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26 November 2019CopyrightSaman Javed

Baby Yoda GIFs back online after copyright confusion

Viral GIFs (graphic interchange format) of a new Star Wars character, Baby Yoda, have been reinstated to a leading GIF sharing site after being temporarily removed over alleged copyright concerns.

As reported by the BBC yesterday, November 25, the popularity of the child of Star Wars’ Yoda and Yaddle has soared since making its debut in the new Disney+ series "The Mandalorian”.

GIFs (best-described as animated images) of the character have been widely shared on social media since Disney launched its streaming service on November 19.

One viral tweet, with more than 4,000 likes reads: “Disney+ could stream a baby monitor feed of #BabyYoda napping, and I’d pay $6.99 to watch it”.

Last week, the GIFs were removed by Giphy, an online database and platform used to make them.

Initially, it was reported by Vulture that the Baby Yoda GIFs were removed for copyright reasons by Disney.

But, in its statement to WIPR Giphy clarified that Disney was not responsible for the takedown, and rather it had removed the posts due to “confusion”  about their legal status.

"Last week, there was some confusion around certain content uploaded to Giphy and we temporarily removed these Gifs while we reviewed the situation," Giphy said.

"We apologise to both Disney and Vulture for any inconvenience, and we are happy to report that the GIFs are once again live on Giphy,” it added.

It is unclear whether GIFs may be protected under US Copyright law. Eleonora Rosati, of Counsel at Bird & Bird, said in order to answer this question, it needs to be considered whether the GIF embodies “sufficient originality”.

“As there are no quantitative thresholds, this is a qualitative assessment that depends on what the GIF has taken from the original work,” she said.

She added: “Assuming that a GIF is protected, the next question is whether nonetheless the maker of a GIF can claim successfully that it is ‘fair use’ of the work.”

Rosati said this requires a multifactorial assessment of the transformativeness of the work and the effects of the use on the market for the original work.

“This is a legal grey area overall,” she said.

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