Monday, August 2, 2010

SyFy stealing Amber Benson's "Drones"?

Non-game post today.  Just something that has me all irritated.

Syfy (formerly "The SciFi Channel") has always been on the verge of falling into complete suck to me for a long time.

I used to love watching their shows a few years back.  "Farscape" was one of the coolest "space" shows ever and "Lexx",  well I am still not sure what Lexx was all about, but it was fun to watch.

Well now SyFy (and I do hate that new name) has a new show coming out called Human Relations.  Here is their blurb for it released last week:
"The Office meets Men In Black in this project featuring an office Temp who slowly discovers that his off-kilter and odd-ball bosses at the strange hi-tech "ad agency" where he works are really aliens working on plan to destroy the Earth."
Sound familiar? I thought so.
Here is the blurb for Amber Benson and Adam Busch's movie Drones,
"The Office meets The Day The Earth Stood Still...is about a guy who works in an office with a kooky, off-kilter boss/co-workers, who then discovers that he's really working with aliens who are plotting to blow-up the Earth."
I know stuff like this happens all the time, and sometimes it even is innocent enough.
This does not look like one of cases.

I would love it if you could all shoot SyFy an email to let them know that stealing ideas from indie film producers, while it may happen all the time, is still not cool.
Shoot them an email at feedback@syfy.com.(though their email seems to be clogged now).

If there is one thing I can't stand is when someone steals an idea (esp to make money) and pass it off as their own.  So regardless of how you feel about SyFy, Amber Benson, TV or indie movies, this is obviously wrong.

Links
Amber's Facebook Page, http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1235011957&ref=ts
Her Blog post, http://amberbensonwrotethis.blogspot.com/2010/07/drones-tv-show.html
Drones Website, http://dronesmovie.com/
Some reports from others:
http://airlockalpha.com/node/7676/is-syfy-original-series-not-so-original.html
http://www.fangirltastic.com/content/did-syfy-rip-amber-bensons-new-film-drones-you-decide
http://angrygreekdyke.blogspot.com/2010/07/oh-fuck-no-we-are-boycotting-syfy.html
http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/49514754.html?page=2

4 comments:

Trey said...

That does seem sort of--well--blatant.

MichaelHinman said...

Tom: Thanks for the link!

Just wanted to let you know that we've updated this story thanks to an exclusive response from Scott Prendergast.

That updated story can be found here: http://www.airlockalpha.com/node/7689

Anonymous said...

Hmm. tailor-made short blurb appears on the same day SyFy's blurb, but doesn't seem to have existed prior to this date.

Reverse engineering anyone?

Timothy S. Brannan said...

Anonymous: I have known about Drones for a long time. This looks pretty bad on Syfy's part if you ask me.