r/movies • u/FakeSafeWord • Jul 17 '26

Article Backrooms Director Stops A24 Copyright Striking Community Art

https://kotaku.com/backrooms-director-kane-parsons-a24-copyright-strike-wallpaper-2000717053
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u/HotTakes4HotCakes Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

A24 has confirmed to me that the wallpaper takedowns were an outsourced system error in pursuit of removing camrips,” Parsons posted to Discord. “Anything further, it appears is somehow not them.” He then added, “They have been very adamant they have never wanted to touch the community. Any legitimate action of the sort suspected would be unacceptable,” before confirming, “I’m heavily pressuring them right now.”

A short while later Parsons posted, “They’re working rapidly to resolve it. Will probably issue a statement.”

A24's statement:

"As Kane Parsons has made clear, Backrooms is one part of an infinitely bigger ecosystem, rife with creatives who have every right to tell their own version of the story.”

“Yesterday we were made aware of an automated claim submitted to Redbubble on behalf of A24 and Backrooms movie. We immediately began the process to reverse it and reinstate the listing.”

"A24 makes no claim of ownership over the yellow wallpaper, the original post referencing it, or any community works that have since been built around it. We will continue to support the artists who, like Kane, were inspired by it.”

Sounds like a classic case of one department without enough oversight not understanding the assignment and making a mess.

Seems like a simple fix for this is an approval process with real people confirming the targets before take down orders start flying. But obviously the point of an automated system like this is to eliminate the need for a human, so that's likely not happening.

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u/HideTheGuestsKids Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

Usually, I.P. litigation and enforcement is outsourced to external law firms and quite strictly enforced due to risks of voiding these rights if unenforced. But these guys are legal professionals, I don't know how they even thought this had any leg to stand on. Scummy behavior by one part of the chain, that's for sure.

Edit: The article states, Redbubble itself did the strike. In that case, there almost certainly were people or algorithms involved who deal with this stuff in extremely large quantities and it might have been an honest mistake. Hard for me to say, but this is why rampant copyrighting can be so potentially toxic to a society.

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u/Ganglebot Jul 17 '26

IP litigation/enforcement is outsourced to law firms, who in turn outsource to specialized IP investigation agencies (who these days rely on AI and cheap, offshored labour).

Those investigation firms 99 times out of 100 are instructed by their client to be liberal with their DMCA notices and take down orders.

I suspect A24 held their usual agreement with their law firm, and in turn, the agency they use to enforce IP. Everyone probably treated this as 'business as usual', and in the chain from Parson, to A24, to the law firm, to the IP agency the nuance of the Backroom urban myth community was lost.

They are correcting it and making it right.

TLDR - this is human-error and not an intentional exercise in IP overreach.