Proving he's a complete a**hole, billionaire Haim Saban issued a formal complaint with YouTube and Vimeo over that really awesome Power Rangers short film, causing the fan video to be pulled from the sites. Starring James Van der Beek and Katee Sackhoff, the 14-minute video received more than 12 million YouTube views in two days.
The "Power/Rangers" video was posted Tuesday to both video sharing sites on Tuesday, but was almost immediately taken down from Vimeo after the site received a complaint from Haim Saban's company, which owns the Power Rangers franchise and is working on a feature film at Lionsgate. Yesterday, the film was pulled off YouTube.
The good news is, the video could return as Adi Shankar, the short film's producer, is vowing to put up a legal fight against the billionaire. Unfortunately, that might take a while as YouTube deals with these types of disputes by removing the video(s) in question once the company receives a "complete takedown notice" from the party claiming infringement — even though this is actually the beginning of a legal process. The creator of the video in dispute does have the legal recourse to file a counter-notification to reinstate the removed video, which goes to the party claiming infringement. If the two sides can work out some sort of agreement, it will go to court. Based on comments by Shankar's attorney, I think that'll likely be what happens.
“The general counsel for Saban called me yesterday and he didn’t send a cease and desist and they went directly to YouTube,” said Shankar's attorney Ashwant Akula Venkatram. “It’s fair use and there are numerous fans films on YouTube. It’s a terrible precedent to set.”
Meanwhile, Joseph Kahn, the short film's director, said he is "very disappointed" that Saban's company turned what was an awesome fan film into a legal battle.
“I think it’s a huge blow for fandom,” he told Deadline. “I think they’re hurting themselves. I think with this short they’ve gotten more attention than ever before. How do you break the Internet with the Power Rangers? I think it gave them a lot of publicity and revived its pop culture awareness. Instead of supporting the good will of the fans, they’ve turned it into a legal issue. It doesn’t sound like they’re thinking of the fandom at all."
As for whether or not Shankar and Kahn have a defense case, even the U.S. Copyright Office admits, “The distinction between what is fair use and what is infringement in a particular case will not always be clear or easily defined.” A popular test is whether or not the "fair use" of copyrighted material is designed to make a profit, which Kahn insists his film was not.
Clearly, Saban, his company, and Lionsgate are worried that the short was too good.
