He didn’t. The general concept of undead creatures that feed on the living comes from folklore, and had been around for a very long time before Stoker wrote Dracula. The more specific concept of the vampire as being elegant and aristocratic (as opposed to the zombie-like being more common in folklore) was first popularized by John Polidori’s story “The Vampyre”, which predated Dracula by about 80 years.
Who suggested that?
You have. Several times:
Now, you may at this point claim that you didn’t mean any of these statements to be absolute. Only that generally works using existing characters and worlds are poor, so the rule of preventing other parties doing so works, in general.
But such a position would be irrelevant to what I was saying, as I was not claiming all derivative works would be good. I’m just saying that if copyrights can expire we give lots of people the chance to pick up the ball and run with it. And at least some of what they produce would be great.
Nope, I sure haven’t. In none of those statements do I assert that such works are “dross” or “poor.” That’s entirely beside the point.
Whether such works would be good or not is also irrelevant to what I’m saying. I’m saying that people can still go ahead and produce new works by picking up and the ball and running with it. All they have to do is add a tiny bit more creativity, which is to the benefit of society. What I’m saying is that preventing people from using Mickey Mouse does not in fact prevent them from producing new works. Any work they might have created that involved Mickey Mouse can be modified to be about a different character in a different world.
The second part of what I was accusing you of saying was “…or at least pulls down the quality of any future work”. And this, indeed, is what you seem to be implying now.
And again, If this is true, why bother to protect copyright at all? Why do creators of content often reuse their own characters or worlds if it conveys no benefit?
No, it is not what I’m implying.
I didn’t say that it conveys no benefit.
I am saying that:
(1) Society need not lose any potential benefit, because a work originally conceived as (for the sake of simplifying the conversation) “fan fiction” can be repurposed as an entirely new work, and
(2) If it is repurposed as an entirely new work, society gets the additional benefit of an entirely new set of characters, settings, etc.
Take Watchmen as an example and pretend that Alan Moore was not under contract with DC at the time and he conceived of Watchmen on his own using the Charlton characters. Since Moore didn’t have any rights in the Charlton characters, he would have been required to seek a license or sell his idea to DC.
What are the possible outcomes?
(1) DC decides to authorize Watchmen with the Charlton characters. Fine, there’s a new work. Everyone benefits.
(2) DC refuses to license the Charlton characters and Moore rewrites the story (as he did) in an entirely new universe with entirely new characters. Everyone benefits even more.
There’s been a lot of discussion about whether or not copyright allows for other artists to be creative or not, whether with some amount of repackaging or the same characters in a different setting. But I think there’s a bigger problem with ridiculously long protections, and that’s on the original artist. If an artist has a brilliant idea and can continue to work the original idea for decades because of it’s popularity without really adding much to it, we’re not just robbed of other people who might want to work with those ideas, we’re also robbing ourselves of ideas those people could have come up with if they weren’t still milking old ideas.
Let’s take Star Wars for instance. Sure, someone else could repackage a lot of the characters. It’s an immensely popular universe and it inspires a lot of people to be creative, and despite that others might have wanted to make other movies for it and until it was sold recently, there has been a lot of time where it could have had more films made and, if not for copyright, probably would have. But other than the newer films, which almost everyone agrees were inferior to the original, what else did George Lucas do besides milk it? He created a few other ideas, notably Indiana Jones, but there was a lot of potential creative effort on his part during what was probably his peak creative years in the 80s wasted on milking money out of his existing franchises rather than creating new ones, so that when he finally got around to making new films, they just didn’t match up. I wonder what other ideas he might have had if he’d spent more time coming up with great new ideas.
So I think, if anything, copyright times should be drastically reduced, probably to something arguable that the idea is fairly well past its peak. For instance, let’s say a person creates a pop song and it makes it all over the radio for a few weeks, but a year or two later, no one even really remembers it, no one is buying the album or single anymore, and even the artist has just resigned to making it part of their standard set list on tour. Why does it need another a lifetime of protection when a remix might not just let someone else be creative with it, but might even help breathe new life into for the original artist? And even if it is a huge song and might still have some profitability a few years down the line, chances are if it’s that big it’s also that much more influential and blocking it from being reworked is hurting other creative people that much more.
Really, all we need is enough protection to give the original creator enough incentive to be creative, they don’t need to be set for life, and setting them for life does more harm than good by removing incentive for other ideas. Like with Star Wars, do you think George Lucas never would have pushed for it if he’d only have had rights to it for, say, 10, 15, or 20 years? So I’d much rather see something like a much shorter protection, but extensions for every time they extend the IP some. So, if someone has to keep being creative to continue to benefit from the idea, that’s incentive too. So, with films, for instance, 5-10 years from the last entry in the franchise. That’s plenty of time to get an overwhelming majority of the merchandising and to write, film, and release a sequence. They sure as hell don’t need protection for so many years after they’re dead. Maybe let them pass on the ownership via will and possibly extend or reset a timer if they pass it on to someone while it was still active, but that’d be about the end of it.
And to that end, sure, let Disney keep Mickey Mouse as long as they continue to make new content with those ideas, but there’s plenty of other things Disney has done and not touched in decades that doesn’t need protect just so they can rerelease it on video after 5-10 years.
I don’t want to be in the position of telling you what you’re saying, but I don’t see how this cannot be implied by what you’ve said.
You’re saying that, e.g. If I write a Star Wars fan fiction story, that story would be enhanced by repackaging it with non star wars characters and worlds.
In that case, the implication is that using existing characters and worlds “pulls down the quality of any future work”. Yes?
So, once again I ask the questions: Why bother to have copyright protection at all? And why do authors often reuse their own characters and worlds, if supposedly all it does is diminish their work?
…no he isn’t saying what you are saying. He didn’t even say what you claim what he said. What he said was what he wrote: stop trying to repackage what he said into what you think he said.
Since you were wrong about what he is saying: this question makes no sense.
Great responses. I just explained, in the clearest terms, why I believe Acsenray is implying what I think. And in my previous post I quoted him 3 times suggesting that works are improved but substituting out copyrighted characters. You’ve responded with basically “No he’s not!”.
Care to elaborate? What’s your interpretation?
In none of those quoted sections to I assert or imply anything about the quality of the works. I am talking about the benefit to society imparted by new creation, regardless of the absolute quality of any of the works in question. Indeed, I’m assuming that the quality of the works, on average, remains the same.
I’m talking about the use of copyright protections to incentivize creation.
Now, I could make an argument about the use of copyright protections to improve the quality of works, but that would be a different argument. That argument would be that the more time that creators are given to develop their art and skills, rather than doing other jobs in order to support themselves, contributes on average to an increase in quality and quantity of output. And if that is your goal, then copyright law needs to be used in a way that makes it unnecessary for creators to spend time doing things other than creating, that is, eliminate the need for “day jobs.”
…are you serious? Why do I need to interpret his words? You quoted him three times and I can read what he said.
Basically Acsenray has said “The sky is blue.” You’ve gone “But by stating the sky is blue, you are implying that the grass is green. So if the grass is green, why haven’t you stopped beating your wife?”
Look, I’ll put it as simply as I can. Either a copyright prevents other artists from making interesting works using existing characters / worlds or it doesn’t. Which is it?
I obviously can’t respond to you just saying “Nuh uh” over and over again.
Are you going to talk about the actual content of this thread?
Disney (and a lot of other companies) has the clout to keep pestering Congress into extending it, as they’ve already done (extending from 50 to 70 years, to preserve Mickey; in about 15 years they’ll have to do it again and I’m willing to bet they’ll be successful.)
Yeah, I figured as much. Thanks for saving me from doing the digging myself!
…that isn’t what I said. But keep on rewriting what both myself and Acsenray have said and I’m sure one day you will eventually get it right.
Again: are you being serious? I think I’m the only one who has been on topic and actually addressed the paper in the OP, something that you haven’t done in this thread. I think that a twelve year copyright limit led by a single country in defiance of international convention would be a disaster for those industries and would lead to a black-listing of the United States by the creative industries and/or an escalation world-wide in fees. I think the paper was appalling written by a single person that repeats propaganda and myths and it doesn’t have a hope in hell of getting anywhere. What on earth did you think my position was? Is replying to your posts not talking about the content of this thread?
We’re on page 2 of the thread, so we can open things up a little.
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Writing a position paper on copyright that’s over 2 pages long without addressing international agreements, if only in passing, is laughable IMHO. That said, it would be topical to discuss the substance of the proposal, tacking on the assumption that all changes would be done in consultation with our allies. It would also be topical to discuss whether such changes should be made in consultation with our allies, or whether the US should act unilaterally, as the memo seems to imply. The latter sounds insane to me, but you deal with the proposals you have, not the ones you want.
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The memo has been withdrawn, but copyright reform in general has a fair amount of diffuse support: it was on that basis that Cory Doctorow called on his fans to contact their legislators.
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As we’re on page 2, the general features of copyright reform could be discussed. It would be good form though to refer to the proposal in the OP now and then.
I have further thoughts, but following on #3 I would say the Republican Study Committee goes too far for my tastes, though I would prefer that the US would negotiate for their position internationally over the 90-120 year status quo. More later.
…sure we can: but I was being accused of going off-topic when I’ve been the most “on topic” in this thread.
Yes, and it should. And my entire contribution here has been to say that this is not harmful to society and is on balance a benefit. I have already said several times why I believe this to be true.
You haven’t addressed my point at all, or shown where the apparent flaw is in my interpretation of what Acsenray has said.
He said that preventing copyright characters from being used benefits society because it stimulates creativity. He’s also said that the overall standard of works remains on average the same. I’m trying to square those two things together, and all you can do is to keep asserting that I am wrong.
Firstly, you have not been on topic with me, you just keep asserting that I am wrong.
Secondly, I said that for me a flat number of years, somewhere between 20-40 years would be the best option. That’s my position, but to relate that to the paper specifically then, I’d say it is better than the status quo, but what it would mean in practice would be 12 years copyright for most people, 46 years copyright for disney et al.
…Acsenray is not claiming what you claim he is claiming!
Its hard to address your point when you are not addressing ours.
And you’ve just done it again. Where on earth did he say the overall standard of works remains on average the same? Here is what you are doing: you are taking his words: running it through the Mijin Filter and they are coming out the other end completely different. Stop trying to rewrite his position: his words are pretty clear and they bear no resemblance to what you are writing.
Well you are wrong. Whats wrong with pointing that out?
And as I said: twelve years would be pretty much a disaster for all the points I’ve outlined up above.
For example: I currently have several hundred photos uploaded to Flickr: and several thousands uploaded to my Photoshelter account which currently hosts the images in two locations in the United States. If this were to become law: would I be better served to continue to host them in the United States where, in twelve years time copyright on those image would cease, or would I be better place to host them in another country? I don’t make money off some of those images: is copyright re-registration dependent on the images making money?
The copyright issue is BIG. Its not just about Disney and the record labels. Its about the artists and painters and writers and scupltors and graphic artists and video game makers and singers and song-writers. You can’t just say “twenty year terms” and ignore the impact on the creative industries as a whole world and industry wide. Do I pay per image or per batch? Does the “copyright clock” start ticking at creation, on publication, or when published in the United States? If a work is not published in the States but copyrighted outside of the States, if it is used by the someone in the US outside of those twelve year terms what recourse do I have? There are too many unanswered questions: and not enough proof that the current system does any damage at all.
Most of the rants against copyright rail against a few big names like Disney and Lucas. But these changes would hardly have any affect on them at all: but for the millions of content creators world wide it would create an unfair burden. I’m not going to pay a fee to pay for the United States Defense Forces just so I can retain copyright on my work in your country.
There is no shortage of creativity now. There are no shortage of Star Wars movies not created by Lucas. There has been no other point in time where strong copyright laws have been needed than now. There is no need to weaken copyright and so far the arguments put forward in this thread are pretty weak.