With the rollicking success that is Pixels, the studio has figured their not so great grossing sales was obviously due to pirates who are jumping all over the movie and watching it illegally. For this reason, the studio had turned to Entura International, an anti-piracy copyright firm and tried to take down any video on Vimeo that would have the word “Pixels” in it through copyright notices.
Such a desperate move to roll back their revenue loss has taken an impact upon many videos who have literally nothing to do with the 2015 summer featured film. Of the noted unjust copyright claim strikes were upon a museum’s exhibition video, a short film that had been released years before and was the inspiration to the Adam Sandler movie, and the most tragic of all, Columbia Picture’s very own official movie trailer that was on Vimeo.
The museum; NeMe is independent and shows off contemporary art. Releasing a video back in 2006 called “Pixels” that featured it’s own original content and had in no way or form stumbled upon the copyright. It was taken down, and they have taken to Vimeo to try and get some help reverting this strike. Sadly, the response given was to make a simple counter notice to fight back; leaving the fate of their video up in the air.
Released in 2010, the short film titled “Pixels” was the basis in which the 2015 film of the same name drew upon; “8bit creatures are invading New York City”. It was created by Patrick Jean. It too was pummeled into the ground for having the same name as the Columbia Pictures film. Sadly you can’t watch it on Vimeo anymore, but it won’t stop it from being shown in other places… like Youtube.
The DMCA notice train doesn’t stop until all Pixels are eliminated and the trailer for the 2015 film too has seen the same fate as all the other Pixels.
The word ‘Pixels’ isn’t copyrighted in any means and yet anti-piracy agents such as Entura International has the capability to drop these notices on humble little projects like the Museum piece or the creative property of a much better person. Sadly the greed and unfavorable approach Columbia Pictures has taken will be remembered, reminding us that their short-sightedness even made their own content disappear. Hopefully this will be a better wake up call for them in their little spat with piracy, and to maybe start finding better ways to deal with it, or just create something else worth defending. Not Pixels. Not ever.