Lawsuits and Other Ways to Kill Off Imagination

[deird_lj]

Have I ever mentioned my opinions on copyright?

Well, I think it sucks.


Copyright in its original form was created about 300 years ago, as a way of promoting the progress of the arts by securing the exclusive rights of the creator for a limited time.*

(Note: a limited time. Not forever.)
(Also note: 300 years ago. This is not a law that's been around forever as an indisputable right.)

So basically, copyright was invented to give authors the ability to make money off creating something for a few years after they'd created it, so that more people would feel like creating even more stuff.

I don't actually have a problem with copyright in its original form. It's really quite a decent idea.
What I have a problem with, is Disney.

Disney got involved in US copyright laws just when the copyright on Mickey Mouse (and various other Disney creations) was about to expire. And they had the length of the copyright period extended.
And extended.
And extended.

...until now, when copyright basically seems to mean you'll have exclusive rights to everything that happens to your creations forever.

At least - that's what people seem to think. And a number of people in very powerful positions now seem to think that's exactly how things should be - and think that copyright is a natural moral right, rather than a law invented as a way to encourage writing books and creating things.

Which leads to ridiculous situations like the suspension of scans_daily.

scans_daily, for those who don't know, is was an LJ community where people would scan comic book panels into LJ entries, and discuss them.
(IT NEVER SCANNED FULL COMIC BOOKS, by the way.)
Some of the comics would be newish, some would be from decades ago, and some posts would be compilations of panels over several years so that the person posting could demonstrate changes in the comic over time.

A lot of the comics scanned were by Marvel or DC; a lot of them weren't. Obscure comic books that never would have found more than 10 readers were often discussed on scans_daily - and a lot of community members thereby discovered comic books they never would have thought of reading.

It increased comic book sales.
It kept people interested in comics that they were starting to lose enthusiasm for, it got people enthusiastic about comics they weren't planning on checking out before then, and it got people interested in comics when they'd always dismissed them as "kids stuff" before.

And then it got shut down.

Why is it that the world has forgotten the purpose of copyright laws - so much that someone can see a community discussing comics, completely miss the enthusiastic promotion of all things comic bookish, and shriek "COPYRIGHT VIOLATION! SUE! SUE! MY RIGHTS ARE IN DANGER!"?


It makes me want to scream and throw things.

It also makes me start to conclude that copyright law sucks, and should be destroyed as soon as possible.




*Yes, to create this sentence I did in fact copy a sentence from somewhere else, change a few words, and try to pretend I wrote it myself. Bonus points if you can tell me whose copyright I just violated.

Comments

[brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com]

Yup. Totally agree. The constant extension of copyright is especially infuriating.

Fear of copyright violation is also stifling. Professionally and on a non-fannish note, I see many, many institutions (I'm an archivist) which hold records of defunct companies, anonymous individuals and other things deposited with them in c1956 by someone who thought the Old Stuff should be preseved. Now they'd like to digitise them, or use them in an exhibition - anything to raise awareness of the interesting and historic things they hold. But because copyright isn't clear (I should stress I'm not talking about records of people who still have a relationship with the records, or of existing companies etc) they can't touch the stuff Just In Case. So all that gets digitised is the records of very dull local authorities, because they still exist and copyright can be established and ceded straightforwardly. And eveyone loses.

[cynicalshadows.livejournal.com]

My thesis actually deals with this topic a lot in relation to copyright and theatre. The Actors Equity Association is freaking out and trying to pull all of the clips of Broadway shows that audience members have recorded illegally from youtube. They claim it could hurt ticket sales, but actually since youtube was launched, ticket sales have increased! I argue in my thesis that the bootleg recordings are actually helping the industry rather than hurting it because it introduces the show to people who may never have heard of it and fosters fandom creation! :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_sabik_/]

Hmm, as far as I know, actors don't actually get copyright in their work... the playwright does, and the person recording it from the audience does, but the actor doesn't.

So, how would actors freaking out work?


(Of course, "as far as I know" is not very far at all; consult some sort of professional if you want to know for sure...)

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[padawanspider.livejournal.com]

I think that actors would get copyrights in the recording they acted in. Depending on their contract, they could receive a lump sum for their services (in which case the copyright is held solely by the recorder/publisher) or they could be paid royalties (in which case the copyright is retained by the actor and the recorder/publisher is licensed to reproduce the production). Similar to music recording artists and book authors.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_sabik_/]

Except that copyright arises when the work is "fixed" in a medium. With recording artists and book authors, that happens when the song hits the tape or the ink hits the page (or RAM in the computer).

With a theatre performance, the actor's work isn't fixed in a medium, so there's no copyright.

The audience member with the camcorder gets copyright, because they're fixing the work in a medium, and if they have a contract with the actor then that has to be obeyed; but that's more conditions than you'll find on the back of the usual theatre ticket — and it may well be breach of contract (of adhesion) rather than copyright infringement.


(Like I said, though, I don't know that much about copyright; enough to discuss it, not enough to give advice. For serious questions ask a serious professional...)

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[lavastar.livejournal.com]

Oh, what a crappy deal. I hadn't heard about that cause I hadn't heard of the comm before, but now I'm sad and angry.

It seems to me that whenever people freak out over copyright - Fox stopping Buffy sing-along sessions of OMWF, for example - it just stifles fandom goodness.

It's very hard to stop people from engaging in fannish activities that use representations of that fandom that could be considered as violating that copyright - and it only makes things crappier to try and stop everyone from doing it.

[immer-am-lesen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, copyright people do get a little overenthusiastic, at times...
Take...Neil Gaiman's thoughts on the whole 'Kindle audiobook' copyright issues. It's just pathetic. Who in their right mind would consider it a copyright violation? Reading it aloud within earshot of another person would be the same thing, going by that logic!
Tsk.
Besides- listen to (within that post there's a link) Wil Wheaton's text2speech thingy he demonstrates...oh yes, I'd much prefer to listen to that robotic emotionless voice than to the author reading the story to me on a real audiobook. No, really.
Pfft.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_sabik_/]

The other side of that problem is that over last 100 years or so, the nature of copying itself has changed.

It used to be that in order to do anything that was relevant to copyright law, you basically needed a small factory (a printing press). Everybody involved was already counting copies for commercial reasons, so basing a law off of the number of copies was no real hardship on anyone and impacted only on the relatively small number of producers.

Today, copying happens all the time — computers and computer networks do it automatically and frequently, it's one of the basic operations. Even children's toys do it, the kind that gets thrown in a corner and forgotten by the New Year.

The cost of copying has fallen drastically, but the cost of dealing with copyright has not. Thus we end up with situations where an indie movie costs a three-digit sum to produce but would cost an additional five-digit sum to "clear copyrights".


Oh, and as for infringing copyright by paraphrasing the US Constitution, you aren't. I'm not sure which law would apply, but the British copyright would've long since expired and the US copyright would've never applied to government documents in the first place, and also long since expired. In any case, quoting a single sentence for the purposes of commentary is likely to be fair use in any system.

Which is not to say LJ would bother standing up for your rights if someone went "boo" at them.

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[deird1]

Oh, and as for infringing copyright by paraphrasing the US Constitution, you aren't. I'm not sure which law would apply, but the British copyright would've long since expired and the US copyright would've never applied to government documents in the first place, and also long since expired. In any case, quoting a single sentence for the purposes of commentary is likely to be fair use in any system.

Definitely wasn't paraphrasing the US Constitution. Not even close...

:)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_sabik_/]

Hmm, it does sound rather similar to that, though. No idea, then. Presumably someone who was influenced, at least, by the phrasing in the US Constitution (or who influenced it)...

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[padawanspider.livejournal.com]

I don't know that plagarism is a violation of copyright in all cases.

[deird1]

...I don't think I said it was.

*is confuzzled*

[padawanspider.livejournal.com]

more specifically, I think your "violation" is technically only plagarism, not violation of copyright, if you rearranged words and stuff.

I could be wrong.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_sabik_/]

There is such a thing as "derivative work"...

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[deird1]

No, you are indeed correct. 'Twas a trick question...