Copywrite laws are they to vague?

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by PvK:

Mhmm. But in the case of fan art, the corporations waving legal threats are not little businesses, and the fan art is not competing with the corporations' business in any signifigant way. Fan art is in fact a promotion, celebration, and endorsement of the product.

Perhaps - but at present, there is no known way of making the one work (protection of the little business) without causing the other (protection of the big buisiness, often when it isn't really needed).

Originally posted by PvK:
Moreover, private citizens should have the right to mention and produce non-commercial images or even duplicates of commercial media. If they can't, then you're very close to prohibiting things like parody or even discussion of corporate media.

Not really - is is surprisingly easy to discuss the issues without recreating copyrighted media. For example, has anyone felt the need to post a dipiction of Superman to get the conversation going?

Originally posted by PvK:
With even small children participating in discussions by means such as web pages etc., digital images have become a very common form of expression. Trying to make it illegal for the sake of paranoid corporations' intellectual property-mongering is preposterous and well, evil.

Perhaps - but it is the same rules that protect the little guy that allow for the paranoia. The system works much better when things expire after a time.

Originally posted by PvK:


That's a very different kind of thing from fan art.

For one thing, you're talking about a patent of an algorythm. In many cases, the patent office grants patents for ideas which are something anyone can thing of by considering the problem, so that whole institution is in need of complete reworking.

For another, you're talking about a megacorporation as the perp, not a private citizen.

Only in specifics, not in effect. You want a fan art Version? Fine. Suppose Alice makes a comic named Zoe, which becomes a commercial success. Then Bruce produces a mod for SEIV based on Zoe that everyone loves. Due to this mod, SEIV doubles its revenue (we can dream, can't we?). Unfortunately, the Zoe fans who would be buying Zoe merchandise are now spending considerable sums on SEIV, reducing the amount Alice recieves. Totally unknown to Bruce, he has reduced the rewards Alice gets for her hard work. Further, it is almost impossible to track how much effect this had. The only way to deal is to require permissions on such things.

Sure, copyrights and patents have problems, but so far it is just about the only model that seems to work out. Besides, with a private citizen loophole, Megacorps would be able to hire private citizens to do the distribution to the same effect.

Originally posted by PvK:

Megacorps will of course succeed in perpetuating their ownership of anything they can get their hands on, for as long as they can get away with it. I wonder how long it will take for another system to replace it. Clearly it's awfully inefficient to have us designing hardware and software and lawsuits all for the purpose of limiting everyone's access to media, when the technology to freely share all of it is already in place. There needs to be another system developed for rewarding content creators, which allows creative people to earn a living while still making their content available for free distribution.

PvK

The current system will Last until someone comes up with a demonstratably better system and can show that it is better, and either overthrow the megacorps or show them that the new system is in their best interests. However, this hasn't happened yet. The service based open-source model might be such a thing, but it has yet to pan out. We shall see.

[DavidG]

Really does anyone seriously believe that website had even the slightest negative financial implications for Marvel comics?? Seems pretty clear to me that the only reason that letter got written was because otherwise the lawyer would be out of a job.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by DavidG:
Really does anyone seriously believe that website had even the slightest negative financial implications for Marvel comics?? Seems pretty clear to me that the only reason that letter got written was because otherwise the lawyer would be out of a job.

Not directly - but the way the laws are written, when it comes to Marvel's attention that a violation is happening, they either enforce the law or lose their rights to their stuff, which would mean someone else could use that website as a basis for posing serious financial difficulties for Marvel via abusing their characters. They have to prosecute (or get a cease-and-desist agreement from) anyone that doesn't first ask permission.

[DavidG]

Jack are you telling me that if Marvel comics is aware of a site like that one and does nothing about it they lose their copyright??

[Rojero]

I believe so, or rather that most companies personalities on fandom maybe that of extreme control or very lax control. IE Paramount has not really done anything about all the Star Trek conventions except promote it, whereas the Marvel company have gone the other way

[Will]

Originally posted by Jack Simth:

quote:

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Originally posted by Rojero:
So does it mean that batman and superman are already public domain?

As I mentioned, this has changed recently (I believe it has finally been extended to infinity, but I don't have a source on that, and may be recalling incorrectly). A 1910 Version might be; however, the comic industry slowly changes the character concept and images over time; the Batman and Superman of today aren't the Batman and Superman of 1910. There may be similarities, but they aren't the same.

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It hasn't quite reached infinity yet, but I don't doubt it will get closer around 2023. The "Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act" basically extended copyrights for twenty years. Since I don't really feel like summarizing, I'll just block quote an article describing the current law, and give the link for citation purposes. Wouldn't want to get sued for wrongful use of IP, after all...

The new term of copyright, for works created after January 1, 1978, will be the life of the author plus 70 years. For works made for hire, and anonymous and pseudonymous works, the term will be 120 years from creation or 95 years from first publication, whichever occurs first. And for works created prior to 1978 whose terms have not yet expired, the term will be 95 years from first publication (or the date of registration if prior to publication).

That article also mentions how Disney will retain rights to several of its characters (including Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, etc.) for twenty more years. You see, they were about to enter the public domain. Of course, Disney was pushing very hard for this Act to be passed...

Originally posted by Chief Engineer Erax:

quote:

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Clearly it's awfully inefficient to have us designing hardware and software and lawsuits all for the purpose of limiting everyone's access to media, when the technology to freely share all of it is already in place. There needs to be another system developed for rewarding content creators, which allows creative people to earn a living while still making their content available for free distribution

You just about said it all. But no one has come forward with such a system. Many people have tried and many more are still trying. But while we are not yet there we are, well, here, where the law is quite harsh but also ultimately unenforceable.

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Actually, there was a quite effective system for quite some time in Europe. The rich households would take in some writers, artists, and musicians, effectively sponsoring them. In other words, a "patron of the arts" was much more common. It was a status symbol to be able to support artists. However, it has now fallen on the masses to be patrons. And, frankly, most people couldn't care less... I don't blame them, either. Along with the shift to having the masses support art, the purpose of artistic ventures has increasingly been mass appeal. In effect, "Art for money's sake" instead of "Art for art's sake". Which, IMHO, is also why so much of what the American "entertainment industry" churns out... sucks. All the focus is on how to make more money, and no room for creativity and originality is left (ever wonder why there are so many sequels to crappy movies coming out, and crappy sequels coming out to ruin decent originals? or, why most songs you hear sound eerily similar?). Unfortunately, there aren't many among the wealthy that would be willing to be patrons of the arts anymore... profit is the only goal.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by DavidG:
Jack are you telling me that if Marvel comics is aware of a site like that one and does nothing about it they lose their copyright??

In such a case, Marvel effectively loses its right to a claim in later cases involving the originally breached copyrighted material where a lawyer can make a sufficiently solid case that the incidents are sufficiently similar; yes, the copyright doesn't go away in its entirety, but essentially that's the case.

Also, Marvel would have to be officially (proveably) aware of the breach for it to count.

Many companies contract out enforcement to other companies. In this way, they can claim in court that they were making an effort to enforce their rights, and any apparent inaction was really the result of the contracted company not fullfilling its obligations - it's a form of insurance.

However, in many cases you can get license to do non-commercial stuff with the simple expediant of writing a letter to the right person. This covers everyone's rear ends: you are licensed, so you aren't in violation of anything; you are licensed at the will of the company, so the company doesn't have legal issues with you doing stuff; you are producing the stuff, so people can't convincingly say that the company is choking creativity. They will likely toss several stipulations into the license (such as not putting the characters in positions that the company wouldn't put them in, and not selling the stuff, and that the company can terminate the license at any moment, on their whim) but they are unlikely to be too terribly restrictive in practice. Further, it doesn't need to be too terribly formal - if Atrocities recieved the word from Paramount in letter form saying that Paramount isn't concerned and wishing him luck on his web site, he could drop that off in a safe deposit box somewhere and merrily make Star-Trek ships to his heart's content.

Mind you, I am not a lawyer, and could be off on many of the details.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

most game licenses have a 'failure to enforce any clause is not a waiver' part.

yes, i read game licenses.
marvel was a aggresive in there letter, but within there right's.

[ June 19, 2003, 06:30: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
most game licenses have a 'failure to enforce any clause is not a waiver' part.

yes, i read game licenses.

Yes, but that is precisely becuase under normal circumstances failure to enforce copyright when a violation is known is a waiver; otherwise that phrase would be leagally implicit, and not need mentioning.

[Atrocities]

Any one here know what the S.B.A. is? If you don't and you have pirated software, you should consider finding out. They "do" inforce copyright laws especially for MS.