Interest

Alas, the Power/Rangers Short Film Is Quickly Disappearing

So far, several million people have gobbled up Adi Shankar and Joseph Kahn's Power/Rangers reimagination of the classic super sentai series, but that number is hitting a plateau. Both Kahn's Vimeo and Shankar's YouTube videos have been pulled, due to a copyright claim from Saban.

Shankar released a statement, saying:

Today, I was deeply disappointed to learn that Saban Brands decided to attack my Power/Rangers “Bootleg Universe One-Shot” film. To all the viewers that enjoyed this film, I consider this an outright infringement on freedom of expression and individualism. I set out to make this film because I am a childhood fan of the Power Rangers. As children our retinas are burned with iconic images and as we grow older these images come to represent crucial moments within the trajectories of our own lives. This film is a homage to the original creators of the Power Rangers, and a parody of a television series we all grew up loving. Films like my Power/Rangers “Bootleg” are vital expressions of creativity in our troubled world. If we suppress this creativity and become passive participants in the consumption of the culture we live in, we implicitly allow a dangerous precedent to be set for the future of the internet.

For the time being, the video is still up on Shankar's Facebook page.

What do you think about Saban's copyright claim or Shankar's statment? Share your views in the forums!