[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Sorry, you're correct. But it is worth pointing out that creativity did not come to a screeching halt when the Statute of Anne went into effect.

No, but that's hardly an argument in favor of the copyright laws we have today. It didn't completely destroy everything is not a ringing endorsement.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Since you missed it, the answer is "almost everything." Do you really need me to list the names of all the history plays?

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.

Those contemporary sources would have been covered by copyright in the same way Disney's movies are today, not just the art and music but the script, drawing from anything added would be infringment.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

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.

With good lawyers and pile of money to fight the good lawyers and pile of money hollywood has a case for infringement could probably have been made, The Japanese though tend to take a different view even allowing fan based manga to be not just distributed but sold for profit.George Lucas could have also been in hot water over Star Wars,

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.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

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.

Again the question was what would he have not been able to write if he was stuck with existing copyright laws not what he would have come up with instead. The latter there's no way to know, He was drawing from everythign around him in a Walt Disney way, I don't know that either would have come up with plots on their own.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Well, I would say that a degradation of quality is one argument in favor of copyright laws.

Take a look at a fiction bestseller list and then try to tell me with a straight face that copyright law save us form low quality work.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

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?

Even footing. Disney has in the past and can right now infringe now and let the lawyers sort it out later if need be, they're a giant. Right now they can stop me or you. With a change in the law people would have the same freedom to create that corporate giants have. No citation for this one just a strong personal opinion that people should be as or more free than a corporation. I can be silly like that.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Yes, yes it does.

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.

The Harry Potter Lexicon, Lawsuits against JK Rowling claiming she ingrinfged though personally even with the crazy laws we have those seemed outrageous.

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