Follywood

I've generated an image a day on the Night Cafe for the last 104 days. Here are images I created just for Steemit. I wonder how long I will keep up this streak?

Last night I was listening to a podcast about trademark law and about the fire in LA.

My thoughts drifted toward the HOLLYWOOD sign. I thought it would be fun to have a picture of the sign caught in a fire with the wording of the sign changed to FOLLYWOOD.

I wanted an image of this sign as the sign has been in the center of numerous IP lawsuits. Notably the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce has made several attempts to register a Trademark for the sign. With a trademark, the CoC could collect a fee each time the sign appeared in a movie.

The first Hollywood Sign was created in 1923 by Harry Chandler to advertise a real estate development called HOLLYWOODLAND. The sign owners removed the " LAND" as Hollywood developed a reputation in the film industry.

The sign had deteriorated. In 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce restored the sign.

In a famous legal effort, the Hollywood CoC attempted to obtain trademark and copyright protection for the sign. The CoC has sent cease and desist orders regarding the sign and threatened lawsuits.

Apparently the CoC won suits at the state and local level. However, they have not won Federal cases.

As one must file a permit to film in Los Angeles, the CoC was able to collect payments for use of the image through the film permit process.

If the CoC won the suit, then localities could put up trademarked signs to restrict filming.

I read several articles about the sign. It appears that the CoC is no longer trying to place restrictions on photographs that include the sign. Such images are general considered fair use. They are only going after video and commercial use of the sign.

Since the Hollywood CoC has a history of trying to claim IP rights over the sign. i was curious about its approach to AI.

AI trains on fair use images then create derivative works based on fair use images.

In theory the AI images are twice removed from the actual images.

I wanted to change the "H" to an "F" making my particular image a parody.

I could not get Night Cafe to change the H to an F. So, I did that using GIMP. Here is the high resolution version of my Follywood Sign. This public domain image could be used for posts critical of Hollywood.