By now we’ve well established that this particular series of media mergers — which began with AT&T’s doomed acquisition of Time Warner and ended with Time Warner’s subsequent spin off and fusion with Discovery — were some of the dumbest, most pointless “business” exercises ever conceived by man.
The idiotic saga burned through hundreds of billions in debt, saw more than 50,000 people lose their jobs, killed off numerous popular brands (like Mad Magazine and HBO), created oceans of animosity among creatives, and resulted in a Max streaming service that’s arguably dumber and of notably lower quality than when the entire expensive gambit began.
And executives at Warner Bros Discovery appear to have learned absolutely nothing from the experience.
The New York Times indicates that Warner Bros Discovery boss David Zaslav is in early talks to merge with yet another company, this time Paramount (CBS). These mergers provide absolutely no real benefit to the broader world; they exist exclusively so the fail upward brunchlords in charge can nab giant tax breaks and put “savvy dealmaker” on their resumes.
But they also showcase how the executives in charge are completely out of original ideas.
That said, the New York Times coverage of this latest wrinkle is… not good.
Outside of the massive debt load, the paper doesn’t seem to think it’s important to inform readers about the endless, pointless, and clearly harmful chaos from the company’s last two shitty mergers. The 50,000+ layoffs from the last two deals aren’t even mentioned. Neither is the endless frustration among creatives who lost their livelihoods or watched their projects get crushed underfoot for no coherent reason.
The Times also apparently believes that there’s “ample business logic” in the deal, because they claim it will provide Warner Brothers Discovery HBO Max Paramount CBS Plus with greater leverage in negotiations with cable TV companies:
“There is ample business logic in a tie-up of Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount. Paramount’s bundle of TV networks, which include MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, could give Warner Bros. Discovery greater leverage in negotiations with cable distributors like Comcast and Charter.”
The problem with the NYT’s claim is that traditional cable TV is facing what could be its final death knell. We just got done noting how traditional cable TV networks (many of the ones the Times lists above as important assets) have effectively turned into mindless rerun-airing zombies, and most current cable TV channels likely won’t even exist in a few years.
Gone is the originality of HBO, replaced with a growing mountain of reality TV programs about dumb people having sex on islands. Accompanied by a huge increase in weird and annoying service restrictions and higher prices. That’s going to drive users not just to free alternatives like YouTube or TikTok, but back to piracy after a decade of inroads with U.S. consumers.
Again, these media mergers are utterly pointless, harmful constructs that actively undermine the brand and long-term health of these companies. And, as the NYT demonstrates, the very real human harms of this pointless consolidation are simply edited out of the frame like one of Stalin’s political enemies, ensuring nobody learns anything as we repeat the process in idiotic perpetuity.
Thank you for joining us for your latest lesson in how you don’t actually own the things you buy when you buy them digitally. Over a year ago, we discussed a story out of Germany and Austria where a deal expired between Sony and movie distributor StudioCanal, which resulted in 100s of movies being delisted and deleted, both from the PlayStation Store and from the PlayStations of those who bought them. Yup! People bought a thing, got a thing, and then had that thing clawed back from them once the licensing agreement wasn’t renewed. You can guess for yourself whether members of the public who “bought” these movies had any idea that them disappearing long after purchase was even a possibility, but don’t overthink it, you know the answer.
But maybe you thought, “Sucks for Germany, but that wouldn’t happen here in America.” Well, turns out it sucks for some of us, too, as the exact same thing happened here, only with shows and content produced by Discovery and purchased through the PlayStation Store.
The latest pothole in the road to an all-digital future was discovered via a warning Sony recently sent out to PlayStation users who purchased TV shows made by Discovery, the reality TV network that recently merged with Warner Bros. in one of the most brutal and idioticcorporate maneuvers of our time. “Due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from your video library,” read a copy of the email that was shared with Kotaku.
It linked to a page on the PlayStation website listing all of the shows impacted. As you might imagine, given Discovery’s penchant for pumping out seasons of relatively cheap to produce but popular reality TV and documentary-based shows, there are a lot of them. They include, but are not limited to, hits such as: Say Yes to the Dress, Shark Week, Cake Boss, Long Island Medium, Deadly Women, and many, many more.
And MythBusters, too, which feels like that show missed an opportunity to bust the myth that you own what you bought when you purchase something digitally. The reality is that there is no good way to actually retain these shows in cases like this. Some that “bought” Discovery content are freaking out, understandably.
“Is there a way I can save this content?” asked one panicked PlayStation user on Reddit. “I use PS4…But I have bought many seasons of shows such as Dual Survival that I do not wish to lose. I was actually under the impression since I owned it, I wouldn’t ever lose it…”
Whatever else is true, it’s obvious that platforms aren’t doing nearly enough to actually inform customers of what they’re buying, leasing, renting, whatever. It would be one thing if this content was ripped away and everyone on all sides realized that was a possibility. That just isn’t the case.
And just as in the Germany instance, there’s no chance that any of this comes with any refunds or givebacks. Well-meaning customers who paid money for this content simply don’t have it anymore. And it just isn’t like having a Netflix account or something like that, where the product catalogue is constantly in flux. It’s people who are buying a show, or the season of a show. But they’re really not. They’re renting it until some combination of Sony and the licensee decides they’re not.
Earlier this year we discussed an app being removed from the Google Play store over copyright concerns and a DMCA notice that was sent in by a firm representing several Israeli television networks. The app, called “Downloader,” was created by Elias Saba, and he was very confused by the takedown. The reason for his confusion is based on what his app actually does: it combines a simple file management solution and a web browser for smart/streaming devices. It does not host any infringing content. It does not even point a user to any infringing content. If this app is a copyright problem, in other words, so is, oh, I don’t know… Google Chrome. And, yet, Google took the app down, before eventually realizing its mistake and reinstating the app to the Play Store.
As if that whole story isn’t annoying enough, it just happened again. And in the exact same way.
Downloader has been suspended by Google Play again, and this time the reason is even harder to understand. Based on a vague DMCA notice, it appears that Downloader was suspended simply because it can load the Warner Bros. website.
Google notified Saba that the app was suspended again last night, according to the notice that Saba shared with Ars. “Your app contains content that allegedly infringes upon the copyright of others, and violates applicable copyright laws in the relevant country/jurisdiction,” the notice from Google said.
The notice includes a copy of the DMCA complaint, which came from MarkScan, a “digital asset protection” firm that content owners hire to enforce copyrights. MarkScan said in its complaint that it represents Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.
It’s really that simple. In the DMCA notice itself, where MarkScan was supposed to list the infringing content within the app, the notice lists only https://www.warnerbros.com/. Again, my smart TV has a browser on it that can also access that website. It’s called Chrome and is a Google product. But for some reason, that app gets to remain on the Play Store while Downloader has been taken down a second time for the same bullshit reason as the last go around.
And Saba is rightly pointing out that this sort of DMCA abuse, or at least a complete neglect by both MarkScan and Google to actually review what these DMCA notices are claiming to ensure they comply with copyright law, shows just how wide open the current DMCA notice and takedown process is for abuse, error, or collateral damage.
Unsurprisingly, Saba is outraged. “You would think that Google would at least verify that the takedown request is actually making a plausible claim,” he told Ars today. “The most important field in the takedown where the claimant has to specify where the copyright infringement exists is void of all detail. If this complete lack of information is all it takes to take an app down, then no app in the Google Play Store is safe from being suspended with just a few clicks and a frivolous takedown request.”
Saba has since appealed the takedown, but that appeal was almost immediately rejected by Google. From there, he had to submit a counter-notice, and now MarkScan has two weeks to either file legal action, or else his app will be reinstated.
Fortunately it didn’t take that long. After initially delisting the app from the Play Store, Google reversed that decision, noting correctly, and far too late, that the DMCA notice didn’t list any actually infringing content within it.
Google has defended its DMCA-takedown process by saying that, under the law, it is obligated to remove any content when a takedown request contains the elements required by the copyright law. But in this case, Google Play removed Downloader even though the DMCA takedown request didn’t identify a copyrighted work—one of the elements required by the DMCA.
That’s probably why Downloader’s latest suspension was reversed more quickly than the previous one. But the incident raises questions about whether Google will do anything to prevent repeated suspensions of apps wrongly targeted by vague or bogus DMCA notices.
Yeah, it sure as shit does! And Saba has gone on to note that it sure would have been nice for Google to have reviewed the notice and found that it was insufficient before taking his app down instead of after.
If we’re going to suffer under this notice and takedown nonsense, there should be a responsibility on the service provider to determine whether a notice is valid to begin with, never mind real toothy penalties for those submitting this sort of garbage as well.
I mean, it’s not like we didn’t warn Elon Musk. Free speech is not about creating a single private space where everyone gets to speak, because that doesn’t support free speech. It enables the worst of society to browbeat, harass, and abuse anyone they dislike, creating a total garbage dump that drives people away and silences them.
That’s not free speech. It limits free speech.
In my mind, there are two key aspects to free speech: underlying protocols that are not privately controlled that allow people to speak (but which enable others to build curation/moderation tools on top of them) and a near total limit on the government’s ability to suppress speech.
ExTwitter had a chance to be a leader in this, back when Jack Dorsey endorsed the protocol approach and helped get the Bluesky project off the ground. But Elon killed that also. And now his confusion over all of this is driving speech off of ExTwitter, rather than enabling more of it.
We’ve already talked about how advertisers are bailing on ExTwitter, and this accelerates every time Elon says something hateful, bigoted, or ignorant. Yesterday he added to this by not just tweeting (and later deleting) a Pizzagate meme (that also misunderstands the fact that Michael Scott of The Office is the joke), but one based on an outright fabricated NY Post headline that never existed, falsely claiming that the person who debunked Pizzagate (which was actually debunked by many, many people because it was a delusional nonsense conspiracy theory) was just sentenced to jail for child sexual abuse material. Except, none of that was true.
… people familiar with the social media strategies of Paramount and WBD confirmed under the condition of anonymity that it’s no coincidence: the companies have made the active decision to stop posting under certain handles on X due to concerns, including brand safety.
The blackout on X extends beyond these companies’ corporate accounts, in some cases. For instance, the most high profile accounts affiliated with Disney have gone dark on X, such as @StarWars, @Pixar, and @MarvelStudios, which were previously posting multiple times a day on the platform to their millions of followers. Instead, these brands have switched over to the Meta-owned rival Threads, where they have started actively posting.
For instance, when“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on Monday shared the news that host Stephen Colbert would be off the air this week due to appendicitis, the program did so on Threads. Prior to Musk’s backing of an antisemitic post, Colbert’s show, however, was primarily active on X, regularly posting videos and other content. Now, the inverse is true.
The article lists many other companies that aren’t just pulling ads but stopping tweeting altogether. And that’s not getting into the many individuals, including some big names, who have gone silent as well.
What kind of “free speech” is it when you drive everyone away?
We’ve documented in detail how the whole AT&T–>Time Warner–>Warner Brothers Discovery merger process has been a pointless mess, resulting in no limits of layoffs and damage to the underlying brands. What was supposed to be a gambit by these companies to dominate streaming TV, wound up being a very expensive act of seppuku by over-compensated executives clearly out of their depths.
After paying a premium for the HBO brand just to deprecate it, steadily eroding the quality of their streaming catalog (how many reality TV shows can there be involving people having sex on an island?), firing countless employees, cancelling popular shows, raising prices, and implementing all kinds of new restrictions, execs at Warner Brothers Discovery unsurprisingly saw 700,000 subscribers head for the exits last quarter.
It’s, of course, not good enough for Wall Street to create a profitable product people like. The need for improved quarterly returns at any cost always creates a sort of self-cannibalizing doom cycle. It’s made worse as the sector consolidates in order to chase short-term tax benefits.
Max is now deep into this process of enshittification, consistently charging more money for worse product, while creating pricing funnels to try and drive people to the most expensive plans possible if they want access to basic features like 4K. The value erosion is near constant, as Wired illustrates:
“Last January, Max increased its prices from $15 to $16 for its ad-free version. But then in May, when HBO Max became Max, the company announced its Ultimate Ad-Free tier, which costs $20 and includes 4K streaming. Not too bad, especially when you consider Netflix’s Premium tier is also now $20 per month. Max, though, recently emailed its legacy HBO Max customers letting them know that although they’d been allowed to have 4K at their previous $16-per-month price tag, that deal would be ending in December. Suddenly, Max doesn’t seem quite as worth it—especially when it’s ad-supported plan is only $10.”
At the same time, executives at these companies want to drive everybody to ad-based tiers because ad revenue has more growth potential than subscription revenue, given the saturated market. But that risks making the underlying product more annoying overall (see Amazon’s decision to charge customers who already pay $140 for Amazon prime, an additional $3 a month to avoid ads).
Revenue at Max was up 5 percent during the year, but that’s not necessarily a sign of health. Another dumb decision made by the brain trust at Warner was to begin selling access to their existing HBO content catalog to competitors, which is providing a big boost of money up front, but comes at the risk of further eroding the company’s market share longer term.
Warner Bros Discovery remains saddled in debt and run by the kinds of folks more interested in short term tax tricks than long-term brand quality. It couldn’t be more obvious these folks want to push their luck and consolidate the sector until streaming closely resembles the mess that was 90s cable, at which they’ll retire and their companies will be disrupted by better options, as the silly cycle continues in perpetuity.
We’ve well established that the AT&T–>Time Warner–> Warner Brothers Discovery mergers were some of the dumbest, most pointless “business” exercises ever conceived, resulting in more than 50,000 layoffs, the death of popular properties like Mad Magazine, and an overall erosion of brands like HBO and CNN.
Very much on brand, HBO’s CEO and chairman Casey Bloys has now been busted for using fake Twitter accounts to troll critics of HBO executives and its programming. The revelation came courtesy of text messages included as part of a wrongful-termination lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in July by former HBO staffer Sully Temori.
Temori claims he was wrongfully terminated after disclosing a mental health diagnosis, but also insists he was repeatedly asked by Bloys to create Twitter accounts to attack show critics. It was not a… well coordinated effort. One such account was a fake Texas mom who attacked show critics for being sexist.
Other fake accounts were used to comment on Deadline stories critical of Bloys leadership at HBO:
While HBO has denied every allegation in the lawsuit (including the creation of fake accounts), Bloys has admitted to his shitty judgment and insists he’s learned his lesson:
“As many of you know, I have progressed over the past couple of years to using DMs. Now, when I take issue with something in a review or take issue with something I see, I DM many of you and many of you are gracious enough to engage with me in a back and forth. It’s a probably a much healthier way to go about this.”
The great irony here is that there are countless policy and lobbying shops that specialize in making up fake people to create the illusion of support or opposition to pretty much anything a corporation would possibly want. Such services are certainly affordable for Warner Brothers Discovery executives whose compensation dramatically outpaces their competence.
Such firms exist so that thin-skinned executives don’t wind up with their shitty judgement under a giant spotlight. But like everything the modern AT&T/TimeWarner/Discovery conglomerate touches, even their effort to spin the narrative wound up being decidedly half assed.
Now that growth is saturated in the streaming sector, companies are increasingly behaving like the cable TV giants they once disrupted in a bid to deliver Wall Street improved quarterly returns at any cost. Even if it means annoying consumers and damaging the company’s long-term brand.
Netflix now wants to harass you for doing something it spent years saying was ok (password sharing). Amazon thinks it’s a clever idea to charge existing Prime subscribers an additional fee if they want to skip ads. All while catalog quality shrinks or gets worse and pricing increases.
And what passes for innovation just isn’t that innovative. Take for example Hulu, Peacock and Max, which are increasingly experimenting not with interesting new technologies or innovative new content ideas, but with ads that appear when you hit the pause button:
“The stakes are high. Despite subscribers’ disdain for watching commercials, more streamers are adopting advertising, cognizant that they need the revenue it brings with it.”
Of course, the implementation needs work. Increasingly, ad-based streaming services seem oblivious that they routinely run the same, low-quality ads multiple times in succession. It’s a delicate balance to avoid annoying customers; something companies in a rush for profits probably aren’t going to get right:
“Having a bad experience or having a lot of ad clutter erodes the impact of ads and is really bad for users,” says Kara Manatt, executive vice president of intelligence solutions at Magna, a media-research unit of advertising giant Interpublic Group. “We found in research that they may actually change their behavior because of this. They may actually cancel their streaming service.”
Endless price hikes. An overabundance of ads. Lots of effort to nickel-and-dime users. Where have we heard of this before? Oh, that’s right: Comcast.
The underlying apparatus that destroyed cable TV and gave us Comcast (Wall Street obsession with short term growth at all costs, mindless consolidation, unfair treatment of labor, outsized compensation for bumbling high level executives) is hard at work trying to ruin streaming. In turn spawning another new round of disruptive innovation from more interesting companies as the cycle starts anew.
As of now, 15 September 2023, the comic book property called Fables, including all related Fables spin-offs and characters, is now in the public domain. What was once wholly owned by Bill Willingham is now owned by everyone, for all time. It’s done, and as most experts will tell you, once done it cannot be undone. Take-backs are neither contemplated nor possible.
If you know Techdirt, you know that we’ve always encouraged people to put works into the public domain (and to use the public domain). Every year we run a public domain game jam. We’ve long noted that anything of our own that we publish on Techdirt should be considered in the public domain, and you are free to do with it what you will. The reports we’ve published are generally in the public domain as well. When I published two short sci-fi stories in our larger collection of sci-fi stories about the future of work, I put them into the public domain as well (a few other stories in that collection are also public domain).
Willingham’s reasons for doing so are a bit more complex than ours, but he admits that he’s become disillusioned by our copyright and trademark laws recently, recognizing (as we’ve long pointed out), that they seem mostly designed to empower gatekeepers in ways that harm the creators themselves, rather than help them. From that he even has his own idea on how copyright should be reformed:
In the past decade or so, my thoughts on how to reform the trademark and copyright laws in this country (and others, I suppose) have undergone something of a radical transformation. The current laws are a mishmash of unethical backroom deals to keep trademarks and copyrights in the hands of large corporations, who can largely afford to buy the outcomes they want.
In my template for radical reform of those laws I would like it if any IP is owned by its original creator for up to twenty years from the point of first publication, and then goes into the public domain for any and all to use. However, at any time before that twenty year span bleeds out, you the IP owner can sell it to another person or corporate entity, who can have exclusive use of it for up to a maximum of ten years. That’s it. Then it cannot be resold. It goes into the public domain. So then, at the most, any intellectual property can be kept for exclusive use for up to about thirty years, and no longer, without exception.
And thus, he decided to practice what he’s preaching:
Of course, if I’m going to believe such radical ideas, what kind of hypocrite would I be if I didn’t practice them? Fables has been my baby for about twenty years now. It’s time to let it go. This is my first test of this process. If it works, and I see no legal reason why it won’t, look for other properties to follow in the future. Since DC, or any other corporate entity, doesn’t actually own the property, they don’t get a say in this decision.
There’s also the… being mad at DC thing. He notes that when he originally signed his deal with DC, the company was good to work with, and whenever any problems arose, they were able to work things out. However, as Willingham puts it DC has “fallen into bad hands.” It seems that a part of that is Warner Bros. Discovery, which now owns DC. There have long been concerns that Warner Bros. Discovery is basically destroying what’s left of DC (while trying to wring extra cash out of it).
Elsewhere, Willingham noted that he had turned in scripts for Fables two years ago, and DC has basically dropped the ball on the property, so he’s freeing it for everyone else to use.
And… here’s where it gets complicated. Lots of people asked if he can actually do that, and the likely answer is that… we really don’t know. It may depend very much on the specific contracts Willingham has with DC Comics. It is possible that he signed a contract in which he retains the copyrights and trademarks. He certainly claims as much in his announcement:
The one thing in our contract the DC lawyers can’t contest, or reinterpret to their own benefit, is that I am the sole owner of the intellectual property. I can sell it or give it away to whomever I want.
A few people have pointed to the notice on Fables indicating the copyright is jointly owned by both and that the trademark is owned by Willingham:
But… if you go digging into the copyright registration database… well… it’s messy. There are a bunch of registrations for Fables, though as I flip through them, many suggest that he assigned the copyright to DC. If that’s true, then… he doesn’t actually have the copyrights to free and his claim that he’s the sole owner of the IP is incorrect.
However, other registrations do list them as co-owners of the copyright, including what I believe is the original copyright registration for the original Fables series:
And… if that’s the case, then there’s potentially more legitimacy to Willingham’s decision. When there’s a jointly created work with multiple authors holding the copyright, each author is able to license out the work to others without gaining permission from the other authors. They just need to let the co-copyright owners know about it.
So… this is… messy. DC, for it’s part, says no fucking way does Willingham have the right to do this:
The Fables comic books and graphic novels published by DC, and the storylines, characters, and elements therein, are owned by DC and protected under the copyright laws of the United States and throughout the world in accordance with applicable law and are not in the public domain. DC reserves all rights and will take such action as DC deems necessary or appropriate to protect its intellectual property rights.
Which means, we’re likely to see some sort of legal fight. Well, that is if anyone actually takes Willingham up on the offer. Because of DC’s posturing here, it will likely scare off some from going forward with things.
Willingham notes that he told DC that he was going to do this, and also tried to get them to write clearer contracts (which suggests that the existing contracts are about as messy as many such contracts tend to be):
I gave them an opportunity to renegotiate the contracts from the ground up, putting everything in unambiguous language, and they ignored that offer. I gave them the opportunity, twice, to simply tear up our contracts, and we each go our separate ways, and they ignored those offers. I tried to go over their heads, to deal directly with their new corporate masters, and maybe find someone willing to deal in good faith, and they blocked all attempts to do so. (Try getting any officer of DC Comics to identify who they report to up the company ladder. I dare you.) In any case, without giving them details, I warned them months in advance that this moment was coming. I told them what I was about to do would be “both legal and ethical.” Now it’s happened.
I hope it is true that he has the rights, and that this is legitimate, because we need more works in the public domain.
For what it’s worth, Willingham also notes that he’s still bound by his contracts with DC that if he creates more Fables works, they have to go through DC, but since none of the rest of us are bound by that contract, we can do whatever we want. But, as he notes (entirely correctly!) copyright law is a fucking mess, and you’ll find copyright lawyers who will argue all sides of this:
Note that my contracts with DC Comics are still in force. I did nothing to break them, and cannot unilaterally end them. I still can’t publish Fables comics through anyone but them. I still can’t authorize a Fables movie through anyone but them. Nor can I license Fables toys nor lunchboxes, nor anything else. And they still have to pay me for the books they publish. And I’m not giving up on the other money they owe. One way or another, I intend to get my 50% of the money they’ve owed me for years for the Telltale Game and other things.
However, you, the new 100% owner of Fables never signed such agreements. For better or worse, DC and I are still locked together in this unhappy marriage, perhaps for all time.
But you aren’t.
If I understand the law correctly (and be advised that copyright law is a mess; purposely vague and murky, and no two lawyers – not even those specializing in copyright and trademark law – agree on anything), you have the rights to make your Fables movies, and cartoons, and publish your Fables books, and manufacture your Fables toys, and do anything you want with your property, because it’s your property.
I hope that is the case, but DC is making it clear that if anyone takes him up on that offer, they’re likely to take legal action, which might just (unfortunately) be enough to make sure that no one even tries.
But, without seeing the details of the contracts (and even if we had them, that wouldn’t mean any of this would necessarily be any clearer), it’s very difficult to tell who is really correct here. It’s even possible that some characters/plots/etc. are public domain, and some are not. Without the contracts, it just becomes a big ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Anyway, I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention that Fables itself is based on taking public domain characters from old fairy tales and folklore, and building storylines around them in modern day New York. It seems only fitting that they should be released to the public domain for others…
Last fall, a few people sent me this fun video from YouTuber Allen Pan, which briefly talks about how he ended up with a MythBusters trademark for clothing and apparel. I didn’t write it up at the time because, while amusing, the discussion of the trademark (and, for that matter, copyright) issues was so confused that it was difficult to know what was accurate and what wasn’t.
Apparently, CNN posted his video without credit or seeking permission or a license. It’s a little unclear from Pan’s description how CNN framed the story and if they even mentioned him or not, but Pan claims he was told this was legal because of fair use, since CNN is a journalism org. He then goes on a bit of a wild ride in the (confused and mostly inaccurate) belief that fair use only applies to journalism organizations.
So he sets up a “parody” news organization, Canadian Unified Media, or CUM with a logo, that, well, looks like it’s parodying CNN.
Though, as he was working on that video, it appears his complaining about CNN on Twitter resulted in CNN offering him $1,000 to license the video they already had used (which may or may not have been fair use). Pan claims that he took the money and… registered a MythBusters apparel trademark that had been abandoned during the Warner Bros./Discovery merger.
This was all a bit of a closing of the circle for Pan, who had been on the short-lived MythBusters: The Search reality TV show, in which Discovery searched for new MythBusters hosts after the original show had gone off the air. Pan was eliminated in the second to last episode of the series.
And, of course, thanks to the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, now both MythBusters and CNN were under the same corporate umbrella. So, in some weird way, all of this kinda, but not really, made sense.
Of course, if you look closely at the trademark I screenshotted above, it says only that Pan is the applicant for the trademark, and also notes that he had to publish it for opposition earlier this year — meaning that his claim to have owned the trademark last year was, not quite accurate. He was working towards getting it, but was certainly not in the clear.
And, it seems that when it was published for opposition earlier this year, Warner Bros. Discovery opposed.
Which leads us to Pan’s latest video, which is again… confusing and not entirely clear where the actual legal arguments lie, or where the “I’m just a nutty YouTuber doing nutty stuff” begin. But, still, it’s amusing.
Basically, Warner Bros. Discovery sent him trademark nastygram telling him he had to destroy all the merch. They also sent his merch company a cease and desist for the CUM shirts (but not the MythBusters shirts). This all seems somewhat confusing, as the CUM shirts seem like pretty clear parody. But, Pan just says he spoke to some lawyers who told him he’d lose, and therefore he’s agreed to capitulate.
He agreed to burn the shirts, and shows himself doing so. Though, somehow, he claims he convinced Warner Bros. Discovery to let him try to sell out of his inventory of MythBusters shirts for another week or so, and that they let him do this (though over the weekend it appears all the merch sold out, even though he was supposed to have it through this week). Again… this doesn’t quite make sense, given the overall situation. It does seem likely that they could block him from getting the trademark. So, it seems like they had no real basis for destroying the CUM shirts, but a real basis for preventing him from selling the MythBusters shirts, and yet the opposite outcome happened.
Pan, of course, is doing what he does best, and turning the whole situation into more content, which is basically how the world works these days, no matter what the reality of the trademark and copyright situations might be.
By now we’ve well established that the series of mergers that began with AT&T’s doomed acquisition of Time Warner and ended with Time Warner’s subsequent spin off and fusion with Discovery was some of the dumbest, most pointless “business” exercises ever conceived by man.
The idiotic saga burned through hundreds of billions in debt, saw more than 50,000 people lose their jobs, killed off numerous popular brands (like Mad Magazine), created oceans of animosity among creatives (pissed at a company that can somehow spend billions on merger debt and bad ideas yet is routinely too cheap to pay residuals or writers), culminating in a streaming service full of holes that’s arguably dumber and of lower quality than when the whole thing started.
The fun continues as Warner Bros. Discovery tries to make financial sense of the pointless deal and recoup debt, it continues to fire folks across its cable division.
When the press talks about the layoffs and chaos generated by a series of completely pointless mergers the blame always falls on ambiguities like a “weakening macroeconomy” and not, say, blistering incompetence by the fail upwards trust fund brunch-lords in the c-suite, obsessed with setting their brands on fire just for a tax break and a fat bonus.
According to sources, this is a financial move. We hear HBO veterans pushed back against the plan but corporate financial consideration won out. Insiders stress the deal is not closed and may still fall apart, but regardless, it marks a major strategy shift across the premium pay landscape. The shows are understood to be set to be distributed on a non-exclusive basis, which would still allow them to stream on Max.
Back in 2013, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos noted that his company’s goal was to “become HBO faster than HBO can become us.” As media reporter Pete Kafka jokes, little did Sarandos know that a series of completely idiotic mergers, culminating in the lobotomization of the HBO brand, would ultimately force the company to shovel their freshly built streaming content back Netflix’s direction:
This will have short term benefits: Warner Bros. Discovery gets a cash infusion to help rebalance itself after a series of dumb mergers, and consumers get access to some HBO content without having to pay for HBO. But that doesn’t make going through all this trouble to build a premiere streaming brand, only to trash that brand and shovel your content over to a primary competitor, any less stupid longer term.
It’s genuinely hilarious to me that you can read through entire articles on this stuff and never once find even the faintest context that any of this was avoidable or that executive incompetence and an obsession with pointless consolidation played a role. Each shoe drops without any causation, and nobody in the c-suite learns absolutely anything from the experience because they were paid handsomely for the failure.
