UPDATE:

GIPHY has sent out the following statement about the missing Baby Yoda GIFs...

"Last week, there was some confusion around certain content uploaded to GIPHY and we temporarily removed these GIFs while we reviewed the situation. We apologize to both Disney and Vulture for any inconvenience, and we are happy to report that the GIFs are once again live on GIPHY."While we don't know what the confusion was around the Baby Yoda content, the GIFs were apparently removed for review. Back, they are.



wanna know something *very* dumb? all of vulture's baby yoda gifs have been removed from giphy for copyright reasons



— Kathryn VanArendonk (@kvanaren) November 21, 2019



meanwhile this is LITERALLY the example in this forbes piece about gifs and copyright law https://t.co/QYHxnyyuJV pic.twitter.com/x5aVBsc0iS — Kathryn VanArendonk (@kvanaren) November 21, 2019

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Not only has Star Wars: The Mandalorian captivated fans with its sweet space-Western vibe, but the show's brutally adorable breakout character, "Baby Yoda," has become the internet's prized meme-able/GIF-able possession.Not only do fans create their own GIFs from the series, to share on social media, but publications do as well, for the purposes of recaps, reviews, and pieces involving deep dives into theories and lore.Disney, however, has pulled the plug on some of these GIFs, as noted by Vulture critic Kathryn VanArendonk...Vulture regularly posts pieces that feature a particular TV episode's "Essential GIFs." Apparently, whatever VanArendonk had posted for The Mandalorian was no longer useful because Disney had all the Baby Yoda GIFs stricken from GIF collection/creation site Giphy.Citing this Forbes article , about animated GIFS and legal usage, VanArendonk notes that GIFs are considered fair game.The article states: “According to Jeff John Roberts of Fortune, GIFs can be considered 'transformative' under copyright law because they do not undermine the market for the original work: 'No one, for instance, is going to watch a Star Wars GIF instead of the original movie.'"Meanwhile, here's why "Baby Yoda" is a perfectly acceptable name for the infant alien , some news about Baby Yoda merch arriving in time for the holidays (and why it didn't show up earlier), and - well - just 12 amazing photos of everyone's new Porg-replacement.

Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler