As you may have heard, some Firefly fans on Etsy say they’ve received cease and desist letters or have even been banned from selling items on the site. The reason? They were selling homemade hats similar to the one worn for just a few onscreen minutes by the character Jayne Cobb on Firefly. It’s not that these knitters necessarily aimed to misbehave; it’s just that there wasn’t any officially licensed Firefly swag available for almost a decade.
The TV series Firefly aired for only four months in the 2002-2003 season. But it left behind many devoted fans. In one episode, the character Jayne Cobb received a gift of a knitted hat. It was shown for only a few minutes on that one episode, but the hat became a symbol for the fans, and many wanted one just like it. As 20th Century Fox Television had cancelled the show, they did not market merchandise from the series, and so knitters stepped in to fill the demand. Then in December of 2012, Think Geek began selling an officially-licensed Jayne Hat. One thing led to another, and Fox TV started sending cease and desist orders to Etsy crafters, some who had been selling the hats for years. [Neatorama]
Uh…
Okay.
Think Geek says they weren’t involved in any cease and desist orders, and they’ve announced all proceeds from their Jayne hats will be donated to Can’t Stop the Serenity. That’s so shiny.
Meanwhile some Etsy sellers have been creatively re-naming their products to protest the Jayne hat bans. If nothing else, you should check out CraftOtaku’s listing, which includes a long story about a girl name Jane and an evil fox who killed her father. Hmm, that sounds familiar.
Since it appears we may soon be bereft of Jayne hats handmade with motherly love, we’ll just have to give them a send-off, sung to the tune of Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel”…
In the arms of an angel, fly away from here…
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear…
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie…
You’re in the arms of an Angel…
May you find some comfort here.
[Pictures via Goddess Vicky, Cosplay Couture, 0ShadowNightMare0, LA Weekly, uncle_shoggoth, and Blastr]