User-generated content is one of the many great things about the web. Whether it’s someone riffing on a particular trend or adding to the thousands upon thousands of gigabytes of fan-based material for whatever movie franchise you can think of, this kind of content is what helped make the web such an amazing place.
Now, relate the upcoming fan-created video to what’s been going on in relation to regulating the Internet. I’m talking about, of course, SOPA/PIPA and now, ACTA. If any of these become the law of land — any land — the existence of the kind of content I’m describing will be threatened. As you can tell from the title and the lead image (something else that could also be considered a violation of these pieces of legislation), the upcoming video was inspired by The Dark Knight Rises, the final installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.
The video, which was created by Doğan Can Gündoğdu, is an opening credits sequence that looks every bit as good as what you would find in major studio movie out today.
Check it out:
Now, under a PIPA/SOPA/ACTA-ruled world, something like this would be unlikely, if not impossible. All it would take to get Gündoğdu’s work (and his entire site, in all likelihood) taken down is someone — anyone — in Warner Brothers complaining about the “intellectual property abuse.” From there, it’s bye-bye awesome credit sequence that in absolutely no way takes away from the upcoming theatrical release.
If someone were to confuse this for the real thing, even though there’s all kinds of “fan made” disclaimers on the sites featuring the video, then that’s their fault, not Gündoğdu’s. Who knows? Maybe Nolan himself will see this and hire Gündoğdu to his production staff. Under a regulated Internet, however, the chances of that happening are significantly diminished.
