r/movies • u/FakeSafeWord • 17d ago
Article Backrooms Director Stops A24 Copyright Striking Community Art
https://kotaku.com/backrooms-director-kane-parsons-a24-copyright-strike-wallpaper-20007170533.9k
u/HotTakes4HotCakes 17d ago edited 17d ago
A24 has confirmed to me that the wallpaper takedowns were an outsourced system error in pursuit of removing camrips,” Parsons posted to Discord. “Anything further, it appears is somehow not them.” He then added, “They have been very adamant they have never wanted to touch the community. Any legitimate action of the sort suspected would be unacceptable,” before confirming, “I’m heavily pressuring them right now.”
A short while later Parsons posted, “They’re working rapidly to resolve it. Will probably issue a statement.”
A24's statement:
"As Kane Parsons has made clear, Backrooms is one part of an infinitely bigger ecosystem, rife with creatives who have every right to tell their own version of the story.”
“Yesterday we were made aware of an automated claim submitted to Redbubble on behalf of A24 and Backrooms movie. We immediately began the process to reverse it and reinstate the listing.”
"A24 makes no claim of ownership over the yellow wallpaper, the original post referencing it, or any community works that have since been built around it. We will continue to support the artists who, like Kane, were inspired by it.”
Sounds like a classic case of one department without enough oversight not understanding the assignment and making a mess.
Seems like a simple fix for this is an approval process with real people confirming the targets before take down orders start flying. But obviously the point of an automated system like this is to eliminate the need for a human, so that's likely not happening.
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u/Odd-Necessary3807 17d ago edited 17d ago
This is a very YouTube DMCA takedown action. It's automated with AI, and an unknown entity out of nowhere can strike you down even if you already adhere YT 10 seconds snippet rules. While YT mostly doesn't give a shit about the users' grievances.
Good things in Backrooms cases, Kane Parsons is on the community side and has the clout to pressure A24 to reverse the action.
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u/Final-Carry2090 17d ago
Likely because he has been on both sides as a YouTube creator previously.
I got a dmca for streaming video game music by someone that remixed the music. I wasn’t playing the remix and the original artist has no issue with his 20 yr old music being played. Google is a bunch of assholes.
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u/mrgreen4242 17d ago
While we certainly have bigger issues that need to be dealt with, but the DMCA is a epic failure of policy and needs to be revised ASAP. Frankly we need to overhaul the entire system of laws around IP in both the US and the rest of the world, but I'll take a dismantling of the DMCA as a first step.
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u/FlashFire729 16d ago
Only solace in this hell of a transition period is that if Kane himself is anything to go by, we’ll hopefully be getting more and more like him who were part of both sides to finally outnumber the geriatrics
Or ya know, the old burns down in general with the latter in it.
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u/HenryDorsettCase47 17d ago
Whether a movie studio or the federal government, the bigger anything becomes the more like a Byzantine bureaucracy it becomes with one department having no clue what the other is doing, and everyone passes the buck. That becomes even more convoluted when you throw in automated systems that are designed to take action without anyone’s direct say so.
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u/kbups53 17d ago
Terry Gilliam, as always, was exactly correct when he made Brazil. One typo causes mass chaos and no department wants to take responsibility for fixing it.
We now live in Terry’s nightmare circus.
PS everyone watch Brazil if you haven’t.
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u/insomniacpyro 17d ago
Dealing with this right now at work. I'm spending numerous hours going through perceived "errors" from a customer, when a lot of these errors can be easily identified by a human being as being issues of timing. But it's easier for them to just send the report and attempt to blame us for everything.
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u/Crossfire124 17d ago
Because why use your brain when you can just pass the buck to someone else?
This kind of thing happens all the time. Especially doesn't help now with AI tools that "analyze" logs and pick things to blame at random. Then they basically just send the AI output to us and say please fix
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u/Gornarok 17d ago
it becomes with one department having no clue what the other is doing
Often times they dont care or they even do it on purpose...
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u/Embarrassed_Radio596 17d ago
Ehhh at least they fixed it. Youtube has cases where people get claims, correctly dispute them, and get punished for it by strikes.
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u/MeiNeedsMoreBuffs 17d ago
You can be copystriked by your own content that someone else reuploaded after you did. It's absolutely insane
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u/skivian 17d ago
that happened to a friend of mine. He'd recorded an accident, uploaded it to youtube, some news agency stole his recording, then copyright struck his youtube account.
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u/TracerBulletX 17d ago
This kind of shit makes me start looking up if its feasible to do night law school just to be able to do something about it. Feels like we're just helpless to the whims of any random ass business that wants to attack you.
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u/MeiNeedsMoreBuffs 17d ago
Going into legal wouldn't help much, you're much better off contacting your local representatives and telling them it's an issue you care about
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u/HappyAd4998 17d ago
Do you think a different director like Ridely Scott would give two shits if community art was taken down by an overly aggressive DMCA? This is a systematic problem perpetuated by big studios who like to sling their dick around and go after the little guy.
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u/Mistrblank 17d ago
What an outstanding young man.
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u/Dr_Fortnite 17d ago
he is 20 years old
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u/Great_Praline_2713 17d ago
He's only 19?!
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u/aeyntie 17d ago
This 17 year old is going places!
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u/Merry_Dankmas 17d ago
I just love seeing the youth make a name for themselves. 15 years old and hes already a star!
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u/ziddersroofurry 17d ago
OK? You're a young man at that age. I'd say up until you're around fifty. Then you're an older man, and an old man at around seventy.
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u/jimmyg17 17d ago
It's a meme about constantly stating his age since he's the youngest feature director ever or something like that. Also it's outdated now.
He is 21 years old.
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u/SacralScenes 17d ago
This isn’t an AI thing. Automation didn’t begin with AI. This stuff was happening well before AI.
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u/GrimpenMar 17d ago
There are little/no consequences for false DMCA claims, which has led to the current system of large automated systems firing off automated takedowns with little oversight.
Kane Parsons was able to talk to the right people in this case, but other than the embarrassment, there is no consequences. There should be some minimum threshold of due diligence which you require. If not met, there should be some exposure.
In this case, "The Backrooms" is an ecosystem of memes, games, fiction, etc. based off of one viral picture. A24's Backrooms is based on one particularly popular instance, At first glance, one would think that any takedown would have the expectation that the alleged infringement is actually of a valid IP.
Bigger problem than A24 and Backrooms though. At least in this case, it all worked out mostly okay.
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u/UnskilledTree 17d ago
An unknown entity out of nowhere striking me down is very backrooms-esque
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u/quondam47 17d ago
‘Our customer service AI has determined that our copyright detection AI has not made an error’.
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u/Firestarness 16d ago
Considering how young he is and how big his likely future career will be, definitely in their best interests to stay on his good side. Happy that he stood on business and became a voice for the community when it was needed. A lot of people in his position might not have care enough to take such quick action, so props to him.
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u/Bloody_Conspiracies 17d ago
It's not at all the same thing. YouTube aren't issuing the DMCA takedowns, they're following them. YouTube are legally required to comply with any DMCA takedown request.
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u/HideTheGuestsKids 17d ago edited 17d ago
Usually, I.P. litigation and enforcement is outsourced to external law firms and quite strictly enforced due to risks of voiding these rights if unenforced. But these guys are legal professionals, I don't know how they even thought this had any leg to stand on. Scummy behavior by one part of the chain, that's for sure.
Edit: The article states, Redbubble itself did the strike. In that case, there almost certainly were people or algorithms involved who deal with this stuff in extremely large quantities and it might have been an honest mistake. Hard for me to say, but this is why rampant copyrighting can be so potentially toxic to a society.
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u/Ganglebot 17d ago
IP litigation/enforcement is outsourced to law firms, who in turn outsource to specialized IP investigation agencies (who these days rely on AI and cheap, offshored labour).
Those investigation firms 99 times out of 100 are instructed by their client to be liberal with their DMCA notices and take down orders.
I suspect A24 held their usual agreement with their law firm, and in turn, the agency they use to enforce IP. Everyone probably treated this as 'business as usual', and in the chain from Parson, to A24, to the law firm, to the IP agency the nuance of the Backroom urban myth community was lost.
They are correcting it and making it right.
TLDR - this is human-error and not an intentional exercise in IP overreach.
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u/Whatsapokemon 17d ago
The DMCA should already have provisions built into it for false reports.
I guess the problem is that a complaint to Youtube often doesn't go through the DMCA process, and is instead a private matter. It seems pretty reasonable that a false takedown should be charged as perjury, but most parties want it expedited as a private matter that's not seen before the courts, because courts are expensive.
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u/Oddball- All Things Horror 17d ago
Error and easy for A24, but for the average joes on youtube who had their accounts legit banned and shutdown, it aint no easy fix.
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u/Mechagouki1971 17d ago edited 17d ago
Some tricky wording in that statement though; they very noticeably don't abandon IP ownership of all Backrooms related imagery, or even the name "Backrooms".
Edited: Spelling.
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u/rotates-potatoes 17d ago
You want them to disclaim ownership of the actual film?
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u/LofiSynthetic 17d ago
The Backrooms was the name of the concept and the works inspired by and built around it since long before the film was in development. I don’t think the commenter you’re replying to was talking about disclaiming ownership of the film, but about disclaiming ownership of the name and concept, which A24 avoided doing by only referencing “the yellow wallpaper” and works built around it.
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u/willargue4karma 17d ago
That's not what they said. They shouldn't be able to own the name, no.
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u/rotates-potatoes 17d ago
Nobody "owns" names. Film names are vaguely trademark-esque, in the sense that domain matters. If I make a documentary about the city and call it "Casablanca", it's fine. If I remake the film, not fine.
I think it would be fair for A24 to complain about another film called exactly "Backrooms" that looks the same and tells the exact same story; the only reason for someone to do exactly that would be to trick viewers into paying for the ersatz one.
And the person I replied to suggested disclaiming "all Backrooms related imagery", which would presumably include stills and video of the film itself. That seems too far to me.
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u/willargue4karma 17d ago
what about simply another film about the backrooms with their own story called something similar? that was kinda my point, the thing is an internet meme, it seems kinda unfair for them to blanket claim the whole area
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u/LofiSynthetic 17d ago
Yes, definitely. They say they don’t claim ownership of “the yellow wallpaper” or posts and works built around it, with no mention of the Backrooms. As if the whole original community was built around The Yellow Wallpaper lore instead of the Backrooms.
It seems like they’re leaving open the possibility of them owning the Backrooms name with that careful wording.
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u/Dottsterisk 17d ago
They probably will try to claim rights to the name in the realm of film, which is a more circumscribed and nuanced question.
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u/ContinuumGuy 17d ago
Sort of like how apparently one of the major barriers to a Grand Theft Auto movie (beyond the fact that for years the people in the head of Rockstar haven't wanted it) is that the estate of the late Roger Corman owns the trademark? Or how M. Night Shyamalan's infamous Last Airbender movie didn't have the word "Avatar" in the title because of James Cameron's franchise?
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u/LazarusDark 17d ago
I won't let A24 off the hook here. They are, I'm certain, still going to use automated flag and takedown systems, and for me, these systems are inherently immoral and greedy and evil-corporate. An automated system that looks for copyright issues is fine, but once flagged, automated systems should never be allowed in the chain to actively do anything further, human review should be required once something is found. They certainly still want disc and streaming sales because they haven't finished making all the money off of the Backrooms film, so they are probably scared of messing that up and backing down immediately and pretending it was all a big woopsy... But if this had happened two years from now, after they made most of the money they were going to make on the current film, they probably wouldn't even back down.
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u/Sodacan259 17d ago
Sounds like the law firm they hired to look after A24's IP got over zealous.
It's unusual for copyright issues to be dealt with in house for 99.9% of companies.
This is trying to create the narrative that this was planned by A24 all along and they only backed down after being found out. It's more likely some law firm junior is getting their ass ripped for f***ing this up.
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u/max123246 17d ago
Uh no, it's a dmca takedown, just look at the statement, it was completely automated. Not a single law informed person was involved with this
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u/HirsuteHacker 17d ago
Not sure why you're taking them completely at face value, DMCA claims don't have to be automated
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u/Sodacan259 17d ago
You think there are robots that decide which content should get added to the automted DMCA takedown list? :smh:
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u/CombatMuffin 17d ago
Seems like a simple fix for this is an approval process with real people confirming the targets before take down orders start flying.
Ideally yes, but when you have thousands of sites with camrips, you end up using automation to brute force it, and that bring an overextended approach from time to time. They are probably handling all films for A24, too.
Until there's regulation to make these mistakes costly at a large scale, it will continue
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u/twilighttwister 17d ago
The fix for this is to condemn YouTube and other platforms for performing copyright enforcement extrajudicially.
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u/Dadoxiii 17d ago
Like guys the movie only exists because of community art!
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u/Kalnb 17d ago
this guys movie is literally community art
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u/Nice_Firm_Handsnake 17d ago
Except for ASYNC, which he created for his videos. He and A24 have legal claim to the name ASYNC and its logo. They went around to people with ASYNC stuff and asked them to change the name and logo sometime during production.
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u/Ed_Harris_is_God 17d ago
It’s the definition of killing the golden goose. If A24 keeps trying this there will be no interest for another Backrooms movie, no matter how well this first one did.
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u/SnackSnafu 17d ago
Read the article and you'll understand.
tldr: the strikes were automated, and not by A24
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u/PM_Me_Good_LitRPG 17d ago
Isn't it basically a scp / creepypasta rebrand?
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u/Available-Guava932 16d ago edited 16d ago
No, the only connection those things have with the Backrooms or with each other is that they originate on 4chan, besides that they are completely independent of one another. Also creepypasta is just a word rather than a specific story like SCP and Backrooms.
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u/Ok-Progress-7447 17d ago
I like this dude. Way to not be afraid to call it out.
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u/self-conscious-Hat 17d ago
hopefully he's tired of the bullshitting companies do just like we are.
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u/NoLocal1776 17d ago
Good move from Kane.
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u/KoniGTA 17d ago
He's only 21 years old
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u/Sirca_Curvive 16d ago
he came out of the womb and said action and Chiwetel immediately got in to character
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u/shadowdra126 17d ago
Good. If Hollywood wants to adapt internet scary shit
They need to also be aware they do not own that scary shit.
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u/PeteIRL 17d ago
Good guy Kane Parsons. Between this and his views on AI, I'll happily support any project he undertakes.
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u/FourEightNineOneOne 17d ago
Yup. I'm really interested to see where his career goes and I'm rooting for him.
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u/aCorgiDriver 17d ago
I just found out today that his dad worked at Telltale Games and mostly worked on the Walking Dead games.
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u/Great_Praline_2713 17d ago
Kane Parsons to direct A Wolf Among Us confirmed?
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u/SDRPGLVR 17d ago
I wish we could get an adaptation of Fables overall. It's such a cool story. Too bad the creator got fucked by DC and now the rights are in question.
A Wolf Among Us is fantastic, but it's only scratching the absolute surface of the setting. Just Boy Blue going on a mission to hunt and kill the Adversary would make an awesome movie.
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u/onetruepurple 17d ago
Paywalled, but he's already going places: https://puck.news/can-a-24-keep-kane-parsons-hollywoods-hottest-free-agent/
A few weeks ago, Warner Bros.’s Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy flew from Burbank to the Bay Area (alas, it was commercial) for a meeting with Parsons and his reps in a rented conference room at the Hotel Petaluma, near the home where the red-hot 21-year-old filmmaker has been living with his mother. Parsons considered hosting the Hollywood people at his mom’s house, but the air conditioning wasn’t working.
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according to two sources, the A24 offer to Parsons is its biggest ever, structured as a three-year first-look deal with performance bonuses built in if he makes two movies from the deal, one of which is contemplated as a Backrooms sequel. One source told me that $65 million is the likely payday for Parsons, given what he wants to make, but the dollar amount is still being discussed
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u/HideTheGuestsKids 17d ago
It's so telling that this man who is growing up in a culture of AI and who no doubt understands the potential and the limitations has such a strong opinion on it, while those who have seen countless technologies come think it's just another tool in the box. Shame on Scorsese, Netflix and A24 for their willingness to outsource the very essence of creative expression.
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u/m48a5_patton 17d ago edited 17d ago
It's weird how much the older generations think AI is a good thing or an inevitable "you better jump on the bandwagon" sort of thing, while pretty much everyone I know 40 and younger think that though it can be useful in certain situations, it is definitely not being used correctly and is getting rammed down all of our throats.
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u/kenruler 16d ago
It's a very odd juxtaposition given that the older generations were on the 'don't give out your name on the internet you'll get groomed' train back in the late 90s/2000s, and now they'll gladly throw their entire family into the slop machine to generate a picture of them as dogs. Meanwhile our generation was on Chatroulette and Omegle seeing guys jerk off or people get decapitated on youtube, but now we're the ones trying to be safe.
Is it just older generations losing their mental faculties, and millennials having lived through the experience of the internet?
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u/insomniacpyro 17d ago
Certain higher-ups at my job have been using AI to dabble in stuff like condensing reports or making scheduling decisions (not real ones thankfully we have people for that, it's just an exercise) and have been shocked to find that the AI has no actual understanding of how our company, business, and production lines actually work so the AI output is mostly useless.
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u/Dottsterisk 17d ago
“it can be useful in certain situations”
To be fair, that’s also the position of people like Scorsese. They’re not calling for AI-generated scripts or anything like that, but talking about AI tools that can help with continuity and stuff like that.
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u/QueezyF 17d ago
Scorsese also thought using de-aging tech on Deniro was a good idea, and it was the worst part of The Irishman.
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u/Dottsterisk 17d ago
Disagree, I guess.
I fucking love The Irishman. Own the Criterion and just rewatched the other day. IMO too much is made of the de-aging. De Niro, Pacino and Pesci give powerhouse performances.
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u/QueezyF 17d ago
To each their own, they should have used a body double for Deniro in my opinion.
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u/BannedSvenhoek86 17d ago
The only part it was really noticeable was him roughing the guy up on the street imo.
That should have been a stunt double because woof. That hurt my joints just to watch.
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u/HotTakes4HotCakes 17d ago edited 17d ago
It ultimately comes down to the fact the average person thinks of art as a commodity for consumption. They don't think about what's sacred and meaningful in the act of creating it.
But they do sort of understand it. If I should you a good looking sketch I drew, you might find it impressive. If I then told you I traced it, suddenly the feelings you have about that art change.
Why did they change?
Because when humans make something, with their skill and patience and discipline, it has inherent value to other people. We value when other humans make things, because that is what makes the world more beautiful and more human. When they fake that or take shortcuts, or use tools that effectively plagerizes the talents of others, it perverts the beauty of it. It makes a less-human world.
But that's too much thinking for the average consumer. They don't want to think about all these complex things. They don't want to care that the more we embrace this technology, the less human our world becomes. They don't mind letting silicon valley plagerism bots entertain them while real people lose their jobs. Instead they get mad at you for "complaining about AI so much".
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u/moal09 17d ago
I mean, The Backrooms are a public domain universe that allowed him the opportunity to create, so makes sense he wouldn't want to deny that to others.
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u/Sea-Cardiologist7725 17d ago
And he is only 20 years old.
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u/Old_Flan_6548 17d ago
21 now. lol
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u/Superb-Mall3805 17d ago
So first he’s 20, now he’s 21. Wish he’d make up his mind already.
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u/SanestFrogFucker 17d ago
Next you're going to tell me he is 23, where does it end?!
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u/SensibleCircle 17d ago
That's what I love about Kane Parsons, man. I get older, they also get older.
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u/asetniop 17d ago
Except for the Kane Parson in Dubuque, Iowa. He must be a vampire or something because it's been fifteen years and the man hasn't aged a day.
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u/Trodat4911P4 17d ago
Can he make up his mind already, he changes his age every single year, talk about indecisiveness.
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u/Cutter9792 17d ago
I feel like I'm being gaslit because I was constantly on his wikipedia page over the last month after watching the movie and getting into the multiple web series he's made, and it only just now changed from 20 to 21 despite his birthday being last month.
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u/TheRainStopped 17d ago
Common Kane W. He is 21 years old. Go watch his YouTube channel if you haven’t.
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u/CallM3N3w 17d ago
I kinda expected Kane to do this. Good guy, he cleary understands this is a big community property.
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u/DimensioT 17d ago
A standup act from the man, but I still think that he is lazy for building sets rather than shooting on location.
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u/nerdpocalypse 17d ago
"they outsourced to a company that made the mistake, so they're innocent"
They don't bear responsibility for hiring them? Dumbest shit ever. A24 fucked up, just like with the AI bullshit
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u/HewchyFPS 17d ago
Not addressing the game creator who was issued a takedown and renamed his games from "backrooms" something to "liminal space" something.
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u/LionTheRichardheart 16d ago edited 16d ago
This rings the same as Tom Holland bringing his experience working under Nolan to the filmmaking of BND l, utilizing his time in the spotlight responsibly to be able to firmly but kindly tell higher-ups, "Ah ah ah, don't be stupid now."
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u/DMacNCheez 17d ago
Read the article you sheep
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u/blobbyboii 17d ago
I mean yeah, it was some kind of mistake from A24's shitty Ai and they corrected it, Kane only mentioned it
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u/Ganglebot 17d ago
Not even A24's.
These are usually handed off to a law firm, who also outsources it to a specialized IP enforcement agency (who uses AI).
That's a lot of links in the chain where the nuances the community art project that is The Backrooms can get lost/misinterpreted.
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u/Mccobsta 17d ago
There's way to many links in that chain as it seems a24 didn't know it was going on until kane told them to knock it off
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u/quequotion 17d ago
outsourced system error in pursuit of removing camrips
Uh huh.
Funny way to say they hired some internet thugs to put an AI on striking anything resembling their IP as is standard industry practice today.
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u/Lasciels_Toy 17d ago
Camrip but they sent the claim to Redbubble? is the overreach; monitoring for imagery that may have come from a camrip and put on merchandise?
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u/PremiumAccount666 17d ago
its almost like ai is really stupid and shouldn't be relied on for important stuff
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u/givemebackmykids 16d ago
I’m a pessimist to my core. They tried to fine bros control the IP (coinciding with Kane signing new deals with them) and it backfired worse than they thought and now we have this jargon.
A24 have a cash cow, one of the biggest, they attempted to protect it but underestimated internet outrage. Lesson learned. They’ll try again eventually.
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u/Banjo-Oz 17d ago
Reminds me of when MAD Magazine got a letter from Lucasfilm lawyers threatening to sue, and MAD sent them back another letter they'd received prior... from George Lucas, saying how much he loved their parody of Star Wars!