When love is harder to show than hate

[Moejoe]

Interesting Guardian article by Cory Doctorow on copyright and how it punishes fans and rewards critics.

When a group of fans of the Dune books received a copyright threat from the estate of Frank Herbert, they took the path of least resistance: they renamed and altered their re-creation of the novel's setting – a loving tribute created inside the virtual world of Second Life – so that it was no longer so recognisable as an homage to Herbert's classic science fiction novels.

The normal thing to do here is to rail at the stupidity of the Herbert estate in attacking these fans. After all, they weren't taking money out of the pockets of the estate, the chance of trademark dilution in this case is infinitesimal, the creators were celebrating and spreading their love for the series, they are assuredly all major fans and customers for the products the estate is trying to market, their little Second Life re-creation was obscure and unimportant to all but its users, and the estate's legal resources could surely be better used in finding new ways to make money than in finding new ways to alienate its best customers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...orow-copyright

[zelda_pinwheel]

*sigh* it seems so obvious, doesn't it ?

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

*sigh* it seems so obvious, doesn't it ?

It sure does. Got me to thinking about how I've been licensing my own stuff and how I left out the 'allow derivative works' portion. Mainly I did it because I didn't want some greedy company turning anything of mine into a profit, but then I realised the first clause in the license stops them from doing that anyway.

Not that anyone would want to make a derivative work from my writing (I'd be flatttered) but on the offchance there's some film-student or whatever out there who picks it up and would like to turn it into something else, I think it's worth putting the "allow derivatives" back in.

[taosaur]

The two incidents mentioned in the article make a telling contrast: Whedon, still alive and in control of his work, took no action, whereas the vultures huddled over Herbert's estate responded with reflexive aggression. Creative artists recognize that their livelihood rests not only in their works but foremost in their creative capacity. It's the hangers-on taking up that work as a meal ticket who devise the legal intricacies to mark their territory for time without end.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

*sigh* it seems so obvious, doesn't it ?

With respect, it's not that simple.

If you "turn a blind eye" to "derivative works" from fans, that gives other less scrupulous people a precident to claim that you have previously permitted such works, hence their derivative work, sold for profit, is "OK". Copyright holders have to be very careful about such things.

[Gideon]

Lots of times these people/organizations/etc have lawyers on staff... and guess what they do? They look for people to sue. I can't imagine why.

I had a very popular website once... was doing very well, had a name that was based on an English word that was also used by a big corporation (though this was not at all intentional, and the word was not the same - it was spelled, pronounced, etc all differently). I wasn't selling similar services, or selling anything, really...

But their lawyers came after me. And me being a college student, I had no resources to fight back so I just had to change the name/domain/etc. Did I do something bad or wrong? No... but this company has lawyers hanging around that are constantly trying to validate their existence and paycheck.

And thus the world sucks just a bit more.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by HarryT

With respect, it's not that simple.

If you "turn a blind eye" to "derivative works" from fans, that gives other less scrupulous people a precident to claim that you have previously permitted such works, hence their derivative work, sold for profit, is "OK". Copyright holders have to be very careful about such things.

When copyright will die with the author, the world will be a better and fairer place....

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HarryT

With respect, it's not that simple.

If you "turn a blind eye" to "derivative works" from fans, that gives other less scrupulous people a precident to claim that you have previously permitted such works, hence their derivative work, sold for profit, is "OK". Copyright holders have to be very careful about such things.

Harry, the estate is still a vulture without brains.

Companies like Coca-Cola set up sites in Second World for advertising, spending good money to do it. Here the estate has fans doing it for free, providing advertising for nothing, and the estate goes ballistic. Had the estate possesed at least one brain, they would have granted an after the fact license, reserving the right to request changes if (unlikely) the fans put in things that didn't fit the spirit of the books.

In granting the license, they would then have maintained their legal grounds for any other (for profit) deriviative....

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by HarryT

With respect, it's not that simple.

If you "turn a blind eye" to "derivative works" from fans, that gives other less scrupulous people a precident to claim that you have previously permitted such works, hence their derivative work, sold for profit, is "OK". Copyright holders have to be very careful about such things.

So be careful: write up an agreement with the fans. You haven't been too careful if you alienate the source of your revenue stream and take a black eye in the press.

What steams and befuddles me about corporate oversight of creative works is not that they act in their own interests, but that they judge those interests so poorly.

[brecklundin]

Originally Posted by Format C:

When copyright will die with the author, the world will be a better and fairer place....

Not sure I completely agree. Say someone, maybe a relative, starts a business. The business becomes a success. The person dies and leaves the business to you. Should you loose all rights associated with the products, names and what not that belong to the business?

I see writers in the same light.

Or say a writer has a 1,000,000,000 book best seller of all time. Then 3yrs after writing it, the writer dies...then

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by taosaur

So be careful: write up an agreement with the fans. You haven't been too careful if you alienate the source of your revenue stream and take a black eye in the press.

But, with the greatest respect, "fans" have no more "inherent right" to break copyright law and create "derivative works" than anybody else does. Being a "fan" doesn't give you carte blanche to ignore the law .

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But, with the greatest respect, "fans" have no more "inherent right" to break copyright law and create "derivative works" than anybody else does. Being a "fan" doesn't give you carte blanche to ignore the law .

The article and this thread pertain to how best to approach 'tribute' works for the greatest benefit of the creator, the fan and social discourse. Dragging discussion into the field of "inherent rights" presents an imponderable red herring.

[sirbruce]

Also, while this isn't true in the case of Dune, allowing such creations indeed *can* take money out of the pockets of the copyright holders. Consider, for example, PernMUSH, which is allowed to operate by special permission of Anne McCaffery. Now, suppose some compnay wants to make a Pern MMOG with a heavy RP emphasis... the existance of a free PernMUSH is a direct competition to them. So in such a case McCaffery may indeed want to shut down the fan-made version.

But it gets worse, in that you can't necessarily just assume to let the fan-made version run until such an offer comes along. If you let it run over time, it builds up its own base of loyal users. Shutting down a long-running RP world would create more negative feelings than if it had simply never been allowed to exist. A company looking to do an MMOG may just decide it's not worth the effort to try a Pern one since PernMUSH is already out there, even if McCaffery were willing to shut it down.

And times change. 25 years ago, allowing a text of a book on the Internet wouldn't have cost an author anything. But now that ebooks are hot, and those rights are worth something, the pre-existance of a full copy of the book on the Internet that was previously allowed now makes the ebook rights to that book virtually worthless.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by taosaur

The article and this thread pertain to how best to approach 'tribute' works for the greatest benefit of the creator, the fan and social discourse. Dragging discussion into the field of "inherent rights" presents an imponderable red herring.

I must respectfully disagree that it's a "red herring". The article quoted seemed to me to be criticising the estate of Mr. Herbert for "going after" fan sites which violated the late Mr. Herbert's copyrights. I am saying that being a "fan" does not give you any greater right than anybody else has to break copyright law, and that it is, therefore, wrong to criticise the copyright holder for exercising their perfectly legitimate right to protect their intellectual property.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by brecklundin

Not sure I completely agree. Say someone, maybe a relative, starts a business. The business becomes a success. The person dies and leaves the business to you. Should you loose all rights associated with the products, names and what not that belong to the business?

I see writers in the same light.

Or say a writer has a 1,000,000,000 book best seller of all time. Then 3yrs after writing it, the writer dies...then

It's not at all the same thing.
Copyright and Trade Marks are completely different things.

But, tell me, please.
When the carpenter dies after the billionth table hand made by him, what happens to his heirs?
Why should a writer be someway "superior" to a carpenter?
Does he belong to a superior race? or is the other less than human?