Dave at the Movies
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
VINTAGE D-DAY DAVE! Always cranking dat thing.
Posts: 18,224
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Post by Dave at the Movies on Feb 2, 2011 21:09:56 GMT -5
Not really. There's evidence of patent law dating back to ancient Greece, even if it wasn't called that (inventors given exclusive right to profit for X period of time). And that wasn't really a period of stifled human development, was it? There needs to be a distinction into what it actually is though. Intellectual property doesn't make it illegal for a fan to hum something to themselves. It makes it illegal to record and release an album with someone else's song without their permission. It doesn't stop someone from writing a fanfic, it prevents someone from trying to make money off of those characters by publishing it. If a person is really an artist, then they really don't need to steal someone elses' characters or songs. That's not restricting the flow of ideas, it's just telling people that they have to come up with their own characters and can't piggyback off of someone else's (unless they fall under fair use). They can still rip the hell off of it, they just can't try to make it official. Patent law is a different animal and, in my opinion, one that should be greatly reformed. Originally, it was designed to allow inventors to exclusive profits from their inventions for a set period of time. Meaning, they had to have an actual invention. Another inventor could come up with a different device to do the same thing and they wouldn't be subject to patents. A patent was for a particular invention. That way, research and development was promoted, because people could actually spend more than just spare time working on something but every development didn't shut off all avenues of further development in the same way. Now, patents can be filed for extremely vague ideas without any working prototypes, even without anything novel (patents have been filed for the comb-over). That's what really needs to be reformed. I get what your saying about characters and songs and keeping people from making money off it. At the same time though it is a slippery slope. Ripping something off even though your just changing the names in the story is still "stealing" intellectual property. I'm just making the argument that it isn't very practical to think you can protect an idea no matter what laws are made. The biggest thing about intellectual property that I think is just absurd is parody. So if it is funny it is allowed just because some bureaucrat said so?
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Post by Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!! on Feb 2, 2011 21:14:17 GMT -5
Intellectual property would only go away if people stopped producing art. if you create something, it's yours. as well as it should be. and calling someone greedy or whiney because their property is being stolen smacks of self-entitlement. Intellectual property is still a pretty new concept as far as society goes. In my opinion I don't believe in it. I don't think someone can own an idea. Once an idea is out it is out. Can you force people not to tell a joke you made up or sing a song you wrote? Can you force them not to copy a cd which is their physical property which does exist? I agree that using another persons specific idea to gain money can be a low thing to do. Look at it this way though. What if the first person to build a car said no one else can build a car because it is there idea? Technically it is the same thing. If intellectual property existed as a natural law the advancement if society would be very slow. but it isn't the idea alone that makes it an intellectual property. it's the existence of that idea in a tangible form that does. I mean, anyone can come up with "dark crusader fights crime to avenge his murdered parents" or "children's card game gets taken WAY too seriously" but they can't make money marketing it as "Batman" or "Yugi-oh". I think you should better define what you mean by "intellectual property".
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Dave at the Movies
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
VINTAGE D-DAY DAVE! Always cranking dat thing.
Posts: 18,224
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Post by Dave at the Movies on Feb 2, 2011 21:26:07 GMT -5
Intellectual property is still a pretty new concept as far as society goes. In my opinion I don't believe in it. I don't think someone can own an idea. Once an idea is out it is out. Can you force people not to tell a joke you made up or sing a song you wrote? Can you force them not to copy a cd which is their physical property which does exist? I agree that using another persons specific idea to gain money can be a low thing to do. Look at it this way though. What if the first person to build a car said no one else can build a car because it is there idea? Technically it is the same thing. If intellectual property existed as a natural law the advancement if society would be very slow. but it isn't the idea alone that makes it an intellectual property. it's the existence of that idea in a tangible form that does. I mean, anyone can come up with "dark crusader fights crime to avenge his murdered parents" or "children's card game gets taken WAY too seriously" but they can't make money marketing it as "Batman" or "Yugi-oh". I think you should better define what you mean by "intellectual property". Well that is the problem. What is the real definition and how much of an idea does it cover? Why shouldn't dark crusader fights bad guys to avenge his dead parents be protected? There have been lawsuits over two different stories before where the plaintiff won even though it was really just the basic plot that was used. So plots aren't protected? That is my argument. Where does intellectual property begin and end? If it can't be all ideas then what is intellectual property? Just a protection of some ideas?
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Post by Red Impact on Feb 2, 2011 21:38:50 GMT -5
What lawsuits are you referring to? I know of two cases, neither of which went to court so we can't say one way or the other if they would have been won.
As far as plot goes, it is a gray area. There have been a ton of derivative works based on basic sci-fi, fantasy, drama, etc. plots. Those themselves aren't protected. If anything does get that protection, it tends to be a unique idea and I don't personally agree with that unless there's more to it than the basic idea (ie: they ripped off story and characters or such).
Parody and other fair use is for work that is designed to promote criticism of a subject. The purpose of copyright law is to prevent someone else from making money off of someone else's work. When someone is claiming fair use, it's because what they're producing wasn't made to be a substitute of that work, but to make a separate message. Since they're not designed to compete, it's deemed that it's fair to use.
And what ultimately should and shouldn't be protected is, I think, a different subject from "should we have it?" I think the latter is yes, because if artists and inventors can't get credit or benefit from their work, then it's quite likely that it's going to be stifled. If you want to promote creativity and invention, you have to be willing to grant them some protection. Otherwise, many of our inventions wouldn't exist now.
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Dave at the Movies
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
VINTAGE D-DAY DAVE! Always cranking dat thing.
Posts: 18,224
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Post by Dave at the Movies on Feb 2, 2011 22:16:50 GMT -5
What lawsuits are you referring to? I know of two cases, neither of which went to court so we can't say one way or the other if they would have been won. As far as plot goes, it is a gray area. There have been a ton of derivative works based on basic sci-fi, fantasy, drama, etc. plots. Those themselves aren't protected. If anything does get that protection, it tends to be a unique idea and I don't personally agree with that unless there's more to it than the basic idea (ie: they ripped off story and characters or such). Parody and other fair use is for work that is designed to promote criticism of a subject. The purpose of copyright law is to prevent someone else from making money off of someone else's work. When someone is claiming fair use, it's because what they're producing wasn't made to be a substitute of that work, but to make a separate message. Since they're not designed to compete, it's deemed that it's fair to use. And what ultimately should and shouldn't be protected is, I think, a different subject from "should we have it?" I think the latter is yes, because if artists and inventors can't get credit or benefit from their work, then it's quite likely that it's going to be stifled. If you want to promote creativity and invention, you have to be willing to grant them some protection. Otherwise, many of our inventions wouldn't exist now. That is back to my original argument. An idea can't be protected because it is not in physical form. Being critical of someone eleses work is making money off that work. You really don't think Scary Movie and all the rest of those aren't stealing even if it is stealing from a comedy and using the exact same jokes? I'll do an example. Vanilla Ice got sued because his song ice ice baby used a similar sound pattern as Queen's Under Pressure. If I remember right Ice lost and had to pay. Now tell me this. How many times have you heard the same guitar riff in different songs. It how about just the guitar? Are guitar rifts not protected? In a perfect world maybe intellectual property can exist as a natural law. But it isn't a perfect world and intellectual property has too much of a slippery slope and it has become impractical to think that anyone can protect an idea especially in the computer age.
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Post by Red Impact on Feb 2, 2011 22:34:15 GMT -5
Scary Movie and Epic Movie aren't parodies off each other (and they have at least some of the same writers at that, you can't steal from yourself), they're parodies of scary movies and disaster movies/superhero movies. The point is that parody and satire are ultimately valuable forms of expressions that have to reference and use existing ideas, and are subsequently so different from the original that they're not going to be substituted. Scary Movie and Epic Movie wouldn't be compared in court, Scream and Scary Movie would be. And it's not just "we're playing it for laughs" that's the reason they're protected, but that's an entire legal discussion and I'm not a lawyer.
Yeah, it is going to be at least in some part arbitrary. But that's life. The question is, do you want to promote the creation of new work or hinder it. Most of our laws have some arbitrary component to them.
Forgive me, but I'm actually not going to answer your example. Not because I don't think it's valid, but because my music knowledge is actually very limited.
For the second part, ultimately, if someone is making money off of something, it's not going to be that hard to bring up copyright infringement suits against them. Someone has to sign the checks, someone has to receive them, so they can be found. No, it surely isn't likely that every amateur writer on the internet is going to get a cease and desist letter for their fanfiction, but that doesn't make the concept of intellectual property wrong.
Natural law isn't exactly cut in stone either. Just because one society deemed something "natural law" (which often differs from society to society) doesn't mean it has basis in societies laws.
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Dave at the Movies
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
VINTAGE D-DAY DAVE! Always cranking dat thing.
Posts: 18,224
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Post by Dave at the Movies on Feb 2, 2011 22:48:50 GMT -5
I get what you are saying and agree to a point. I like the idea of intellectual property but my ultimate argument is that I don't think it will last in a digital age.
I think people will try to make it last but we have already seen small examples of people voluntarily throwing the idea out the window and still finding ways to make money with their ideas.
I could get into the political side of thus because it would help my argument but I don't want to break any forum rules.
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Post by Red Impact on Feb 2, 2011 22:55:54 GMT -5
Fair point. I can see what you're going for and you do make good points, but ultimately, I think in the professional world it will last. I don't think we're going to see the days of Hollywood adapting a book without the writer's permission. We will see fan skits on the internet, fan stories, etc., but the internet isn't as anonymous as we tend to think and once significant amounts of money start changing hands, the copyright owners are going to get involved.
We've always seen ripoffs, and people will always find ways to get around without paying for things. Those that adapt will thrive, but I don't see the entire concept disappearing.
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Dave at the Movies
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
VINTAGE D-DAY DAVE! Always cranking dat thing.
Posts: 18,224
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Post by Dave at the Movies on Feb 3, 2011 3:33:30 GMT -5
Fair point. I can see what you're going for and you do make good points, but ultimately, I think in the professional world it will last. I don't think we're going to see the days of Hollywood adapting a book without the writer's permission. We will see fan skits on the internet, fan stories, etc., but the internet isn't as anonymous as we tend to think and once significant amounts of money start changing hands, the copyright owners are going to get involved. We've always seen ripoffs, and people will always find ways to get around without paying for things. Those that adapt will thrive, but I don't see the entire concept disappearing. Technically I don't think Hollywood is going to last as the movie capital of the world. California, especially LA, has been in deep crap for a while now economically. More and more movies are starting to be made in Vancouver and Texas. That's a whole other discussion though.
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Post by Red Impact on Feb 3, 2011 12:45:00 GMT -5
Movies being filmed outside of California is pretty common place, Hollywood is just the blanket term for the major motion picture production in this country.
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Dave at the Movies
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
VINTAGE D-DAY DAVE! Always cranking dat thing.
Posts: 18,224
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Post by Dave at the Movies on Feb 3, 2011 13:58:19 GMT -5
Movies being filmed outside of California is pretty common place, Hollywood is just the blanket term for the major motion picture production in this country. I know but the taxes are getting extremely high and I wouldn't be surprised if one of the major studios makes the move to Vancouver or somewhere like that.
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Post by YAKMAN is ICHIBAN on Feb 3, 2011 14:54:30 GMT -5
1. All the challenges facing IP law mentioned in this thread only apply to copyrights, not trademark and patent law.
2. Copyright law is going nowhere. These are challenges to overcome, not deathblows.
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