Swedish Pirate to EU Parliament!

[Kobal2]

@RickJay

Why? How is that - to use your words - “your judgment or decision to make”?

Do you have any particular reason for saying Disney and Rogue Entertainment do not deserve protection for their original work except that you just don’t want them to?

They’d get protection from me. Someone sells a copy of Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland” without buying it from Disney, I’ll be on them like stink on cheese. But I see a big difference between a direct copy, and an original piece that cribs very heavily on a given work, or builds on established work. As for using copyright for vague concepts or ideas, that’s just preposterous, IMO.

Well, first of all, to be fair, it is a ridiculous falsehood to claim that White Wolf’s suit was based on the idea that they owned the concept of vampires and werewolves fighting. They alleged that “Underworld” copied a specific story they published. They did not claim to own the rights to the generic concept of monster-filled wars. That’s a monumental difference for you to gloss over.

They did both. From Wiki (all the press releases have apparently disappeared from WW’s website since the settlement) :

The film was the subject of a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by White Wolf, Inc. and Nancy A. Collins claiming the setting was too similar to the Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse games, both set in the World of Darkness setting, and the Sonja Blue vampire novels. White Wolf filed 17 counts of copyright infringement, and claimed over 80 points of unique similarity between White Wolf’s game systems and the movie. White Wolf, Inc. also claimed the script was very similar to a story entitled The Love of Monsters (1994) which they published and was written by Nancy A. Collins.

(emphasis mine)
Of course, Nancy Collins novel was 100% original and didn’t in any way, shape or form crib Romeo & Juliet, nor could anyone else but her come up with a vampire/werewolf love affair. I’ll alert the fanfic community that they’re all plagiarizing the world-famous Nancy A. Collins.

But hey, like I said, I’m not going to deny that copyright legislation can and has gone too far and is applied with too broad a brush. It’s possible White Wolf’s suit was a nuisance; I haven’t read the story they claim was ripped off and I dozed off through most of “Underworld,” and I can’t find a full copy of their claim online. So maybe they’re full of shit. Granting that the concept of original work is never going to be a clear one - so there will always be arguments, forever and ever, amen, over who stole what - there’s perfectly good reason to limit the scope of copyright to reasonable limits. That isn’t what the Pirate Party wants and you know it; when people are saying you shouldn’t need more than a year or two to make money from your work, you know it’s not the creative folks behind the movement.

They don’t say you should, they observe that most modern artists do. And extend that to 5 years for what they feel is a reasonable margin.
Besides, I never expressed specific support for the Pirate Party. I simply said there’s a very reasonable argument against the extent and duration of current IP laws. I do think 5 years is on the short side for anything except Hollywood movies, but 100 years ? And an extension of the definition of “copy” to “has X unique similarities” or “uses even a 5 second, looped snippet of a copyrighted work” ? That’s clearly on the wrong side of protection to me.

And yet, strangely, I can reprint fairy tales and books like “Snow White,” “Cinderella” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “The Little Mermaid” from now until the cows come home and Disney can’t stop me.

But you still can’t sing the happy birthday song ;).
Here’s another amusing thing : Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland” came out in 1950. The novel was first published in 1865. Meaning, under the current, extended state of copyright laws pushed forward by Disney, Disney shouldn’t have been able to make that movie without giving *someone *big pots of money (but not Lewis Carroll, he died in 1898, 3 years before Walt Disney was even born).

Nor, for that matter, would old Walt have been allowed to make the 1920’s animated Alice in Wonderland shorts that got him off the ground and got him his first investors. Had the current laws been in place in 1920’s, there would be no Disney empire today.

Ironic, don’t you think ?

[Steve_MB]

@RickJay

I’m all for doing away with malware and corporate theft and stringing up the perpetrators.

My litmus test: Do you believe that infringements of fair-use prerogatives (e.g. by filing “infringement” lawsuits which are rejected as invalid) should be punished every bit as severely (in terms of actual impact on the infringers, which would generally require higher fines and penalties in absolute terms) as infringements of copyright?

[Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew]

@Dead_Badger

you can’t get hold of Mighty Mouse’s Grey Album because it’s impossible to clear the samples he used

That’s Danger Mouse. Mighty Mouse is the intellectual property of Viacom.

[RickJay]

@Steve_MB

My litmus test: Do you believe that infringements of fair-use prerogatives (e.g. by filing “infringement” lawsuits which are rejected as invalid) should be punished every bit as severely (in terms of actual impact on the infringers, which would generally require higher fines and penalties in absolute terms) as infringements of copyright?

It’s too general a question for me to submit to your litmus test. We don’t have any facts before us. If the damages are proportionate, then all other things being equal, sure, why not?

@Kobal2

I simply said there’s a very reasonable argument against the extent and duration of current IP laws. I do think 5 years is on the short side for anything except Hollywood movies, but 100 years ? And an extension of the definition of “copy” to “has X unique similarities” or “uses even a 5 second, looped snippet of a copyrighted work” ? That’s clearly on the wrong side of protection to me.

Yes, 100 years seems a bit much. But just 5 years for movies? Well, why? Why should half of the Pixar output be in the public domain already? For that matter, why should samples of songs not be subject to some form of copyright protection, even if it’s at least some sort of standard payment?

The solution to the pendulum swinging too far one way is not swinging it too far the other.

[Henrichek]

@Gangster_Octopus

I see what you did there.

Well, people like Kobal2 and Der Trihs have argued about the problems of the current copyright system better than I could have done. Another problem we see with copyright is the legislation being pushed by the entertainment business, drafted and accepted by the government to combat the infringement, which together sound like something taken out of the DDR.

For example the data retention directive. Nobody would consider it to be alright for the government to require you to give ID and register each letter you send, to allow the government to scan it before sending it with snailmail, yet this is exactly the same thing they expect us to accept in the digital world. And our cellphones being turned into the government’s citizen tracking devices by retaining position information for 6 months or more.

People quickly seem to jump at the parties name, which admittedly is different, and go directly to condemn the party on just those grounds, without seeing the bigger picture of citizens’ rights that they fight for. Which also seems to be the direction this thread seems to have taken rather quickly.

[Gangster_Octopus]

@Der_Trihs

Considering that the reception for such a book would be . . . poor, no. Not if it didn’t use her name. If you are arguing that the Harry Potter series’ reputation can be tarnished by a third party like that, then all the Harry Potter themed porn online has done it already.

I’d actually expect such a silly book to benefit her indirectly; a form of free advertising both by the author and the media when they pick up on it.

So are you saying she shouldn’t be upset or she shouldn’t have the right to be upset and to do something about it.

[Kobal2]

@RickJay

Yes, 100 years seems a bit much. But just 5 years for movies? Well, why? Why should half of the Pixar output be in the public domain already?

Well, the PP rationale seems to be : because that’s about the timeframe the investors and creators expect and plan to make money from a published work themselves. So, in other words, because half of Pixar’s output has been fairly well cashed in by now, the animators’ kids are fed, the loans repaid, the script doctors provided for. And if they havn’t, it’s unlikely they will suddenly be in the distant future. Are you still being paid for work you did 5+ years ago ?

Let’s be honest here : the Rocky Horror Picture Show may still draw theatre crowds year after year and trickle some money to whoever owns its copyright, but no one financially or creatively involved in it expected that, or depended on that to survive. The publisher invests X bucks in a book, or script, or game, or movie, or band, because they expect to make at least Y bucks out of it. More’s gravy, less is considered a failure even though the actual costs might have been recouped thrice over.

ISTM the entertainment industry wants not only indefinite gravy rights, but also gravy’s gravy, that is to say the non-trivial income generated by suing left and right over material that isn’t generating much wealth anymore, or hasn’t even been published at all, but still is their IP, and will remain for a gazillion years.

That seems over the top and in need of an overhaul, to me.

As to why precisely 5, or 10, or a hundred years, well, it’s arbitrary. Just like any defined legal line in the sand. I’d go for 10 to 15 years myself, or until the first copyright holder dies, whichever comes first. The second part would obviously be somewhat complicated when the first copyright holder is a legal person (i.e. a company, or a band) rather than a person person, but I’m sure someone could come up with a compromise or solution for that event.

For that matter, why should samples of songs not be subject to some form of copyright protection, even if it’s at least some sort of standard payment?

That’s a tricky one, and I’m not sure of my exact stance on this or where I’d draw the line. I tend to think that a band’s cover of another band’s song is not the same item or property, not even the same song really, and that a new song building on a bit of another falls into the same category as using an existing character to tell your own story, but I can’t really articulate why, nor how the distinction would be made between what’s fair use of a sample and what’s a malicious Puff Daddy remix

[begbert2]

@Kobal2

Well, the PP rationale seems to be : because that’s about the timeframe the investors and creators expect and plan to make money from a published work themselves. So, in other words, because half of Pixar’s output has been fairly well cashed in by now, the animators’ kids are fed, the loans repaid, the script doctors provided for. And if they havn’t, it’s unlikely they will suddenly be in the distant future. Are you still being paid for work you did 5+ years ago ?

Let’s be honest here : the Rocky Horror Picture Show may still draw theatre crowds year after year and trickle some money to whoever owns its copyright, but no one financially or creatively involved in it expected that, or depended on that to survive. The publisher invests X bucks in a book, or script, or game, or movie, or band, because they expect to make at least Y bucks out of it. More’s gravy, less is considered a failure even though the actual costs might have been recouped thrice over.

ISTM the entertainment industry wants not only indefinite gravy rights, but also gravy’s gravy, that is to say the non-trivial income generated by suing left and right over material that isn’t generating much wealth anymore, or hasn’t even been published at all, but still is their IP, and will remain for a gazillion years.

That seems over the top and in need of an overhaul, to me.

I read this and think, “How much of that income they expected in the five years could they expect to lose if people knew they could get it for free (or close to it) just by waiting five years?”

Which leads me to agree with you that ten or fifteen years should be the cut-off for things we expect to only earn money for five years. Though I personally would let those rights be inheritable - why not? So the estate gets to ride the cash flow for seven or eight years. Small price to pay in return for avoiding having to specially handle the question of legal persons. That’s just my opinion though.

[Fenris]

@RickJay

And yet, strangely, I can reprint fairy tales and books like “Snow White,” “Cinderella” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “The Little Mermaid” from now until the cows come home and Disney can’t stop me.

I’m generally on your side on this one, but I disagree on this specific point.

Those fairy tales evolved over time.

Cinderella, for example didn’t have glass slippers in earlier versions. The “Fairy Godmother” was (IIRC) added by Perrault as (I think) the pumpkin->coach business. Disney was able to use those elements, but is stopping people from using talking mice named Gus and Jacque-Jacque.

Snow White went through a number of iterations. The “Mirror Mirror on the wall” poem was a very late addition to the mythos, but Disney felt free to use it. But now prevent people from using “Sleepy/Dopey/Grumpy/Doc, etc”

So yeah, they’re a cultural roadblock–they take elements that other storytellers have added, but don’t allow their elements to be added to the evolution of the myth.

[mswas]

Ahhrrrr this gives me hope.

[begbert2]

@mswas

Ahhrrrr this gives me hope.

It may also be a potential cure for global warming!

[mswas]

@begbert2

It may also be a potential cure for global warming!

Halt production!

[begbert2]

@mswas

Halt production!

That’s probably not quite what I was talking about.

[The_Tao_s_Revenge]

The people of Sweden just keep getting more awesome.

[Dead_Badger]

@Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew

That’s Danger Mouse. Mighty Mouse is the intellectual property of Viacom.

Gawd, how embarrassing. :o

[RickJay]

@Kobal2

Well, the PP rationale seems to be : because that’s about the timeframe the investors and creators expect and plan to make money from a published work themselves. So, in other words, because half of Pixar’s output has been fairly well cashed in by now, the animators’ kids are fed, the loans repaid, the script doctors provided for. And if they havn’t, it’s unlikely they will suddenly be in the distant future. Are you still being paid for work you did 5+ years ago ?

No, but I’m not creative enough to make popular movies. My loss.

However, I am being paid for things I invested in five years ago. Why shouldn’t Pixar?

Indeed, a five year limit would tend to punish the producers of quality films more than the producers of dreck, which strikes me as being doubly unfair. People still buy and rent “Toy Story” and “Monsters, Inc.”, to continue on the Pixar theme, in fairly significant quantities, but “America’s Sweethearts” and “Shallow Hal” (to name two movies released in the same year as Monsters, Inc) don’t get quite the same video store action. I think Pixar should be allowed to profit from that, and if that makes them all jillionaires in addition to being millionaires then good for them. Five years is a ridiculously short period of time, and frankly I think ten to fifteen years is too short, too, at least for fundamental protection of the work itself.

[Henrichek]

@The_Tao_s_Revenge

The people of Sweden just keep getting more awesome.

Yes we ARRRRR!

[DrCube]

@RickJay

Five years is a ridiculously short period of time, and frankly I think ten to fifteen years is too short, too, at least for fundamental protection of the work itself.

What do you mean by “fundamental protection of the work itself”?

What exactly do you think is the purpose of a copyright? Do you feel it is a natural extension of more tangible property rights, such as owning a car or a suit? One could as easily say “I own that movie” or “That’s my song” as they could say “That’s my house”? If so, why have any time limit at all? That would surely protect the work. Why not allow copyrights to be holdable, transferable, marketable entities in perpetuity? Why shouldn’t Walt Disney be able to hand down his investment in “Steamboat Willie” to his great-great-grandkids to use and earn money off of for as many generations as they can, just as he can hand down an old heirloom musket or shares of stock?

And if you already agree with limiting copyright terms, what criteria would you suggest using to decide how long those terms should be? You say fifteen years is too short. Why? What about 20? 30? 50? 500? And what is it that makes 500 years or eternity a ridiculous notion that doesn’t also make 10 or 50 years ridiculous? What makes granting monopolies and artificially throttling supply acceptable for a few years, but not too many? And how many are too many by that distinction?

[RickJay]

@DrCube

What do you mean by “fundamental protection of the work itself”?

Actual copying, distrbution and broadcast of the film itself.

To think outside the box for a moment, as has been suggested, why not have different copyright lengths for different acts?

[mswas]

@begbert2

That’s probably not quite what I was talking about.

Wow that seems like a pretty direct corrolation to me. Though somehow I doubt they are counting the pirates that are plundering Scandinavian nations currently, within their metric.