As we noted at ROFLCon, though, this same freedom means that massive cultural symbols often bring little to their creators: "The problem with this model is not that the subjects of our internet culture aren't profiting enough off of them: it's that literally everyone else is." Both Keyboard Cat and Nyan Cat flourished in large part because they were endlessly mutable: people built their own alternate Nyan Cats or spliced Keyboard Cat into videos to "play them off," drawing attention to the original.
Outside the legal ramifications, the underlying cultural problem is where to draw the line between a remix and a ripoff. "If it's not something you can do to Mickey Mouse then it's not something you can do to Keyboard Playing Cat, or Nyan Cat." Lashes has compared his defense of memes to Disney's fierce enforcement of its trademarks: "If it's not something you can do to Mickey Mouse then it's not something you can do to Keyboard Playing Cat, or Nyan Cat, or anybody that I represent," he said earlier this year. In 2011, Schmidt sued Threadless over a "Three Keyboard Cat Moon" shirt the case ended up being settled. Nyan Cat's distinctive image and name in particular were used without permission, while Keyboard Cat can also be reasonably seen as a copy (though the image and name are slightly more generic.) This also isn't the first such lawsuit. To compensate, Schmidt and Torres are asking for unspecified damages and court costs.īoth men make a fairly strong case for Warner Brothers' having misappropriated their memes. Nyan Cat has even had its own pop-up store. Outside the claim of copyright infringement from using Nyan Cat and Keyboard Cat's likenesses without authorization, the two also allege that Warner Brothers created a misleading relationship between Scribblenauts and their memes, whose earning potential comes from commercial appearances and branded merchandise. Of course, WB employs an army of lawyers who use trademark and copyright law to zealously protect its intellectual property." "The 'WB' logo also is a meme," a court filing reads, "even though it is only two letters inside the outline of a shield. Both memes have registered copyrights, with trademark applications pending, something that Schmidt and Torres argue makes using them in Scribblenauts no different to ripping off a Warner Brothers character for another game.
In several Scribblenauts games, typing " Keyboard Cat" will call up an image of a cat in a blue shirt with a keyboard, while typing " Nyan Cat" in the 2012 title Scribblenauts Unlimited will bring up the familiar gray cat with a Pop-Tart body. The issue in question is a pair of Scribblenauts Easter eggs showing the two cats. "The 'WB' logo also is a meme, even though it is only two letters."
#Scribblenauts unmasked easter eggs license#
Since then, they've had to confront the strange tension that comes from trying to own and license something that grew through sharing and appropriation. After both cats achieved fame years ago, Torres and Schmidt have parlayed them into an ongoing career under the management of "meme agent" Ben Lashes. Charles Schmidt and Christopher Orlando Torres have sued Warner Brothers for copyright and trademark infringement, based on images of Nyan Cat (created by Torres) and Keyboard Cat (created by Schmidt) that appear in the game. The owners of two of the internet's best-known cat memes are striking back at Scribblenauts for using them without permission.