On the table: DRM trumps fair dealing (Canada)

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can you give a specific example of a Shakespeare play that would not have been permitted under current copyright law? He took ideas from existing works, yes, but not actual "texts". Copyright does not protect ideas.

Parts of hamlet from Histoires tragiques a translation but that would be covered by modern copyright law wikipedia dates it between 1563-1583 well within the 125ish years one can reasonably expect from something copyrighted by an adult today.

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.

[Kali Yuga]

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.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

This is going to end up like the situation with pot smoking. You get pulled over, and the officer asked you if he can search your car for "weapons". In the process, he finds your Kindle on the console, in plain open sight, and since you've already given up all your rights after allowing the search, he checks it out and finds ebooks with DRM removed (he thinks), one of the new IP laws they have to enforce.... I mean now we are (I've been hearing this lately) of jailing or even sentencing someone to what, death? for IP violations?

Wow.

Exactly how much pot do you need to smoke to come up with a straw man this big?

[Rich_D]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

The DCMA made DRM circumvention in the US a criminal act.

Many, if not most, of the users on this forum who live in the US are criminals, if they remove the drm on ebooks.

edit: (Actually, that should say that ALL of the users in the US are criminals if they remove digital locks, there is no "fair use" exemption).

Sweet! Call me mint jelly because I'm on the lam!

Although I thought the seedy underworld of the criminal life would look different than my normal life...

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Iphinome

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.....

Many of Shakespeare's inspirations were history, alleged history (e.g. Macbeth) or had origins in folk tales, thus not really bound by copyright.

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.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Wow.

Exactly how much pot do you need to smoke to come up with a straw man this big?

In the UK, we recently lost the right to a fair trial and innocence until proven guilty for file sharing. You are now presumed guilty until you can prove otherwise, and there will be a fee to pay before you can attempt to prove your innocence.

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.

[Demented]

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?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Demented

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?

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.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Demented

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?

A user can't. A court can't, in most cases. That's why all the copyright lawsuits have been based on *uploading,* not on downloading or files on someone's computer, because they can't prove a particular file isn't legit. (Even if it's got DRM that makes it unusable, because maybe that's *your* file, and the fact that you can no longer open it because you updated your computer settings doesn't make it unauthorized.)

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.

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?

They don't lose their right to prosecute, but the practicalities make it almost impossible. Also, in Tor's case, they'd have a hard time indicating monetary damages from the unauthorized copies--those ebooks aren't available at any price at the moment; they can't show how many sales they've lost because of them.

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:

Imagine someone walking up to you in 1950, handing you a book or a record or a movie reel, and saying “Quick! Do something the law of intellectual property might forbid.” (This, I admit, is a scenario only likely to come to the mind of a person in my line of work.) You would have been hard-pressed to do so. Perhaps you could find a balky mimeograph machine, or press a reel-to-reel tape recorder into use. You might manage a single unauthorized showing of the movie—though to how many people? But triggering the law of intellectual property would be genuinely difficult. Like an antitank mine, it would not be triggered by the footsteps of individuals. It was reserved for bigger game.

Now, everyone potentially violates copyright as a matter of basic online existence. (Technically, replying to an email while including a full copy of the original could be a copyright violation. Copying a FAQ question & answer from a website & forwarding it to someone could be a violation. Loading a page from your cache could be a copyright violation, if the author has removed permission.)

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.

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

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.)

You are either misinformed or making it up as you go along, the first copyright law was 1709. Also I was answering the question of what would Shakespeare not be able to write if encumbered by today's copyright laws.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

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.

So I take it your argument is that uses that can be censored at the whim of the copyright tyrants are good enough because most people out there won't meet your subjective standards of what's good anyway?

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

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.

People like Shakespeare? Walt god i hate him for what Mickey Mouse has done to the world Disney? The Brother's Grimm? Andy Warhol painting soup- cans? You can't honestly think a story a painting or a movie pops in out of nowhere. Everything builds on what came before.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Iphinome

You are either misinformed or making it up as you go along, the first copyright law was 1709....

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.

Originally Posted by Iphinome

Also I was answering the question of what would Shakespeare not be able to write if encumbered by today's copyright laws.

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Iphinome

So I take it your argument is that uses that can be censored at the whim of the copyright tyrants are good enough because most people out there won't meet your subjective standards of what's good anyway?

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

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?

Originally Posted by Iphinome

People like Shakespeare? Walt god i hate him for what Mickey Mouse has done to the world Disney? The Brother's Grimm? Andy Warhol painting soup- cans? You can't honestly think a story a painting or a movie pops in out of nowhere. Everything builds on what came before.

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.

[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

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Iphinome

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.

True. But the massive volume of content created in, say, the last 50 years is a pretty good indication that something is working.

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....

Originally Posted by iphinome

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.

Again correct, but anything derived from historical or folk sources -- i.e. most of it -- would be fair game. Or he'd just license it or work around it.

Originally Posted by iphinome

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....

The point is that even with contemporary copyright, artists are still able to do adaptations; adaptations are downright routine, especially books to movies (and vice versa). Meanwhile, Star Wars was clearly inspired by Hidden Fortress, but is nowhere near close enough to qualify as a copyright violation. Your interpretation of the powers of copyright are in excess of even the alleged "copyright tyrants."

Originally Posted by iphinome

Cover versions of songs are covered by statutory licenses.

Yep, and protected by copyright, and copyright hasn't stopped musicians from being inspired by other musicians -- in fact many openly acknowledge their inspirations. Sampling, on the other hand, is not a free-for-all; you need permission and you have to pay whatever the copyright holder demands. Again, it hasn't strangled hip-hop.

Originally Posted by iphinome

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....

Right, which is why I pointed out that most of his sources were historical and folk tales, or (if done today) could involve licensing or modification.

But really, the societies in question are so different in so many ways that the inquiry is basically pointless.

Originally Posted by iphinome

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.

Why do I need to restrict myself to the best-seller list? Every era produces junk, we are just not likely to read mediocre 16th century plays unless we're very curious or a scholar. Meanwhile, I could name thousands upon thousands of artworks and texts of outstanding quality whose creators deal with, rely on, or prefer to utilize, copyright protection.

Originally Posted by iphinome

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.

Uh huh. The fact that they don't rampantly violate copyright, and do occasionally get sued for infringement (sometimes with merit, sometimes without) pretty much invalidates this assertion.

Originally Posted by iphinome

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

I assume you mean "the lawsuit against the HPL seems outrageous." Some claims were excessive, but the ruling actually made sense. She never went after the site or non-commercial uses; she only wanted to stop the commercial use of her work. The court ruling preserved fair use and recognized that authors cannot halt or control reference works relating to their work. The ruling went against the book because the HPL took too much verbatim from the original texts and was not sufficiently transformative. Thus Vander Ark can, and apparently is, rewriting the Lexicon for publication.

Originally Posted by iphinome

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

An "appropriation artist" refers to a fairly specific type of conceptual artist who use other artists' works to make their own. Sometimes this is done to comment on the art itself, other times not so much. In many cases the artist is simply ignorant of copyright law, and is cloning the original material in no small part for a commercial purpose.

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.

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

True. But the massive volume of content created in, say, the last 50 years is a pretty good indication that something is working.

Not really. Larger populations, higher standards of living, more free time in which to create, more mediums available to use are all arguments I could use for why there's more content now. Neither of us knows however what would have happened if copyright terms were shorter, the rules were more lax or there was no copyright at all. The correlation-causation thing, we can't really know so this paticular argument isn't going to get it anywhere.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

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....

Again not really a justification. I could bring out the oft used buggy whip example. Just because some people are making money off of a system isn't justification for said system.

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.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Again correct, but anything derived from historical or folk sources -- i.e. most of it -- would be fair game. Or he'd just license it or work around it.



The point is that even with contemporary copyright, artists are still able to do adaptations; adaptations are downright routine, especially books to movies (and vice versa). Meanwhile, Star Wars was clearly inspired by Hidden Fortress, but is nowhere near close enough to qualify as a copyright violation. Your interpretation of the powers of copyright are in excess of even the alleged "copyright tyrants."



Yep, and protected by copyright, and copyright hasn't stopped musicians from being inspired by other musicians -- in fact many openly acknowledge their inspirations. Sampling, on the other hand, is not a free-for-all; you need permission and you have to pay whatever the copyright holder demands. Again, it hasn't strangled hip-hop.



Right, which is why I pointed out that most of his sources were historical and folk tales, or (if done today) could involve licensing or modification.

Here I think we have our wires crossed. Music has some laws that other works don't. Yes sampling required permission but a cover just has a set fee based on the length of the song no permission required. Shakespeare couldn't just do his cover version of Romeo and Juliet because a license could be denied. Just license it isn't a valid argument when the right holder can say no. If there were set rates so that anyone could just pay it might lessen the tyranny of copyright.

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.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

But really, the societies in question are so different in so many ways that the inquiry is basically pointless.

A question was asked, I answered and provided what sources I could find. If you have an issue with the original question I'm not the one to take it up with.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Why do I need to restrict myself to the best-seller list? Every era produces junk, we are just not likely to read mediocre 16th century plays unless we're very curious or a scholar. Meanwhile, I could name thousands upon thousands of artworks and texts of outstanding quality whose creators deal with, rely on, or prefer to utilize, copyright protection.

No need to restrict yourself I just named it as a ready source for crap, by all means feel free to search elsewhere for garbage or gems. My only point was copyright does equal quality so the arugment that quality would go down without copyright doesn't have merit.

Unless... No I don't see how it could get worse... please don't let me see how it could get worse. Have mercy.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Uh huh. The fact that they don't rampantly violate copyright, and do occasionally get sued for infringement (sometimes with merit, sometimes without) pretty much invalidates this assertion.

They don't? Disney became famous by remaking a Buster Keaton movie without permission and replacing Keaton with an anthropomorphic mouse. Are you trying to tell me these corporations give a damn about any copyrights except the ones they own? When bootleggers sell a bunch of unauthorized cds or dvds its considered criminal, why should they be treated worse than the studios who's worst case outcome is a cash payout less than their profits after a long legal battle.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

I assume you mean "the lawsuit against the HPL seems outrageous." Some claims were excessive, but the ruling actually made sense. She never went after the site or non-commercial uses; she only wanted to stop the commercial use of her work. The court ruling preserved fair use and recognized that authors cannot halt or control reference works relating to their work. The ruling went against the book because the HPL took too much verbatim from the original texts and was not sufficiently transformative. Thus Vander Ark can, and apparently is, rewriting the Lexicon for publication.

You asked about people who were busted for infringement for a derivative work. Does that case not qualify?

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

An "appropriation artist" refers to a fairly specific type of conceptual artist who use other artists' works to make their own. Sometimes this is done to comment on the art itself, other times not so much. In many cases the artist is simply ignorant of copyright law, and is cloning the original material in no small part for a commercial purpose.

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.

Again I wasn't arguing the merits of the case just providing an example of derivative work being stopped. If you want to argue the case I could try but I'm not a lawyer.

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.

[guyanonymous]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

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.)

I'd argue that shorter makes more sense now, as changes in society/technology/the arts happen so much more rapidly now; additionally, the market (population, ability to ship cheaply and quickly, etc) have all grown allowing a creator to make more money, at the same or lower prices, by selling to more people.