06-09-2010, 04:39 AM | #76 | |
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Romeo and Juliet, Giulietta e Romeo found in Historia novellamente ritrovata di due Nobili Amanti published in 1530 by Luigi da Porto. Source wikipeida. In fact if you do some quick searches you'll see just about all of his work sourced and dated from earlier but not that much earlier works. Remember you can't copyright an idea but you can copyright a plot as long as it isn'ttoo general. West Side story changes more than just names and location, it adds music and racial tensions but it would still be infringment of Romeo and Juliet ahd been under copyright at the time. |
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06-09-2010, 10:46 AM | #77 |
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Oy gevalt.
First, it looks like in general this law has more good than bad. Canadian copyright law hasn't been updated since 1997. The new law apparently includes: • Granting individuals the explicit right to format-shift and time-shift for personal use (as long as the file was legitimately obtained) • Specific exceptions for libraries, educational institutions, and "user-generated" content • Exempts ISP's from liability for the actions of its customers • Exempts the ISP from being required to take action against alleged copyright infringers • Expansion of "fair dealing" to include parody and education • Gives photographers and painters copyright over works made on commission So yes, it does include provisions to penalize circumvention of DRM, and from what I can tell doesn't address orphan works. Otherwise it seems like a much-needed update that explicitly grants useful rights. |
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06-09-2010, 10:47 AM | #78 | |
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Exactly how much pot do you need to smoke to come up with a straw man this big? |
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06-09-2010, 11:15 AM | #79 | |
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Although I thought the seedy underworld of the criminal life would look different than my normal life... |
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06-09-2010, 11:22 AM | #80 | |
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And while current copyright durations may be too long, don't forget that durations were significantly shorter -- 14 years iirc -- in the 1500s when copyright first started. (Longer terms make more sense, now that our lifespans have more than doubled since the 1500s.) Also, don't forget that modern society does not necessarily outlaw creative re-uses -- just re-uses that are a) too similar and b) if it is highly similar, done with the permission of the rights holder. There is also a lot of tacit approval of, or at least tolerance of, certain non-commercial re-uses, notably "fanfics." Even from a strictly aesthetic point of view, restrictions on who can legitimately use and re-use copyrighted material is not necessarily a bad thing. I'm not convinced the world would be best served by every Tom, Dick and Harry being able to publish their own Harry Potter books and make their own Harry Potter movies. Nor do I believe that if a writer of equal talent and dedication as Shakespeare was active today, that copyright would genuinely hinder his or her abilities. This is not to say that the commercial stewards of such properties always make perfect decisions, or that current copyright durations are optimal. But I don't see how replacing copyright with an anarchistic public domain policy offers an improvement, except for the people who can't be bothered to make their own characters, plots and fantasy worlds. |
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06-09-2010, 01:03 PM | #81 | |
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So far the only other UK law with the same conditions is terrorism, and there is no fee to pay before you can defend yourself against that. |
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06-09-2010, 01:24 PM | #82 |
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First off, when it comes to ebooks/mp3s, how is a user supposed to tell the difference between an official free copy and a stolen copy? I have like 25 drm free ebooks from TOR that they gave away. Once a publisher gives a non-drm file away, does that automatically remove their right to prosecute for illegal copies? I'm sure this happens all the time with mp3's as well.
Second, the act of removing DRM is illegal, not the act of making a backup. Can't we just write programs that piggy back onto legitimate readers and either pull the text from memory or do a high speed OCR of the actual pages? |
06-09-2010, 01:26 PM | #83 |
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No, it doesn't. The copyright holder has the right to control copying. The fact that TOR gave you a free copy does not give you the right to give a copy to anybody else, unless (like Baen do with their "Free Library") they specifically grant you that right.
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06-09-2010, 01:56 PM | #84 | |||
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Also, most courts, maybe most publishers, don't have a way to open DRM'd files to find out if they're supposed to belong to the person who has them. Quote:
That's not a lawsuit-killer; free materials are still copyrighted & damages can be established even if there's no market value. (For example, if a company's employee guides were grabbed & copied by a competitor.) But it's a lot harder to declare damages from unauthorized distribution of *promotional* materials--ones that were sent out free to draw attention to the company. Tor would be hard-pressed to indicate exactly who's being harmed by the continued distribution of those ebooks. The problem is that copyright law was designed for big, corporate offenders, and the tech has shifted to allow individuals to do things that were formerly only possible for companies or very wealthy individuals. From Lessig's The Public Domain: Quote:
Copyright law needs to be fixed so that it prevents corporate predation *without* stomping on individual people's ability to share culture with each other. |
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06-09-2010, 02:58 PM | #85 | |||
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06-09-2010, 06:09 PM | #86 | ||||
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E.g. Romeo and Juliet had antecedents including Xenophon and Il Novellino by Masuccio in 1476, as well as contemporary sources. Many of the comedies also drew from ancient, folk and/or medieval sources as well as contemporary works. Many of those contemporary sources were, in turn, borrowing from folk tales, histories and/or medieval sources. Copyright laws did not prevent Sergio Leone from adapting Yojimbo as A Fistful of Dollars. They haven't stopped countless musicians from doing cover versions of recent songs, it hasn't ground hip-hop to a halt, despite a heavy reliance on sampling copyrighted recordings. It hasn't prevented a half dozen "police procedurals" that all use the same formula from flooding the airwaves, and occasionally drawing from the same real-life events. And again, the absolute worst case scenarios are that he'd either license the original material, or just write something else. This is, of course, aside from the fact that not only was he allowed to rewrite contemporary works, he was practically required by the economic realities of his day. It does not make sense to suggest that Shakespeare was only (or even primarily) able to write such high-quality work because he was reusing existing works. Quote:
Another perspective on this aspect is: If we removed copyright laws, the almighty Disney would lose exclusivity over Mickey Mouse -- but would then gain the ability to create movies and toys based on any franchise in existence. Name your favorite, they could do it -- Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, whatever -- without reimbursing the original creator(s). Big companies wouldn't go away in a copyright-free world, as they'd still be able to leverage all kinds of resources that small companies could not. How is that preferable? Quote:
Fortunately, copyright rarely bars anyone from relying on the works of their predecessors, including the examples you cited. I can probably count on one hand the number of instances of an "appropriation artist" who genuinely got busted for copyright infringement. FWIW, none of it is terribly impressive work. The argument that "copyright hampers creativity," as implied by the claim that "Shakespeare couldn't write his plays today," is clearly fallacious. |
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06-09-2010, 08:05 PM | #87 | |||||||
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Cover versions of songs are covered by statutory licenses. Unlike with books and film the artist doesn't have the right to say no. Would you like to suggest something similar for non music copyrights? If the pricing were set in a reasonable way it might actually offset some of the long copyright and orphan works problems, put the fee in escrow and the owner can try to claim it if there is an owner, on the other hand of course that would mean you couldn't sell the movie rights to your bestseller for $10M. Gripping hand, anything could be released as an ebook by paying the standard rates. Procedurals aren't a plot, they're a format like sitcoms. You can wrtie a sitcom about six friends living in new york. You can't write one about six friends living in new york where one's an aspiring actor living with his low self esteem friend who cracks jokes and has a gay father while across the hall live a spoiled rich girl and an aspiring chef who's brother is a paleontologist recently divorced when his wife came out as gay and then mix in thier ditzy blond friend who sings songs about odoriferous animals. Even with different names and scripts for episodes you've gotten too close. See ealier example, Star Wars and A Fistfull of Dollars do get within lawsuit range for being close enough if someone really wanted to go for it. Quote:
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I don't know if this counts as an "appropriation artist" sincei'm not sure how you define it but http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...right-suit/?hp |
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06-09-2010, 10:58 PM | #88 | |||||||||
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I might add there are quite a few artists who thoroughly depend on copyright, as imperfect as it may be. Talk to some professional photographers and see how they like the idea of weakening copyright.... Quote:
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But really, the societies in question are so different in so many ways that the inquiry is basically pointless. Quote:
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A recent example was shown in the Whitney Biennial; the conceptual artist Lorraine O'Grady used a photograph of Michael Jackson that was taken by Harry Benson without permission or attribution (or even any manipulation). Benson said he felt horrible that someone had "stolen" his work. Another example is Jeff Koons; he saw a photograph of puppies, removed the copyright notification, and instructed his staff to produce a sculpture that duplicated the image with a few minor notifications. He then sold 3 copies for over $300,000 each. Colting's case is different, in that he used characters without permission and his work fairly clearly did not meet the tests for fair use; O'Grady and Koons is a much more explicit copy of actual material. However, I see no particular defense for Colting's approach. He did not seek permission; he was not doing a parody or a scholarly work; Salinger objected. If Salinger didn't care, I wouldn't either. He did, and as such I don't see how Colting has much of a defense, even if the work is not particularly recent. Perhaps it sucks for some artists to face limitations Shakespeare did not have to deal with in the 1500's. However, artists appear to have done quite well regardless. |
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06-10-2010, 12:27 AM | #89 | ||||||||
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However, since we're talking about copyright as it is now I find it hard to imagine anyone depending on copyright that outlives them by 70 years. I'm willing to hear agreements about why a shorter term would be a problem for photographers. Why allowing it to be perfectly legal to strip drm would be a problem for them. Why having to register a copyright within a reasonable time rather than have it be automatic would be a burden. Or even why a license rate set by statute would be a problem for derivative works such as collage. Quote:
Something most people who argue with me on the topic miss is when something isn't free (libre) it prevents progress. Mostly they just yell at me about wanting free beer. Reasonable fees aren't the problem, the right to censor derivatives one doesn't like or made by one who is not liked is a major problem. Don't get me wrong I find the length of copyright absurd, retroactive extensions criminal. Anti-circumvention laws for drm as violating basic property rights (if I don't distribute I can backup a dvd or wear it for a hat and the movie studios can kiss my grits.) But when I say free I'm talking about liberty to create expand transform modify bend fold spindle or mutilate. Quote:
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Unless... No I don't see how it could get worse... please don't let me see how it could get worse. Have mercy. Quote:
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As for the rest of that okay I think I see your definition. Someone who plagiarizes or someone who creates a derivative without permission. This would I assume mean fanfic, anime music videos, fan art, fan sculpture (have you seen some of the near papercraft stuff out there?) but not mash ups or cover songs because the law sets a license rate for any song(s) so permission can't be denied. |
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06-11-2010, 11:00 PM | #90 | |
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Last edited by guyanonymous; 06-11-2010 at 11:03 PM. |
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