FOX Legal Threat Slays "Buffy" Cyber Fans

LOS ANGELES (UltimateTV.com) - 20th Century Fox Television has issued a warning to the creators of several highly-hit "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" fan websites, ordering them to remove certain copyrighted material or face a legal action.

In several e-mails and certified letters, FOX lawyers requested "...that sites using FOX's copyrighted and trademarked materials comply with guidelines that protect the creative integrity of the series."

For fans of the WB vampire hit, this means some video and audio files, screenshots, episode spoilers and transcripts, actor news and screen footage may be disappearing from sites.

"Fans go to these sites and get pumped up to watch the next Buffy," Angela DiPrima, creator of www.btvs.slayme.com, told USA Today. "What FOX is doing is harsh. And it takes away from, I think, fans' support of the show."

Some fans, in protest of this legal threat, are planning to shut down their sites on May 13, 2000 in hopes of emphasizing the importance of the free publicity the sites generate for FOX.