Cthulhu Chick Tract

Greetings.

i was very impressed by your "Cthulhu Chick Tract" -- i thought it was hillarious, and a nice spoof on the original (which i consider intellectually insulting).

i am sorry that you had to take the page down. However, i am also surprised, as i thought that "fair use" laws allowed the modification of copywrited material for parody purposes.

Well, you know the situation better than i do, and i'm not asking you to waste your time by explaining it all to me. i just wanted to say that i really enjoyed it! Thanks for the laugh.

Sincerely,

- emmanuel françois

It's a shame you took that down. It was brilliant. Wish i'd printed it.

MDS

I have read many comments about your parody "Who Will Be Eaten First?" and am appalled that a parody such as that could be censored through litigation and I was wondering if you could supply me with a copy of the comic in question, I would be able to convert the work to a pdf document and share it on certain peer to peer networks ensuring it's continued availability to those interested in seeing it.

<§> Jon D

Nope. It is gone.

So Howard,

I lost my Cthulhu pamphlet. Is it a violation of copyright to distribute it privately?

What exactly happened and who threatened a suit?

everyone here admires your work,

John

Here's what happened...

My server got this e-mail...

From: "Ron Rockney" <rockney@chick.com>
To: <support@smeinc.net>
Subject: Violation of acceptable use agreement
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 14:04:47 -0800

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to inform you of a copyright violation occurring on a website hosted by you. The offending website is www.howardhallis.com. The copyright violation exists at the following URL:http://www.howardhallis.com/bis/cthulhuchick/

The person preparing this material has stolen artwork from copyrighted publications created by Jack T. Chick, with the copyright being held in the name of the Jack T Chick LLC. I represent Chick Publications, Inc., the sole licensed publisher of this copyrighted material. Our contract with the Jack T Chick LLC requires us to defend this copyright, and we intend to do so. While more than one of Mr. Chick's copyrighted publications were used to prepare this web page, the majority of the material comes from one of his creations, currently offered for sale on our website. We display this title , "The Choice," on our website where prospective customers may view it before purchasing it in bulk. You may view it here to verify that the material on the offending web page does in fact come from this publication:

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0100/0100_01.asp

I hereby certify the following:

1. I am an officer of Chick Publications, Inc., the sole licensed publisher of Mr. Chick's work.

2. This artwork was created by Jack T. Chick and the copyright is held by Jack T Chick LLC.

3. The developer of the website www.howardhallis.com does not havepermission to reproduce Mr. Chick's artwork.

In accordance with your responsibilities under copyright law, I am asking you to take immediate action to terminate this illegal activity which is occuring on your network. It has been our experience that most of the time when people steal copyrighted materials such as this, they do so without the knowledge or approval of their internet service provider, and that when made aware of the violation, most ISPs take the material down promptly. I trust that will be the case here.

Ronald L. Rockney, Treasurer
Chick Publications, Inc.
rockney@chick.com

So my server sent me this after they had replied to the letter, explaining to Ronald Rockney they needed more details. Then they forwarded this to me. I think it was incredibly cool of them not to pull it off themselves immediately, but I decided to take it down. I can understand completely how Jack Chick and his followers would find my page reprehensible. I'm taking their tactics of propaganda... their very format and art... and turning it towards something they consider evil. Now, everyones opinions of what is evil and not evil or funny and not funny are subjective, but when they own the copyright to those images, they are fully within their rights to ask me to remove it from view.

I myself don't agree with Chick's fundamentalist Christianity, nor do I take the writings of H.P. Lovecraft seriously (although I wouldn't reccomend trying to summon Cthulhu on acid!). The piece was done in fun, but you got to realize that the laws can censor you. Just look what's happening to Howard Stern.

-HH