Earlier this week the internet was treated to a dark and gritty remake of the long running Power Franchise staring James Van Der Beek, Katee Sackhoff and some less than child friendly action and language. While the reboot, titled "Power/Ranger," exploded on the net, it was met with some swift pressure from the company that owns the rights to the series, Saban Brands. Producer of the fan film responded largely on twitter, stating that "Saban is trying to shut Power/Rangers down. If you’d like to keep watching, tell them to stop harassing me [...] Every image in Power/Rangers is original footage. Nothing was pre-existing. There is no copyrighted footage in the short. I am not making any money on it and I refuse to accept any from anyone. It was not even Kickstarted, I paid for it myself. This was made to be given away for free. It is just as if I drew a pic of Power Rangers on a napkin and I gave it to my friend. Is it illegal to give pic I drew of a character on a napkin to someone for free? No." Aside from the possible legal controversy, former Green Ranger, Jason David Frank, posted a video about the fan film expressing his disinterest in the dark take on the franchise. The big question to be asked here is just how far is 'too far,' when it comes to fan films? Kahn's fan film was, by his account, a self funded project that didn't profit from the intellectual property as well as could be protected under the fair use doctrine. Unfortunately, Vimeo and Youtube have pulled the video down amid pressure from the parent company so you might have to do some digging around to see it if you haven't already. You can also hear from the man himself during his reddit AMA 2PM PST later today. Could we see a change in how we're able to produce and share our own fan films and will this blow up or blow over?
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