dagblog - Comments for "Your New Year's Public Domain Report: 2013"

Right. Weird Al never

Doctor Cleveland — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 22:52:17 +0000

In reply to Though, in many cases they

Right. Weird Al never actually relies on his first-amendment right to parody, but always pays for permissions. The obvious reason is that this is easier (and cheaper) than being sued.

Where the line is drawn in practice is significantly more favorable to plaintiffs (i.e. big corporations with lots of copyrights) than the actual letter of the law. Because being sued is expensive in its own right, so people fear giving anyone grounds for even a crappy lawsuit. (If someone sues you and loses, you still lose a lot of money in legal fees.)

Look, Woody Allen totally has the legal right to have one of his fictional characters quote a famous line by a famous writer. But Faulkner's estate is suing Sony pictures because on of the characters in Midnight in Paris quotes Faulkner, by name. And so Sony pictures has to defend itself in court.

That's Ms. Ol' Meat Dress to

MrSmith1 — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 22:27:14 +0000

In reply to Though, in many cases they

That's Ms. Ol' Meat Dress to you ...

Though, in many cases they

Michael Maiello — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 22:09:08 +0000

In reply to Parodists are not prevented

Though, in many cases they put constraints on themselves, or the industry constrains them. I believe that Weird Al recently killed a Lady Gaga parody because ol meat dress takes herself too seriously.

You know, lots of people have

Doctor Cleveland — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 21:28:53 +0000

In reply to Could the future of self

You know, lots of people have talked about how new technologies would weaken copyright. But copyright has actually grown much more restrictive as new technologies have emerged, with copyright covering more things and being policed much more fiercely. Things that were obviously fair use twenty-five years ago are now things that you can be sued over.

This is part of a longer historic pattern: new transmission technologies have led to an expansion of owner's legal rights. (Music copyrights became much stronger when recorded music became available, for example.)

Ownership of a painting and

zencomix — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 20:09:35 +0000

In reply to On the other hand, what does

Ownership of a painting and ownership of the copyright of an image of a painting are two different things, just like if you buy a book at a bookstore, you own the book, but that doesn't mean you own the copyright to the book.

Parodists are not prevented

zencomix — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 20:03:31 +0000

In reply to Mr. Smith, it's not just

Parodists are not prevented from using copyrighted material, see 2 Live Crew vs Roy Orbison.

Could the future of self

trkingmomoe — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:37:50 +0000

In reply to Your New Year's Public Domain Report: 2013

Could the future of self published e-books change the publishing corporations' hold on the copyrights? The reason I bring this up is because pirating on the internet did not hurt Hollywood's banner profits this year. I also know public libraries are wondering what their role will be in the future. Will copyrighted e-books owned by publishing companies be too costly for libraries to lend? How will technology change the current system?

"protecting" the "legacy"

Canuckistan — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:31:15 +0000

In reply to On the other hand, what does

"protecting" the "legacy" from... what?

There are thousands of copyright-expired works in the Louvre. They are still in the Louvre, disproving your point - whatever that was supposed to be.

Excellent points. I thank

MrSmith1 — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 17:28:21 +0000

In reply to Mr. Smith, it's not just

Excellent points. I thank you and Dr. Cleveland for giving me a better understanding of this issue.

P.S. The West Side Story analogy should use Arthur Laurents, since he wrote the book. ;-)

P.S.S. I did actually have an experience with this. When I first set out to try to write plays, I was still an actor and thought that I would try to write a play that I could 'star' in. I decided that since I had always loved the radio comedian Fred Allen, and could do a really good impression of him, that I would write a play about his life. I struggled along and eventually came up with a pretty good draft. I tried contacting his widow, who was still alive at the time, but got a very curt letter in reply from her second husband, who wrote that she was not interested in giving permission to anyone to use any of Fred's material. Fred, of course, had died in 1956, and this was probably around 1983 or 84. If the Life plus 25 years rule had applied back then ... well, I might have become the toast of Broadway. hahahaha

Right. Rip-off artists like

Doctor Cleveland — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 16:02:00 +0000

In reply to On the other hand, what does

Right. Rip-off artists like Leonard Bernstein, who plagiarized Romeo and Juliet for West Side Story, and Aaron Copland ripping off Shaker hymns.

And of course Walt Disney, who ripped off the Brothers Grimm to make Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He should never have been allowed to get away with that.

I don't think you understand at what point the corporate pricks jump into the process. They're already there. The super-long copyrights are for the corporate pricks' benefit, and they're the ones who lobbied for them.

Everyone talk about how terrible it is when works fall out of copyright, and what terrible rip-offs and bastardizations occur. What they don't do is:

1) point to any of those terrible things actually happening in the period before 1979. If having copyright last only 56 years is such a nightmare, the period from 1790 to 1979 should be full of horror stories. Where are they?

2) talk about the number of horrible bastardizations and rip-offs authorized by the license-holders. Those authorized sequels to Gone with the Wind are rip-offs. The various authorized Philip Marlowe sequels are bad ideas. Extended copyright actually made them happen.

Why is Peter Jackson's version of the The Hobbit three bloated movies? Because he is safe from competition. No one else can film that book, so no one can do it the sensible way. Maybe people would still prefer Jackson's triple-album free-jazz odyssey. But we'll never know.

Why does the only version of Long Day's Journey Into Night you can order for a college class come with an introduction by a famous scholar who 1) doesn't know anything about the play, or Eugene O'Neill, or 20th-century American drama and 2) openly dislikes the play, Eugene O'Neill, and 20th-century American drama? Because its copyright is held by a famous university, who decided to have their most famous literature professor write the intro, and no one can publish a better edition.

Why did some of Hemingway's kids just rewrite his memoir to make their mother look better? Because no one can publish the earlier version of the memoir without their permission.