Copyright

[andrewducker]

Go here, open the Flash version. Boggle at the state of the Public Domain.

No time to explain my feelings right now, but goddamit there ought to be a 20 year limit on all copyright.

Comments

[allorin.livejournal.com]

"People do, all the time"

Doesn't make it right. Didn't your mother ever say to you "So if your friends all jump off the Forth Road Bridge...."?

It's the equivalent of saying that people should be able to butcher a Monet, Picasso or Rembrandt for their own use. I can't agree with that.

[andrewducker]

People can, and do and should be allowed to.

Have you never seen the thousands of versions of the Mona Lisa with spaceman, Mona Lisa with spliff, Mona Lisa as tentacled beastie?

Forbidden Planet - the Tempest set in space.
10 things I hate about you - The Taming of the Shrew set in high school.
One of my favourite films of all time - Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead is set in the middle of Hamlet and more of less passes through it at right angles.

[allorin.livejournal.com]

I've seen them, and don't agree with them.

The examples you use are all Shakespeare. And, perhaps, were all reasonably successful. I can give you plenty of examples that weren't.

Again, I ask - what if it was "Sandman". Would you agree to anyone being able to pilfer, change, and generally abuse that material?

[andrewducker]

After a reasonable time period, yes.

As it happens, Sandman is copyright DC Comics, who can sell it on to be pilfered and have themselves allowed some really terrible writers to write stories set in that world.

But people writing bad fiction doesn't bother me - I have the good fiction and will continue to buy stuff written by writers I like.

[allorin.livejournal.com]

That strikes me as a little selfish - what about Neil Gaiman? Yeah, you can avoid the bad and stick to the good, but he has to put up with seeing all sorts of cack writers dilute and pollute his work. Do you think he wants that, or enjoys it? Does his reputation become tarnished by association with it? Does his enthusiasm for his own work diminish, as he loses faith in how it will be adapted (wasted) by others?

Is this not, in fact, one of the main reasons Alan Moore had for falling out with Marvel?

[andrewducker]

I don't see it as anything to do with him. If he doesn't want to read what other people did with his characters then he doesn't need to show them to anyone else. His reputation isn't tarnished by what other writers do with his characters - they're reputation is. Do you like Gaiman less because of the abortion that was the Destiny miniseries?

I believe in the right to free speech - of pretty much all kinds. I'm willing to limit that temporarily to help writers make a living, but it's very much a temporary abeyance, not a limitless gift.

[allorin.livejournal.com]

I'd still argue (taking Watterson as an example), that if creators work under the impression that their IP will eventually be subverted, that you will in essence stifle creativity. Would Watterson have been as willing to create Calvin & Hobbes if he knew the trouble that was in store for him?

By your argument, you're effectively telling any creator that they either keep their creation to themselves, or deal with it being used by anyone for anything. I can't see that encouraging creativity, I just can't. To me, the real greed is with people that can't accept IPs as they are given to them, and must duplicate them or otherwise use them for their own purposes. To me, that is greed. If someone writes a good book, or paints a picture, or records a song, or whatever, let THEM decide how they want their creation to be used. Why should they have to put up with something they created being used for something it wasn't intended?

Let's continue with C&H. A hugely popular IP. Heron raises the spectre of Disney below. Say Disney had been able to use C&H however they wanted.... what would have happened then? Yeah, they want to hold onto Mickey, but Copyright laws work both ways, and stop huge corporations from using any IP they want.

Let's take a more personal POV. My dad loves music. It's his life. So, say he dies, and I write him a song. I record it, it's published, charts and all proceeds go to research into whatever killed him. The song then turns up as a soundtrack to a porn movie. Is that right? Forget your ultra-liberal leanings, and think about that question - Is That Right? Or do morals not come into anything any more?

[andrewducker]

Yes, it's right.

If I had the choice between a world where things never came out of copyright and a world where there was no copyright, I'd take the one without copyright every time.

My ideal compromise is 20 years.

I'm willing to compromise further and say "The lifetime of the original creator" which would mean that (a) they got everything out of it they possibly could and never saw it changed.

But I really think that it is wrong of other people to prevent me from producing anything I like. It's an abridgement of free speech.

Do you know why you almost never hear people sing Happy Birthday in films? It's because it's in copyright, and doing so means paying massive fees to the copyright holders. Technically, me singing Happy Birthday in a public place counts as a performance and is illegal without permission (and those fees again).

Now, tell me _that_ is moral.

Exposing the Happy Birthday story:

[(Anonymous)]

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/7/5/112441/6280