox. It
was from
their legal counsel saying that my icons were copyright infringement, and
it issued a cease and desist order, and said my icons were to be deleted
everywhere, and they'd look into recovering whatever profits I'd made
(which will be $0.00, as I never asked for money). |
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The letter was pretty aggressive and hostile, and even though
I knew it was a form letter, I was disappointed at the extremes to which
some companies
feel they must go in order to protect animated characters. Somehow I don't
think that 25 years ago such greed and overprotectiveness would have been
present. |
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I've sent back a letter stating my cooperation and I've
already sent e-mail
to info-mac and AOL to remove my volumes. Compuserver and eWorld will have
to follow suit, once I determine where to send the e-mail. I'm also going
to put a message on the Simpsons newsgroup letting folks know of the news.
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I'm telling you this because you'll need to get rid of my
icons on your homepage, or at least terminate the connection to ftp sites.
I'm trying to
let people know as soon as possible, to avoid any possible trouble with
Fox. |
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I share your keen disappointment, and I haven't been good
company to be with this past weekend. I've had mixed emotions of loss,
disappointment and just plain being stunned at the vehemence of the letter.
Obviously they
want to terrify me into swiftly complying with all of their demands. Which
wouldn't have mattered, I'd had done it anyway. |
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I try to keep my spirits up by reminding myself that there is a
whole world of icons out there to make, and that now I can devote my energies
to them. I've been making some miscellaneous icons, and I can complete that
collection and upload it. When I do, I'll call it something like
FosheeIcons_Vol.1 (or Grp1). I figure most people will recognize the last
name and perhaps download them. And I will still put my pic in. So I
suppose that in some ways things haven't changed. Except, of course, the
major one. *Sigh* We all had such fun with my icons, and it wasn't harming
Fox in any way. I didn't earn money or deprive them of any revenue. In
fact, I was giving them free publicity. |
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But I guess this is part and parcel of the way things are
today. There's
not much room for a nice person who gives away for free the results of her
enthusiastic fandom. |
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I've asked for a response to my letter, letting me know that
Fox is aware
that I'm complying with their demands. I guess the next step is up to them.
In the meantime, I've got to make contact with people who have featured my
icons on their homepages, and ask them to take them off, so they don't get
into any trouble. In the letter, Fox wanted the names of individuals who
had my icons, but I didn't know anyone in person, just major archive sites.
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Sorry to end this on a sad note, but I guess it's true.
All good things
must come to an end.... On a slightly optimistic note, perhaps this is just
the beginning of lots more interesting, non-Simpson icons for me. You never
know.... |
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