South Korean Animators Protest Banksy Simpsons Opening... Which They Animated

Mike Masnick — Tue, 2 Nov 2010 10:07:31 PDT

You may remember the attention paid recently to the Banksy-created opening of the Simpsons, which (among other things) portrayed animators working under sweatshop-like conditions, to produce the cartoon. We had mentioned it after Fox issued a DMCA takedown on the video, which had been uploaded to Banksy's account. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but that YouTube video is back up: That said, what may be more interesting is this story about how the South Korean animators who did, in fact, animate that opening sequence protested the whole thing, and pushed back until at least some of the sequence was changed. I will admit that my first impression on hearing about it was to think that Banksy confused North Korea with South Korea, and that does appear to be what some others have said as well. While it is true that South Korean animators make less than American animators, it's hardly "sweatshop" conditions. Still, in the end, the animators animated the sequence in question, but are making it known that they don't think the depiction is fair.

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Fox Gets Tons Of Attention For Banksy Simpsons Video... Then Pulls It Off YouTube

Mike Masnick — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 08:42:28 PDT

Late Sunday night, the talk of the internet was the extremely "dark" open sequence for The Simpsons, which was apparently done by famed artist Banksy, and which made a statement about Asian animation and manufacturing sweat shops producing both Simpsons animations and merchandise. According to various reports, there was a lot of back and forth from News Corp. about getting this approved, and even animators for the show initially refused to animate the opening. However, it eventually went out, and was an instant sensation. And, of course, once it's an instant sensation, lots of folks went online to see it, and Banksy apparently uploaded the video to his own channel on YouTube (where I saw it). However, as Benny6Toes alerts us, the video has now been taken down from YouTube, apparently due to a copyright claim from 20th Century Fox: Of course, the "official" video is available on Hulu if you're in the US, and you can find it elsewhere if you really want. But it seems rather pointless and petty for it to be taken down from Banksy's official account. Now, it could just be YouTube's ContentID system (in fact, I'd guess that's what it was) rather than an official DMCA takedown notice, but if that's the case, it again highlights the silliness of doing automated takedowns like that, where this seems like a case that Fox and the show are getting extra promotion by not just allowing the original video to air, but then to make it available for people to see...

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South Korean Animators Protest Banksy Simpsons Opening... Which They Animated

Fox Gets Tons Of Attention For Banksy Simpsons Video... Then Pulls It Off YouTube