Star Wars Fan Film Sparks Controversy with Disney
Star Wars Theory is a YouTube channel where you can find a great fan film called VADER EPISODE 1: SHARDS OF THE PAST. It really is a great film. But there's one problem, the guy that created it didn't create the character of Darth Vader.
Here's basically what has happened:
- Guy reaches out to LucasFilm to do a fan film on Vader.
- He's told he can't crowd fund or monetize the film.
- He decides to do the film anyway.
- Someone from Disney or Warner Chappell manually flags a song in the film after it's uploaded to YouTube because one of the songs sounds too close to The Imperial March.
- The guy that created the film paid a composer for original music.
- Disney ends up taking any and all profits that the film would have gotten from being on YouTube.
While I do agree that it's a pretty douche move of Disney to take the profits from the film being on YouTube, I do get it.
Star Wars Theory doesn't own any of this stuff. He didn't create Darth Vader. Disney wants to protect their property. Something that they paid LucasFilm $4 billion for. So yeah, it's douchy, but I get it.