Cosplay on SyFy???

[PatrThom]

Oh, I agree. What would be great, and what I kind of assumed they were doing, would be basically Face Off / Project Runway, but for costuming: 16 skilled contestants, given a weekly theme/series, a few hours to look at reference images for the series/theme and initial design, access to a full workshop, and a week for fabrication and fitting; the worst eliminated at the end of the episode.

That would have been awesome, and not for nothing, it would have been real easy to cross-promote other shows / sponsors, etc.

^^^This.

--Patrick

 

[LittleKagsin]

Oh, I agree. What would be great, and what I kind of assumed they were doing, would be basically Face Off / Project Runway, but for costuming: 16 skilled contestants, given a weekly theme/series, a few hours to look at reference images for the series/theme and initial design, access to a full workshop, and a week for fabrication and fitting; the worst eliminated at the end of the episode.

That would have been awesome, and not for nothing, it would have been real easy to cross-promote other shows / sponsors, etc.

That would be great, but that treades on Project Runways toes - so I doubt that would fly. As amazing as it would be though! I'm so on board with that.

 

[figmentPez]

That would be great, but that treades on Project Runways toes - so I doubt that would fly. As amazing as it would be though! I'm so on board with that.

I dunno, put in enough twists and it could be as different from Project Runway as Chopped is from Iron Chef.

Get Marvel comics to sponsor it, and have the contest to be the next face of Marvel comics. (I'm not suggesting that we let DC comics become connected to anything involving female fans.)

 

[Bowielee]

From a completely legal standpoint, I'm kind of surprised that this show even made it to air. As the whole issue over photography rights points out, it's an incredibly sticky copyright infringement minefield. Simply because it's a whole lot of trademarked characters being used for profit. Not by the cosplayers or con-producers, but by the SciFi network. I'm kind of surprised that some of the more litigeous companies out there haven't already started the paperwork to nail NBC/Universal to the wall.

 

[Null]

Well, a lot of cosplayers sell prints and merchandise based off of other people's Intellectual Property. I guess it's a legal grey area? It doesn't seem like it would be covered by "Fair Use" since they are using it for profit, but by the same token, I don't think you could mistake their work for official product. On the other hand, it might be unwise to be overly litigious since it's basically free advertising.

 

[PatrThom]

I guess it's a legal grey area? It doesn't seem like it would be covered by "Fair Use" since they are using it for profit, but by the same token, I don't think you could mistake their work for official product.

Fair Use doctrine has exceptions for parody or for adaptations which are "substantially transformative," whatever that means. I don't pretend to know all the details but I keep seeing references to this in regards to things like WeirdAl parodies, YouTube recasting, etc.

--Patrick