Bye!
I received the following e-mail this afternoon:
Dear Mr. Cancilla:
I am writing on behalf of the cartoonists whose works are distributed by the Andrews McMeel Universal entities Universal Press Syndicate and uclick LLC. Recently two of those artists – Dan Reynolds (“Reynolds Unwrapped”), and Steve Moore (“In the Bleachers”) – voiced strong objections to us regarding your unauthorized use of their respective cartoons at comicsremixed.com. Mr. Reynolds informed us of his communication with you and forwarded your April 22 e-mail response below. It appears you have removed his cartoon from your Web site.
Our attorneys have advised us that your use of cartoons would be found infringing and that your argument that the website constitutes “fair use” of the cartoons would be rejected. In view of your expressed willingness “to remove remixed comics featuring the work of artists who object to their work being used in this way,” we hope that we will not have to pursue a lawsuit to stop you from this unlawful use of our cartoonist’s property.
This e-mail serves as our request on behalf of Steve Moore that you immediately remove from your website the cartoon that appears at http://www.comicsremixed.com/?p=2855 . We also request that you not use any of the cartoons distributed by Universal Press Syndicate or uclick LLC unless so authorized by us or the copyright holder of those works as we believe that such use would infringe legal rights in the original works.
Please confirm your removal of the cartoons referenced above and advise us of your intentions regarding our broader request.
Sincerely,
Eleanor DaCosta
Legal Administrator
Andrews McMeel Universal
1130 Walnut Street
Kansas City, MO 64106
My response:
Dear Ms. DaCosta:
I had received enough positive correspondence from comic artists — including some your firm represents — that I honestly thought there was no problem. In fact, after nearly 1,000 posts to the site, the e-mail from Mr. Reynolds was the first negative comment from an artist I had received, and I thought that I had addressed his concerns.
I certainly understand where you are coming from, and since I do not have the resources to look into matter from a legal standpoint I will abide by your wishes. In that it would be quite difficult to separate those remixes that involve your clients from those that do not, I have removed the entire site from production.