Star Wars Theory has been put through a rough couple of days after Warner Chappell and the Disney Music label claimed monetization rights to a Darth Vader fan film he produced with money out of his own pocket. The claimant made things stressful for a while, but LucasFilm stepped in to save the day for Disney and save some face by running damage control.
YouTube channel Star Wars Theory posted up an update after the internet rage machine went into overdrive going full steam ahead against Disney, Lucasfilm, and Warner Chappell after he reported that the Disney branch had claimed monetization over his Darth Vader fan film. The reason for all of the fan rage was because originally LucasFilm told Star Wars Theory that he could make the fan-film so long as it wasn’t monetized.
However, even though Star Wars Theory held up his end of the bargain, Warner Chappell and Disney did not. This led into a tense standoff where he was basically informed that if he attempted to challenge or appeal the claim, he would have his channel struck and the fan film deleted off of YouTube. Star Wars Theory opted to let Chappell keep the monetization and avoid any legal battles, but the internet didn’t let it go that easy, and fans of Star Wars basically pressured LucasFilm to step up and do the right thing… and they did.
In the video above, Star Wars Theory explains how LucasFilm stepped in to have Warner Chappell and Walt Disney Music to remove the claim from the Darth Vader fan film.
The music publishing arm of Disney essentially tried to make some quick bucks on the fan film since it was basically a fast-rising phenomenon on YouTube. Since airing on December 21st, 2018, it has garnered more than 7 million views and 475,000 likes.
In case you missed it, you can view it below.
Now that the claim has been removed by Warner Chappell, the video is now not being monetized by anyone, as per the agreement that Star Wars Theory originally had with LucasFilm.
Star Wars Theory is now planning on getting back to work on Episode 2 of the fan film, which will also not be monetized. He originally spent around $100,000 of his own money to produce the first film and would have easily made back that had he been able to monetize the fan film, but he claims he did it for the love of Star Wars and for being such a fan of the fantasy brand that George Lucas created.
It looks like someone at LucasFilm still cares about fan feedback, so there was one partially happy ending for the start of 2019.
(Thanks for the news tip Shelly The Kid)
