Deadmau5 and the new Batmobile: is there any synergy?

The BBC reports that Zack Snyder has tweeted the first official photo of the new Batmobile, which will be featuring, if not actually taking the star role, in the forthcoming movie which he is directing, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. [Merpel was rather hoping for something more legal content, maybe Batman v Superman: Court of Justice, but this seems unlikely at present].  The vehicle (below), which is likely to give Batman a headache fitting it neatly into a supermarket parking lot, is a good deal less car-like than the original model (even more below).



Never mind issues of fuel consumption, one wonders how the new Batmobile does for spares and components. Merpel is just a little disappointed that the vehicle doesn't have a number-plate.  As for insurance ...



This Kat has been doing some legal speculation too, since he suspects that there may be some synergy between the new Batmobile and Deadmau5.  Having recently pondered the case of the de-branded Ferrari/Purrari belong to Deadmau5 (on which see Lucy Harrold's guest post here), it occurred to him that the new and plainly monochromatic Batmobile, suitably de-branded and decorated, might appeal to the Canadian rapper (or is it wrapper?) [it has now been explained that he isn't a rapper, but the pun was too good to waste -- and Merpel is sure that he could if he tried ...]. After all, what is a bat but a flying mouse, so the Batmobile embodies an aural-to-conceptual link between "mouse" and "mau5".  But how might Deadmau5 choose to decorate it?

If Deadmau5 were to get his hands on the Batmobile and give it the Nyan Cat treatment, an interesting issue would arise.  On the assumption that the newly-styled Batmobile is an authors' work in which moral rights vest, would the exposure of a Deadmau5-decorated Batmobile to potential ridicule infringe its creator's right to object to derogatory treatment or distortion in those countries where that right is protected?  Such decorative activity might fall within the protective scope of parody under the recent ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Deckmyn [on which see fellow Kat Eleonora's post here] -- but that ruling appears to this Kat to have no application beyond the realm of the distribution right, and at a pinch other economic rights, and would not be able to assist a defendant in a moral rights-based claim.

Readers' comments and suggestions are welcomed.
Deadmau5 and the new Batmobile: is there any synergy? Deadmau5 and the new Batmobile: is there any synergy? Reviewed by Jeremy on Tuesday, September 16, 2014 Rating: 5

6 comments:

  1. As I started reading this post I presumed we might be heading off down this route (more here and here), but as ever the Kat is full of surprises.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, considering the Batmobile's extensive weaponry, it would certainly be useful in face of the combined legal teams of Disney and Ferrari, even after having dealt with the Joker, Penguin and their minions...

    ReplyDelete
  3. "[Merpel was rather hoping for something more legal content, maybe Batman v Superman: Court of Justice, but this seems unlikely at present]" - made my day!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ah - the film WATERWORLD (1995)! The computer games company that was Ocean Software Limited (so UK company) collected the rights to develop / manufacture / distribute internationally a WATERWORLD game across a number of formats. All good until release in France - when Jeanneau (French boat-builder - ironically I now own a Jeanneau Sun 2000 which sails on Windermere) succeeded in getting an order saisi contrefacon to impound all copies of the WATERWORLD game on the basis it was a Jeanneau boat in the film - and they hadn't given permission for it to be used / abused as happened in the film. Forget what happened next - but let's guess that moral rights prevailed in France .....


    ReplyDelete
  5. Shouldn't there be a Reliant Robin somewhere in there?

    ReplyDelete

All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.

It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.

Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html

Powered by Blogger.