Movie

The fan movie has been garnering hot response from fans before it faces legal challenger from Saban Brands which owns the Power Rangers franchise.

• Feb 27, 2015

AceShowbiz - The new "Power Rangers" fan movie which was recently released online and garnered hot response from fans has been pulled out from YouTube. A few days ago, the 14-minute project was debuted on Vimeo and was quickly yanked, but now the movie also faces similar issue on YouTube due to copyright infringement notice by Saban Brands which owns the Power Rangers franchise.

A spokesperson for YouTube has commented on the removal. "When a copyright holder notifies us of a video that infringes their copyright, we remove the content promptly in accordance with the law," the spokesperson said on Thursday.

The short movie starring Katee Sackhoff and James Van Der Beek, which is a dark take of "Power Rangers", comes from director Joseph Kahn and producer Adi Shankar. It received 12 million views in just a few days.

Khan has reacted to the removal, telling Deadline, "I think it's a huge blow for fandom. I think they're hurting themselves. I think with this short they've gotten more attention than ever before. How do you break the Internet with the Power Rangers? I think it gave them a lot of publicity and revived its pop culture awareness. Instead of supporting the good will of the fans, they've turned it into a legal issue. It doesn't sound like they're thinking of the fandom at all."

"I hope they come to an awareness of how modern pop culture works. The audience will pay for the franchise, but they want to play with it as well. You can't just dictate that these are the things you are going to watch in the way we want you to watch it. That's not the way society works anymore. If you want the support of the modern fandom, you need to let them participate," he added.

Saban just pulled POWER/RANGERS off Youtube. Bad day for free speech, fair use, and Fandom in general.

— Joseph Kahn (@JosephKahn) February 26, 2015