Comment Not Not a Parody (Score 1) 159
First, I disagree with the idea that whether the cartoons were funny or tasteless has anything to do with this. Certainly, yes, they were tasteless, but some people find that sort of thing funny. It's immature, but it doesn't hurt anybody, and it gives some people entertainment.
As for directly copying the strip, this kinda treads on the same ground as the usual IP arguments that we get plenty of with the whole Linux/OSS thing. By the letter of the law, copying the strip like that probably does step over the line, but I am of the opinion that the letter of the law is often broken.
Theft would be legitimate, but I don't think I see that here. They used the characters that somebody else created, yes. Does this prevent the original creator from using those characters, or in any other way fall into the usual "You had this, but now I have it and you don't" sort of thing that makes theft wrong? Not in any way that I can see. Libel? Not really. The characters are saying tasteless things, but this doesn't really attack anybody. Since they go out of their way to say that the comics are parodies and not created by the people who do Dilbert, they aren't trying to pass the strips off as something that came from those people. Nobody in their right mind would think any less of Dilbert just because some jackass with a paint program figured out he could cut and paste text into a Dilbert comic.
As for the strips not being a parody, just trying to be obscene, I'm not sure I agree with that, either. I don't think it'd be that far-fetched to say that they're parodizing office life. The pointy-haired boss calling Dilbert "fatty queercakes" isn't really all that funny, but I did get a chuckle out of these strips because they take place in an office environment. I'm used to the office environment being formal and professional, so something like that strikes me as kinda funny in small doses. Scott Adams doesn't own office humor. He owns the Dilbert characters, yes, but like I said before, this doesn't effect that ownership of them. He owns them as much now as he did before Dilbert Hole ever happened.
If the guy who did Dilbert Hole had drawn the strips himself, it would have had a lot more creative value on its own, but I don't see how he should be punished for using the Dilbert characters any more than being told it's not that creative.
As for directly copying the strip, this kinda treads on the same ground as the usual IP arguments that we get plenty of with the whole Linux/OSS thing. By the letter of the law, copying the strip like that probably does step over the line, but I am of the opinion that the letter of the law is often broken.
Theft would be legitimate, but I don't think I see that here. They used the characters that somebody else created, yes. Does this prevent the original creator from using those characters, or in any other way fall into the usual "You had this, but now I have it and you don't" sort of thing that makes theft wrong? Not in any way that I can see. Libel? Not really. The characters are saying tasteless things, but this doesn't really attack anybody. Since they go out of their way to say that the comics are parodies and not created by the people who do Dilbert, they aren't trying to pass the strips off as something that came from those people. Nobody in their right mind would think any less of Dilbert just because some jackass with a paint program figured out he could cut and paste text into a Dilbert comic.
As for the strips not being a parody, just trying to be obscene, I'm not sure I agree with that, either. I don't think it'd be that far-fetched to say that they're parodizing office life. The pointy-haired boss calling Dilbert "fatty queercakes" isn't really all that funny, but I did get a chuckle out of these strips because they take place in an office environment. I'm used to the office environment being formal and professional, so something like that strikes me as kinda funny in small doses. Scott Adams doesn't own office humor. He owns the Dilbert characters, yes, but like I said before, this doesn't effect that ownership of them. He owns them as much now as he did before Dilbert Hole ever happened.
If the guy who did Dilbert Hole had drawn the strips himself, it would have had a lot more creative value on its own, but I don't see how he should be punished for using the Dilbert characters any more than being told it's not that creative.
