Remember, the only reason we can still watch the highly influential 1922 vampire movie Nosferatu today is because some people didn’t destroy all their copies despite a court saying they had to.
Even with several details altered, Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaptation, and a court ruling ordered all copies of the film to be destroyed. However, several prints of Nosferatu survived, and the film came to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema and the horror genre.
The author in question here was pretty shitty. He wrote his own sequel to called “Fellowship of the King”, and then sued Amazon and the Tolkien estate saying they stole elements from his book. He lost, and the Tolkien estate countersued.
The guy played stupid games and won stupid prizes.
Some older dutch movies were released as rentals to the theaters that had to be returned after they stopped playing the movie. These copies were all destroyed and re-releases on DVD now look worse than what it looked like in movie theatres.
The good news is that some theatres hung on to some movies.
I don’t know how many might be still be around, but I know for a couple of movies where they are. I don’t think they have been properly archived and/or converted to digital media yet. I would like to see if there are people in The Netherlands that can do these things and if the current owners of the rolls of film are willing to.
You can’t just extend copyright indefinitely. It’s not like a patent, where you can make minute changes and claim it’s a new product. The original works have a copyright limit of 95 years after the first date of publish (thanks Disney and other corporate lobbyists).
If we go by The Return of the King, it was published in 1955. That means the words, the story, the settings, and the characters will be public domain in 2050. Steamboat Willie, on the other hand, was published in 1928. That means it expires at the end of this year. Unless Disney can convince Congress to change copyright law again, these copyrights all have hard expiration dates.
ETA: Disney might have a case where they can claim copyright on the information they added or changed from the original works, just like how they can still claim copyright over Mickey after losing Steamboat Willie.
And I’m sure they will, because fuck society, amirite? /s
Works made for hire are 95 years from publication. LotR is not a work for hire, so it goes by life of the author plus 75 years. It goes public domain in 2044.
I think an argument could be made to set it to the date of death of the author. I agree with the other guy that it should only apply to commercial works though.
I also don’t think that the copyright should be transferable. The trading of ideas is an absurd concept to me. But then us humans do a lot of absurd things so I guess it’s just par for the course.
not exactly. You can of course still get existing works by pirating them.
But if the Tolkien works entered the public domain, anyone could use them for any creative purposes freely. And yes, a lot of the new material would be trash. But some excellent works would appear to.
A good example of this is Lovecraft’s works and the Cthulhu Mythos, that although not public domain until recent years, Lovecraft encouraged others to use his own creations on their own stories, thus expanding the literary universe of his own creation. Some stories are awful, but there has also been a ton of great works based on Lovecraft’s creations that couldn’t have existed otherwise.
Also Sherlock Holmes. Now, the BBC might have done a terrible job, but a lot of other people have written great stories because Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain
Another character in the public domain is Zeus, and the rest of his family. Liked Disney’s Hercules? Supergiant’s Hades? Netflix’s Blood of Zeus? Riordan’s Percy Jackson? Only possible because of public domain.
Well how else are we supposed to encourage people to be related to people who develop intellectual property? It makes sense from a neponomic standpoint.
Believe it or not, some people do work extra hard in order to ensure their descendants have an easy life. I’m not weighing in on whether that is wise or not but it is definitely a thing.
Yeah, and that’s why white people are richer than black people today, even though slavery ostensibly ended 200 years ago. It’s time that we outlaw this behaviour.
you’re gonna get downvoted but no amount of downvotes will change the fact that black people weren’t allowed to own things in america until most things were already owned by white people.
Honestly I don’t really care, I’m more inclined to strategy and 4x games.
If you don mind me recommending a game, check out against the storm, it’s a city builder with rogue like elements, and it came out recently out of early access, it’s reaaaaally addicting
The books go into public domain in 20 years. Now that Christopher Tolkien is out of the way (who tended to block a lot of stuff, for better or worse) , the current heirs want as much out of it as they can.
20 years might sound like a lot, but that’s about as much time as between the Peter Jackson movies and now.
Tbh they seem to be a lot more “hands off” with non-canon stuff, which I think includes all of the LOTR/middle earth licensed games, and that’s not a bad thing imo.
Should copyright for works that old be expired? Yes!
In the actual world we live in, was this guy ever going to avoid being sued so hard that his grandchildren will be embarrassed for him? No!
You've got to admire the lemming-like devotion to the legal cliff he threw himself off though. Writing a sequel to not only a copyright work, but one that is still in the cultural zeitgeist thanks to a 20-year old wildly successful series of films? Ballsy. Subsequently suing one of the largest companies in the world and the estate that produced the original works as infringing his copyright?
Honestly, I’m surprised he wasn’t embarrassed to claim that any part of that tedious shitheap of storytelling that Amazon produced had been lifted from his work.
The few episodes of that ridiculous black-hole of entertainment are the only things I have ever watched where I truly wanted those hours of my life back.
You felt much more strongly about it than me then. I just found myself not caring about it in the slightest; the only thing I really felt was boredom. Which is arguably the worst possible outcome for any work of art.
I mean, Game of Thrones season 8 made me feel that I’m never watching any content related to it ever again. Not sure they really wanted that kind of hate.
“The Fellowship of the King” title is a combination of the titles of the first book in the LOTR trilogy “The Fellowship of the Ring” and the third book “The Return of the King”.
“The Two Trees” title is similar to the second book in the LOTR trilogy “The Two Towers”
Yeah, this guy didn’t have a leg to stand on. There’s an independently owned cafe opposite sarhole mill (inspiration for “the shire”) on the street JRR Tolkien grew up on called “the hungry hobbit”. It’s been called that since 2005 - before the release of the hobbit film. A production company sued this tiny sandwich shop, sitting on a roundabout 3 miles south of Birmingham for the unauthorised use of the word “hobbit”. That was completely egregious imo. It’s now called “the hungry hobb” - they just took down the last two letters on the sign. I really should grab a sandwich from them one day.
There are 309 million possible ways to combine 6 letters. I would wager only a few million are even remotely pronounceable. The notion that someone can claim a bunch of those words and prevent other people from using them, even in unrelated areas, is completely absurd. There are over 8 billion people on this planet, words get reused. They should just fucking deal with it.
A word isn’t a thought. Thoughts are unique, but a word can be arrived at independently in several different ways by the sea spelled with a C, you see.
I get your point but in this case it’s not JRR Tolkiens estate who’s claiming copyright infringement, it’s a random production company in Sweden or something. A production company in an entirely different country with no real ties to JRRT has decided an independent cafe built on the same street as Tolkien grew up on, opposite the mill he used as inspiration, is harming their asset somehow by calling themselves the hungry hobbit.
Unfortunately, you can sue anyone for any bogus reason you want. And if you have more money than whoever you’re suing, it doesn’t matter how frivolous it is, because you can just bankrupt them by forcing them to pay lawyer fees.
That’s precisely what happened here. The place had been called the hungry hobbit for years under multiple owners. The current owner bought it, updated some official paperwork and within the first 6 months of her ownership got hit with the “unauthorised usage” bs. She couldn’t afford to fight it. Thankfully the “hungry hobb” is still doing enough business to stay open 12 years later.
When it happened I thought the typeface was the issue rather than the word hobbit. But no.Here’s before and this is after. I can’t get my head around the fact that the production company sued this tiny sandwich shop. It’s so ridiculous!
Really where was it used?
Found it but no it was not. One line in one book from 1895 “The whole earth was overrun with ghosts, boggles … hobbits, hobgoblins."
So still think it’s very unlikely it was a word that anyone knew before the Hobbit.
Ballsy? He’s an outright copyright troll and anyone celebrating him here in the comments should read the article…
He wrote a knockoff book and then tried to claim Tolkien’s characters as his own and sue his estate? Does nobody remember the days of BS software patent trolls trying to claim they invented “the app” or “method for clicking on things with the mouse cursor?” Do we remember how mad we were at those shysters?
I read through the article but it doesn’t seem to specify the nature of the book. How do we know it’s a “knock off”? It might very well be fanfiction. Copyright law aside, fanfiction can be original and is a valid artistic expression.
This is quite a nuanced issue. The author is claiming that the Rings of Power copied his ideas. Even if the author didn’t have the legal right to publish this book, he might have put original ideas into his work, and the Tolkien Estate should not automatically own these. The copyright owner “should” (within the current legal framework) be able to make you take down your derivative work, but they don’t own it. The article doesn’t specify why the original lawsuit was dismissed.
I mean we all know what about clickbait and titles. The headline here is a perfect example. Because it makes it seem like Gary oldman wasn’t getting offers potentially for movies or didn’t have opportunities for movies. And he was worried about going under or not being able to support himself etc etc. But if you read the actual article, it’s made very clear that he wasn’t sparse for opportunity as an actor, but rather these movies gave him an opportunity to be with his children more while they were all going through a very rough time and still earn an income presumably to support their lifestyle and this is what he feels saved him personally.
Gary oldman is a good dad. And it seems like he wanted to put that first and foremost. Which I think is wonderful. I was raised by a father who was given soul custody of his kids during a very messy divorce. And now that I’m older i can see how much sacrifice he made for me and my sister. Cool that gary oldman seems willing to do the same for his kids.
The title does not need to be a quote to give you information about the article. They use the quote out of context specifically to twist it slightly and get more clicks.
Asking a question as a separated dad which I think I know the answer to. I get my kids every other week. Outside of that I also take them one on one (I have 3 of which 2 are special needs) when it isn’t my week. I have no idea why my ex doesn’t do the same. She comments I never have alone time because I’m using my week off from them, but I love my kids and they deserve one on one time. They also never leave my house early when the week is up but they’re always eager to come to my house even when it’s not time to show up yet.
I’ve always assumed it will pay off in the long run and they’re aware.
As a kid who survived through this maybe not special needs. But a kid who’s arrived through this. The best you can do is just show them how much you love and care for them no matter what. That will mean the world to them. Also, just hope your ex-whaterver e isn’t a bitch who warps and twists your kid’s minds. Cuz I don’t say this lightly. My dad with the way the court systems are was not awarded full custody lightly. The court system in America very much prefers the mother. And my mother was a crazy psychotic bitch who made me go to a fucking two week inpatient facility because she fucked up my head so bad. But my dad is the greatest thing I’ve ever had and he is caring and he has sacrificed more than I think anyone will ever know. And for all of that I said the best you can do is just put love first. Because love is what ultimately prevailed for my father despite my mother’s twisted fucked up words
Look, I agree his works shouldn’t be destroyed, just not monetizable.
But the dude poked a bear with a sharp stick… Suing the creators of the story/characters you’ve built your content on for copyright infringement? Brilliant move…
However; simply disagreeing with reality doesn’t change it.
But; go ahead and continue to personally attack strangers on the internet instead of actually working towards the change you want to see. I’m sure it’ll be effective.
Working toward change, but not making normative statements or highlighting problems in rationale. Obviously a real copyright reformist goes around tutting at those “semantics” while parroting the status quo.
You don’t think that for the copyright laws to change we also need to change how we view it? How could you be properly critical of the copyright law if you refuse to make the distinction necessary for a certain type of criticism?
I get the “that’s not how the world is” argument, but you can’t talk about how the world could/should be by using only the word that describe the current state of the world. If you want to be critical of the existing system you need to develop a vocabulary that allows for such criticism.
For instance if you don’t make the distinction between the creator and copyright holder you can’t make criticism such as “you shouldn’t be able to copyright works that you haven’t created”. You can’t tell the difference between copyright owned by the creator and copyright owned by copyright owner because those two people are indistinguishable, so the entire criticism becomes nonsense.
If the estate had gone after the author, this would be a very different conversation; but that’s not what happened. The author chose to involve Tolkiens estate, knowing the current climate around copyright.
I struggle to find sympathy for that.
Then you add on direct personal insults instead of constructive conversation and I completely check out. It’s not worth my energy to have a discussion with such people.
You’ve clearly already checked out considering I’m not even the person who insulted you. Here’s an idea, maybe don’t partake in conversations you’re not going to bother to even pay attention. I guarantee you’ll automatically come across as less of an asshole.
There is no Marvel fatigue. There is no superhero saturation. What there is, is simply trash. Make a shit superhero movie and the movie will just be shit. It has nothing to do with there being superheroes.
Hollywood doesn’t get it. People don’t seem to get it either. But these phases are just repeating itself. It used to be cowboys. It used to be cops. Then pirates. It used to be sword and sandals.
Cowboy movies are fun. So are pirate movies and superhero movies. If they’re made well!
The moment some execs look at a bunch of numbers and think “Oh, people will pay money to see X”, THAT is when things go wrong. No, people pay to see good movies. And Marvel used to be hype when they made good movies.
Youre mostly right but personally there is definitely superhero fatigue. I used to watch most marvel movies but nowadays the formula is sort of played out.
For me it isn’t superhero fatigue as much as “oh, I’ve seen the same story a dozen times now” and “I don’t even know this superhero, why does he need a Netflix show?” fatigue. The writers seem to run out of ideas and just milk the same formula again and again.
And at the same time you get something like the new animated Spiderman movies which are a dope, super fresh new take that is oozing creativity out of every frame.
they also do some of the shenanigans that made people annoyed back in my comic book days. My brother saw the iron man movies but not the avengers. So he was lost at what was going on with stark in the movie after the avengers. So because he had not seen another movie it made that one bad for him.
Not to mention every tv show thus far has basically been 10 episodes of padding, and 1 or 2 important plot points for future experiences. I won’t watch Echo, but I’ll look at the wiki afterwards to see what I missed. I watched episode 1 of Loki s2 and I’m considering doing the same now that the finale has aired. They’re all unimportant drivel, coasting off the brand name.
That’s what I’ve been telling people. My friends and I would religiously go the theatre nearly every Friday as adults. Pandemic hit and we obviously stopped, but once stuff started opening again, we went to see a couple movies but the quality has drastically dropped. We assumed it’s because we were coming out of the pandemic and stuff had been put on hold. In 2023, that excuse shouldn’t still hold up. Good writing didn’t stop during the pandemic, just production.
“ I could do the least amount of work for the most amount of money and then be home with the kids.” Gary Oldman and I share the same philosophy about work.
Actually, he won it for playing Churchill in The Darkest Hour.
Although I do believe Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy should have won all kinds of awards. And that includes Oldman for doing the nearly impossible as George Smiley: reprising a truly iconic Alec Guinness role and actually making it his own.
EDIT: well it took me a minute to catch your real meaning.
Well, least amount of work for him. He always brings his A-game from what I’ve seen, but a nice payday for a fraction of the number of days worked is nice!
The thing about these ones is that he is a side character for multiple movies. Both series had large casts and he was a key component to small sections of each. Large pay for little work is ideal. It’s not that he didn’t go all in. Just went all in for less time.
Definitely agree, but then I want to see a movie where he went all in for a bigger part of it. I have gotten some good suggestions, that I will ad to the list.
I’ve never thought about about it but I don’t think Gordon is in the first movie all that much. They’re just little scenes here and there, really.
He’s at his desk with a stapler. He’s at the docks for ten seconds. He takes out the trash once. The batmobile scene. And the end when he plays with the batmobiles rockets. Aren’t those the major scenes with him? I’m curious now.
Either way he even says he worked for less than a month on it. That’s pretty cool.
That and Bram Stokers Dracula were my introductions to him and some of my favorite characters to this day. He just completely owns the roles and defines the characters in ways nobody else can. He can be completely over the top and at the same time be completely believable. Gary Oldman is a great fuckin actor and any movie he's in automatically gets chance from me.
Copyright’s explicit purpose is to encourage new works.
Any form of “unpublishing” is theft from the public. You wanna say a guy can’t make money on a thing? Great, fine, go nuts. But nothing any human being put effort into deserves to be lost forever.
Yes, copyright exists to encourage new works - which the author ignored by creating content violating copyright law. Never mind the public, this dude stole from the copyright holders. He’s a pirate and he got caught.
It’s mind boggling how anyone could possibly consider otherwise. Aside from your own life, there’s nothing more belonging to oneself than their thoughts.
Once you share your thought, they are no longer yours alone, and the thoughts they spark in others are, in some ways, both yours and theirs. Or, if you prefer to hear it another way, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
This entire sub is delusional. You believe in things which are untrue. You make things up to justify theft. It’s funny and it’s sad. I really don’t know where you get these irrational theories or how you’d ever justify them in a court.
If you want to live in literal communism, sure, you can establish that any idea anyone expresses belongs to the world. In the world we actually live in, we have laws protecting people’s intellectual property in order for them to generate content and profit from those original ideas. Otherwise, what’s the point of having an idea at all if anyone can make money from it. This further promotes new original ideas that aren’t derivative of existing ones. This is exactly what the OP stated and I agreed with.
Every now and then I see threads like this on lemmy where people are getting downvoted into negatives despite being objectively correct about something (and the wrong info being upvoted). I think there may be a lot of very young, inexperienced, naive, and gullible children here. At least I hope they’re children.
No there is new work that has been done that you are reducing to “piracy”. As if intellectual and creative processes ever could take place in a vacuum. The only contradiction is that copyright laws as a concept do nothing than stifle innovation and progress. If you do not like how anyone can profit from other people’s ideas you should maybe rethink your stance on monetisation schemes in general instead.
True. To throw my opinion into the mix, if the Rings of Power show did actually copy from his work, they should look to partner with Demetrious instead of all this nonsense. I agree he legally can’t profit off the IP of the Tolkien estate as laws stand, but copywrite also lasts far longer than it has any good reason to. It should be the author’s lifetime plus a decade or so. Finally, it is an affront to creativity everywhere to order the destruction of all physical and electronic copies. That should not happen. Ever.
I’m not getting into how long a copyright should last. I don’t have a meaningful opinion on it.
What it seems people are overlooking (or forgiving?) is that the guy published a book about characters (IP) he doesn’t own. Taking something that doesn’t belong to you is theft.
Whether or not Amazon should option his material is irrelevant if he didn’t get permission to use it in the first place. I mean, fan fiction is one thing. Creative license and educational purposes could be argued. But he published a freaking book!
Do you think Zack Snyder should get to put out a Rebel Moon and call it “Rebel Moon: A Star Wars Story” without getting permission or paying for licensing? Is this the reality this sub believes we live in? If you write a novel and I read it and soon start writing better more successful stories based explicitly on your characters without crediting you or sharing in my profit, how would you feel? Should your work be public domain? Is that what you (collective) feel is best for “the public”?
I don’t really have an opinion on what should happen with the work either. I could see some cases where it would be a major loss for the public to have the work erased. This could be catastrophic for classic literature. For something so new and not having any established cultural significance (as much as you wish it did), I’d go with whatever a judge believes is best under the law. You’re welcome to argue the validity of the law, and I may agree with you, but that’s a different conversation.
Taking something that doesn’t belong to you is theft.
This is the point I wanted to contend and is the main premise I disagree with. In my opinion, nothing was taken, at most borrowed, by the author of the book.
But he published a freaking book!
Yes, is it not great?
Do you think Zack Snyder should get to put out a Rebel Moon and call it “Rebel Moon: A Star Wars Story” without getting permission or paying for licensing?
In my dreams, yes.
Is this the reality this sub believes we live in? If you write a novel and I read it and soon start writing better more successful stories based explicitly on your characters without crediting you or sharing in my profit, how would you feel?
I would be fucking thrilled to be honest. If someone not only cited my research, but actually improved on it I would schedule a meeting to talk with them ASAP.
Should your work be public domain? Is that what you (collective) feel is best for “the public”?
YES. Everything that is published should be publicly available as default. I understand that this would require another method for financing those that actually make new stuff, but that is something that is sorely needed anyway. What usually happens is that the actual creators are left with pennies while legal entities own IP almost indefinitely.
Also, I want to add that had IP laws always been what they are today, much great work from the past (that is now enjoying protection by copyright) could not have existed. I also ask how say the dwarves in Tolkien’s tales could be copyrighted when they are based on stories about dwarves from Norse mythology?
TL;DR there was a special time when all work got copyrighted into oblivion. It has to end so that humanity can create more cool new stuff just as we did back then.
I mean it deserves to be lost forever in that it has no artistic or ideological merit. Mein Kampf deserves to be lost. But we deserve to keep it as a warning so that we do not repeat history. But if humanity could grow to the point that such warnings are never needed again, and if the book could be forgotten due to losing all present and future relevance, that would be a good thing. What a thing deserves is sometimes different to what is necessary or good.
I’m guessing the fact that no one could even talk about the movie until like 5 minutes ago didn’t help. I had no idea it was even coming out until a couple of days ago because the SAG strike kept everyone from doing press.
There was an absolute fuckton of marketing for it at the start of the year, like every other Twitch and YouTube ad I got was about that movie.
Then, nothing, so I thought it had been released and people weren't talking about it because it's just a massive snooze (Like with the Eternals movie).
I had little affinity for the movie to begin with, so seeing there was little public response after all the marketing just had me go "seems this is one to skip"
And now it suddenly comes out with barely any marketing going on in the past few weeks?
Which still makes me feel it must be a snooze, both because it wasn't marketed for release and because of the residual feeling the initial marketing caused.
Besides that, even before the pandemic neither me or my wife were big fans of going to the cinema, the noise, the seating and the gauging with drinks and food is just meh.
During the pandemic, we invested in an 75" TV, 200" projector screen and 8K projector and setup 7.1 audio in the living room.
We got as much popcorn as we want, can drink whatever we want, including alcohol and the only person that can annoy us is us.
And with most movies being available from a streaming service within a few months of cinema release, there's not much of any FOMO either.
Going after the copyright holder for infringing on your work, which by merely existing commercially infringes on their copyright, is one hell of a way to get sued out the arse...
Having said that, it is a crime that LOTR still hasn't entered the public domain yet.
I remember when they had a big long-arc that was spread intelligently across all of the movies that built up to Endgame. I think they’ve forgotten this.
Phase 4 lost the plot. It’s like they didn’t know what to do after Endgame.
For the plot going forward, you have to see:
Wandavision (Disney+, Blu Ray this month)
Loki Season 1 (Disney+, fresh on Blu Ray)
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness
Ant-Man: Quantumania
Loki Season 2 (just finished)
I think you’ve put your finger on it. The shows didn’t exist prior to Endgame. Now, they’re doing the same nonsense as 90s/early 2000s Marvel where if you wanted to understand everyone in large events (which happened all the time) you really needed to read a bunch of different series.
But, watching a ten episode show is a time committment and there are so many actually worthwhile shows that one can watch…
I think the biggest problem is they keep hamfisting action and comedy where it’s completely unnecessary. If something is worth watching people will find the time.
But they keep making the same mistakes on most of their stuff, like Wandavision was pretty good up until they decided they needed a big fight scene for the climax. Quantimania, Falcon & WS, Captain Marvel were milquetoast. Then you’ve got Thor L&T and Secret Invasion which were handled badly. It was weird to get Sam Raimi back for a one-off but not branching into the supernatural side of Marvel.
True, but that doesn’t fix their quality problem. Loki wasn’t bad but everything else since endgame has been unwatchable to boring and forgettable at best.
Guardians 3 was really good, but they just let Gunn do his thing and it wasn’t just trying to move the general plot along. I wish they had more stuff that was just doing it’s own thing.
I just saw Guardians three the other day finally. Did it feel to you like 20 minutes was missing out of the third act? It just suddenly stopped making linear sense.
Oh. Well that explains it I guess. It just seemed so hacked up, I can’t even watch it again because I noticed the first time, 2nd time the frantic pace won’t even mitigate
They completely glossed over how Warlock changed sides n why, and everyone was just running and changing scenes at such a frenetic pace that poorly hid the missing connector scenes. Plus that one all out fight scene and then bang they’re somewhere else for some reason
That’s my point, you have to turn a hobby into a chore so that you can keep up.
It’s the same reason popular game franchises have also failed. 343i messed up the Halo franchise when they started putting plot critical events and information in side media like novels and comic books. The moment you cater to the hardcore fans who have no other interests, you alienate the more common fans that enjoy it but don’t make it their entire personality.
So now if you play Halo 5 you might be confused at what happened to the Didact, you know he survived Halo 4 but where is he? Oh. Right. He got killed in a comic book. Onto the next villain! Cortana took over the AI’s? Holy shit, this is going to fill up the whole next game! Just kidding, that conflict happened off screen and now you’re fighting the banished.
The author then filed suit against both Amazon and the Tolkien estate, claiming the streaming series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” had borrowed from his sequel and infringed his copyright.
I honestly wouldn't even be surprised. What was it, that thing with Star Trek Discovery taking plot points from some adventure game with space-faring tardigrades?
I dunno, if I build a house, I can leave it to my family for generations. Indeed, barring something interfering with that ownership, it will be passed along. Maybe they’ll sell it, or take out a loan against it and default, or a disaster could strike, or whatever.
Why would any other creation be less portable to my heirs?
Mind you, I’m definitely of the belief that artistic creations like books should eventually go public domain. I’m fine with any number of possible restrictions on that duration. But it is strange that one of the only things that automatically gets removed from a family are things like writing. Ideas, if you want to break it down. We treat them different than other things we create.
Again, I’m fine with there’s being limits on holding ideas restricted. That’s necessary to prevent loss of such things, that are harder to preserve than something like a piece of jewelry, or a statue, or a house. That’s why patents and copyrights need to expire, but I can’t agree that the limits as they exist are fucked up/bad/wrong.
Seriously, I’m a published author, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about such things.
Now, I would love to see the laws change so that any copyright held by a publicly traded company, or that has been sold/abandoned by the actual heirs of the author is shorter than when held by the heirs of the author.
And, any popular work is going to have the issue of who gets to decide what is and isn’t done to the works before or after public domain. You can end up with something wonderful being shat on by asshats. So it isn’t like copyrights expiring is without drawbacks. When what’s at stake is only keeping the works published and available, that’s a clear cut thing that benefits everyone.
But adaptations, expansions, “fanfic”? I would definitely prefer someone that at least has some chance of the author’s intent being known than some shitty company looking to milk the work for every possible dime.
Why shouldn’t authors be able to build generational wealth the way a business can? You’re talking about people profiting off a dead man, but that’s what investments and properties and such are. It’s future generations profiting off a dead person’s work. There’s billionaires out there that are sitting on wealth that was amassed not just decades ago, but sometimes centuries. Why do authors not have that possibility?
I understand that at a personal level you would want to share wealth with your children and their children, but that is not what copyright is about. The intention is that the creator gets to make their earnings out of their original product for a limited time only. So that they can continue to make original products and make a living. It is not intended to provide for your family for generations. While this may be what it has become with the help of corporations, in my opinion this is not it’s intended use.
Aside from that I think your works should become public domain after a limited time, prefferedly during your lifetime. So that as much as possible people get to enjoy your original works of art.
You make a good point about generational wealth in business and I think there should be limits to that as well. It doesn’t help the world at all if wealth just stagnates like that and in my opinion it should be shared with those doing the actual work, instead of a select few who were born in it, were extremely lucky, or gained money in immoral ways.
I’ll leave it at that since I am not the right person to go into a discussion with you about all of these things. I do want to thank you for your work and for gifting us with your books entertaining us and giving us an escape of daily problems, expanding our knowledge with educational content or whatever else. Know that you are valued and there are people out there being touched by your work.
I think the inference to take from their comment is that by extension others probably didn't like it either, and so there is less excitement for a sequel to a movie that wasn't as well received.
Right, they're inferring that their opinion was universal. There was a lot of controversy @urrounding the movie, but it had little to do with the quality and a lot to do with peoples inability to remove personal biases from their viewing experience.
For what it’s worth, I think this one is more fun than the first one. Or most recent Marvel movies except for Guardians of the Galaxy 3. And I haven’t even seen Miss Marvel.
I struggle to think of a less likeable main character that wasn’t some sort of anti-hero. It takes talent to be that smug and condescending for an entire movie.
How did Captain Marvel struck you as smug in comparison to the truckload of arrogant and full-of-themselves characters in the Marvel universe? Thor, Drax, or Iron Man who is basically a narcissist.
They’re supposed to be like that though, especially Tony Stark, it’s part of their character arc. With Captain Marvel, it feels like she was supposed to be likeable, but it didn’t work out.
I cant speak for this in particular (I gave up watching marvel halfway through endgame), but its very different if a character comes across as smug and all the other characters are saying “God isnt he smug but we need him” and having a character that comes across as smug but all the other characters love them.
The only sane thing to do in response to this is the same thing that SHOULD have been done when Paramount went all sue happy on folks making unofficial Star Trek stuff.
Creators should stop making things related to their works and consumers should stop consuming and giving Paramount money for the official works.
The lesson being if the rights holder for something wants to keep it all to themselves, let them, forget it exists and starve it out of profitable existence. Spend the time and money with content, creators, and consumers that don’t believe sucking up ever dime that’s not nailed down is, or should be, the ultimate goal.
Did you even read the article? This dumbass wrote a book based on LotR characters and then HE tried to sue the Tolkien estate and Amazon. This person actually probably needs mental help if they think this could have worked, it was such an incredibly bad idea that there has to be some kind of mental health crises involved.
Worth also mentioning the Tolkien estate is notoriously letigous. There are piracy sites that specifically ban Tolkiens works from being uploaded for that very reason.
Yeah wow it’s like I thought ( the right holder being able to dick around writers)
It was strikingly clear to the Court that Anderson’s work was a derivative work; that under 17 U.S.C. section 106(2) derivative works are the exclusive privilege of the copyright holder (Stallone, in this case); and that since Anderson’s work is unauthorized, no part of it can be given protection.
After he had meetings with MGM about using that script.
variety.com
Top