Copywrite laws are they to vague? [Archive]

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Rojero

June 18th, 2003, 09:02 PM

Hey guys
This is something of a serious note, any feedback to the following will be much appreciated. As a fan of any art, literature, and so forth I found this quite disturbing at the stupidity of some companies.
This letter comes from a fan site dedicated to creating Skins and Meshes involving Marvel characters for the game Freedom Force. What has come to my understanding is that anything a fan does that "distributes" copyrighted material in any form (Like our great Star Trek Mods) is infringing on the rights of the company.
Funny thing I thought Fans are supposed to love and support their favorite Icon, I guess all those Star Trek conventions are breaking the law. I feel a gnawing disgust at the moment.

(note, this letter has been edited to remove my mailing address)

MARVEL ENTERPRISES, INC.

June 9, 2003

Re: UNATHORIZED USE OF MARVEL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

ELI BARD
SENIOR LITIGATION ATTORNEY

Dear Mr. Benson and Ms. Horn:

I write to inform you that the website that you are listed as the administrative contact for, www.skindex.net, (http://www.skindex.net,) contains and evidently distributes unauthorized reproductions of Marvel's valuable intellectual property.

Skindex,net is not permitted to copy or reproduce the copyrighted images or distinctive likenesses of Marvel's characters, nor use the registered trademarks associated with those characters such as Spider-Man, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, etc.

The property skindex.net is infringing is protected by the 1976 Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. �101, et seq. The Copyright Act provides the owner of a copyrighted work, in this instance, Marvel, with, among other exclusive rights, the exclusive right to reproduce the work in copies and to distribute copies of the works to the public. The remedies for copyright infringement include the copyright owner's option to elect statutory damages which range from $500 ? $20,000 for each instance of nonwillful infringement, but which can escalate to $100,000 for each instance of willful copyright infringement. Attorneys' fees are also recoverable by a successful copyright infringement plaintiff.

A separate federal law, The Lanham Act, prohibits use of Marvel's famous, federally registered MARVEL, SPIDER-MAN, and WOLVERINE trademarks, among others, without permission. 15 U.S.C. �1125 of The Lanham Act also prohibits unfair competition and false designation of origin, as do state common law. The Lanham Act provides for treble damages and attorneys' fees in instances of willful trademark infringement, as well as disgorgement of profits, and injunctive relief.

Given the blatant bad faith evidenced by skindex.net, Marvel hereby demands your written confirmation that skindex.net has (1) removed all Marvel intellectual property and references to Marvel intellectual property from its website or any other site (or other location); (2) abandoned all unauthorized copying and distribution of the the Marvel intellectual property and (3) agreed to cease and desist from any and all other acts of unfair competition with Marvel.

Given the apparent willful nature of your actions, Marvel demands that skindex.net disclose all of its activities with respect to its use of Marvel's properties, including but not limited to all sales or distribution of any products bearing any Marvel intellectual property, the names and contact information for all companies that have purchased or downloaded those items, as well as the addresses of any other websites where the infringing properties have been posted. In addition, skindex.net must disgorge ally and all profits illegally made from its use of Marvel's property and enter into a permanent injunction in which it agrees never to infringe Marvel's property again.

If skindex,net fails to provide this written confirmation by June 20, 2003, Marvel is prepared immediately to take all appropriate action to protect its valuable intellectual property rights, which may include seeking an injunction against further infringement, monetary damages, the cost of corrective advertising, and Marvel's costs and attorneys' fees.

This letter is written without prejudice to any of Marvel's rights or remedies, all of which are expressly reserved

Very truly yours,

Eli Bard

cc: Allen S. Lipson, Esq.

PvK

June 18th, 2003, 09:08 PM

It's yet another power grab by corporations motivated entirely by greed, and an attack on freedom of expression, in my opinion.

As long as you aren't selling, it shouldn't be illegal. If that's not the law, then the law should be unconstitutional.

PvK

Atrocities

June 18th, 2003, 09:10 PM

I got a letter regarding violating Paramounts Copyright a long time ago and my old Angel Fire site was shut down.

Now I make my own ships. When I followed up on the letter I recieved I was informed that it did not come from Paramount, and that as far as Paramount was concerned, fan sites that do not profit from copyrighted materials based upon Star Trek are of no concern to them. They in fact wished me luck on my web site. Paramount understands that if not for the fans who dedicate literally thousands of hours on fan based projects, large companies like Marvel and Paramount wouldn't have the fan base they currently enjoy.

I believe Kwok was aware of this so he too wanted to use all original works in his mod just to avoid problems.

[ June 18, 2003, 20:16: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

Jack Simth

June 18th, 2003, 09:57 PM

Atrocities & Rojero:
The reason companies go after copyright violations so ruthlessly is so that they can keep having exclusive control when it comes to the paid market. If they don't go after small violations when it comes to their attention, then a clever person making a larger violation has a form of precedent when it comes to court, which can cause them to win the case, despite the fact that the large violation is selling while the small ones weren't.

In order to stop such things from happening, all you need to do is write a (certified) letter to the company holding copyright explaining your non-profit intent and asking permission, and wait for their response. However, you do need to keep the response in a safety deposit box somewhere, as the companies contract out defense of their copyrights, and the company doesn't always totally inform their sub-contractors. Once you have permission in writing, you are licensed, and the precedent issue goes away for the company.

PvK:
It can hurt a business severly if someone is freely distributing stuff that is closely related to the product the business is selling. That is actually part of the reason for patent and copyright laws; it helps protect the little businesses. Suppose, for instance, that company X produces a new (copyrighted/patented) software algorythm that allows an OS to intelligently adapt to a new situation invisibly. Now, suppose Microsoft feels threatened by this, steals the algorythm, and starts distributing it free of charge. Microsoft is big, and can absorb the loss. X is not, and can't compete. Once X goes out of business, Microsoft can buy and use or suppress the algorythm. Copyright and patent law helps to prevent this. It used to be that patents expired after 20 years and copyrights after 75 - but I have heard that has changed recently.

As for unconstitutional: The constitution actually makes specific allowance for copyrights and patents:
From The United States Constitution, Article 1, section 8(Powers vested in Congress):
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inverntors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;Further, the freedom of expression you refer to isn't directly in the constitution - that is an interpertaition based on the first amendment:
First amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.It refers to freedom of speech and the press, not images et cetera; not expression.

[ June 18, 2003, 21:21: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

Erax

June 18th, 2003, 10:20 PM

What most people do not understand is that it is illegal to use someone else's intellectual property without permission, even if you do not make a profit from it.

This is what I would call a typical unenforceable law - fans can reproduce and distribute corporate IP an order of magnitude faster than the corporate lawyers can track them and shut them down. Paramount, for one, seems to understand this. If other corporations don't, well, they have the law on their side. Shut down your site and move on, they probably won't keep after you if you stop distributing their IP.

If, on the other hand, you were making a profit off their IP, then you are a full-fledged IP pirate and things could get ugly. So don't.

Jack Simth

June 18th, 2003, 10:24 PM

Erax: Only one order of magnitude? I thought it was two or three...

[ June 18, 2003, 21:24: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

Erax

June 18th, 2003, 10:52 PM

Yes, it might be two or three now that you mention it. Information travels at the speed of light, after all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Atrocities

June 18th, 2003, 10:57 PM

It can hurt a business severly if someone is freely distributing stuff that is closely related to the product the business is selling. That is actually part of the reason for patent and copyright laws; it helps protect the little businesses. Suppose, for instance, that company X produces a new (copyrighted/patented) software algorythm that allows an OS to intelligently adapt to a new situation invisibly. Now, suppose Microsoft feels threatened by this, steals the algorythm, and starts distributing it free of charge. Microsoft is big, and can absorb the loss. X is not, and can't compete. Once X goes out of business, Microsoft can buy and use or suppress the algorythm. Copyright and patent law helps to prevent this. It used to be that patents expired after 20 years and copyrights after 75 - but I have heard that has changed recently. Oh ya like this has ever happened. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Jack Simth

June 18th, 2003, 11:02 PM

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Oh ya like this has ever happened. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif I said helps to prevent, not prevents.

Geckomlis

June 18th, 2003, 11:03 PM

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
It used to be that patents expired after 20 years and copyrights after 75 - but I have heard that has changed recently.

As for unconstitutional: The constitution actually makes specific allowance for copyrights and patents:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />From The United States Constitution, Article 1, section 8(Powers vested in Congress):
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inverntors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;<hr /></blockquote>The problem is that “for limited times” has become a defacto “for all time”. When that limited time expired, works were supposed to enter the public domain. This is not occurring anymore. Congress regularly extends the period of copyright, so essentially nothing has entered the public domain from this process since the late 1940’s. Congress does this in response to lobbyists working on the behalf of the uber media corporations. This corrupts the balance between author’s rights and the public good. FYI: The USA is very unique in its view of copyright. Other countries have author’s rights traditions and are not particularly concerned about an abstract public good.

[ June 18, 2003, 22:21: Message edited by: geckomlis ]

Jack Simth

June 18th, 2003, 11:14 PM

Originally posted by geckomlis:
The problem is that “for limited times” has become a defacto “for all time”. When that limited time expired, works were supposed to enter the public domain. This is not occurring anymore. Congress regularly extends the period of copyright, so essentially nothing has entered the public domain from this process since the late 1940’s. Congress does this in response to lobbyists working on the behalf of the uber media corporations. This corrupts the balance between author’s rights and the public good. FYI: The USA is very unique in its view of copyright. Other countries have author’s rights traditions and are not particularly concerned about an abstract public good.Yes, I know - unfortunately, the constitution has been "interperted" out of much of its meaning on many different issues. However, it is still useful to bring it up every now and then.

Also, it's not just congress - before anything becomes law, the senate must also pass any such thing, and the president must abstain from vetoing it - Further, the Supreme Court is the body that rules on wether a law is unconstitutional or not, and are the offical interperters of law, and they haven't been keeping quite as close to the original constitution as I might like.

[ June 19, 2003, 00:15: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

Atrocities

June 18th, 2003, 11:15 PM

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Atrocities:
Oh ya like this has ever happened. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif I said helps to prevent, not prevents.<hr /></blockquote>I'm sorry Jack, I was not being rude, just facetious. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif And thank you for the information you've posted. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ June 18, 2003, 22:16: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

Jack Simth

June 18th, 2003, 11:18 PM

Originally posted by Atrocities:
I'm sorry Jack, I was not being rude, just facetious. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif That works - sorry for misinterperting your intent. Originally posted by Atrocities:
And thank you for the information you've posted. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Not a problem.

[ June 18, 2003, 22:18: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

Jack Simth

June 19th, 2003, 12:06 AM

Geckomlis - I edited my response to your post in response to you editing your post.

Rojero

June 19th, 2003, 12:28 AM

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
It used to be that patents expired after 20 years and copyrights after 75 - but I have heard that has changed recently.

As for unconstitutional: The constitution actually makes specific allowance for copyrights and patents: So does it mean that batman and superman are already public domain?
the whole issue was about just making skins, but I would think if it is common knowledge like that it would be ok, and most sites that I know of really are for non profit

Geckomlis

June 19th, 2003, 12:39 AM

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
Geckomlis - I edited my response to your post in response to you editing your post.Thank you for editing your post. My original post was the result of an accidental "Add Reply" instead of the intended "Preview Post". It happens.

I agree that it is not just Congress (which includes the House and the Senate) making copyright eternal. My post was meant to be informative rather than argumentative. My opinion is simply that the balance has swung towards author’s rights in the United States. I have no opinion as to whether this is good or evil.

Gecko

PvK

June 19th, 2003, 12:42 AM

Originally posted by Jack Simth:

PvK:
It can hurt a business severly if someone is freely distributing stuff that is closely related to the product the business is selling. That is actually part of the reason for patent and copyright laws; it helps protect the little businesses.

Mhmm. But in the case of fan art, the corporations waving legal threats are not little businesses, and the fan art is not competing with the corporations' business in any signifigant way. Fan art is in fact a promotion, celebration, and endorsement of the product. Moreover, private citizens should have the right to mention and produce non-commercial images or even duplicates of commercial media. If they can't, then you're very close to prohibiting things like parody or even discussion of corporate media. With even small children participating in discussions by means such as web pages etc., digital images have become a very common form of expression. Trying to make it illegal for the sake of paranoid corporations' intellectual property-mongering is preposterous and well, evil.

Suppose, for instance, that company X produces a new (copyrighted/patented) software algorythm that allows an OS to intelligently adapt to a new situation invisibly. Now, suppose Microsoft feels threatened by this, steals the algorythm, and starts distributing it free of charge. Microsoft is big, and can absorb the loss. X is not, and can't compete. Once X goes out of business, Microsoft can buy and use or suppress the algorythm. Copyright and patent law helps to prevent this.

That's a very different kind of thing from fan art.

For one thing, you're talking about a patent of an algorythm. In many cases, the patent office grants patents for ideas which are something anyone can thing of by considering the problem, so that whole institution is in need of complete reworking.

For another, you're talking about a megacorporation as the perp, not a private citizen.

Megacorps will of course succeed in perpetuating their ownership of anything they can get their hands on, for as long as they can get away with it. I wonder how long it will take for another system to replace it. Clearly it's awfully inefficient to have us designing hardware and software and lawsuits all for the purpose of limiting everyone's access to media, when the technology to freely share all of it is already in place. There needs to be another system developed for rewarding content creators, which allows creative people to earn a living while still making their content available for free distribution.

PvK

Pax

June 19th, 2003, 12:42 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
It's yet another power grab by corporations motivated entirely by greed, and an attack on freedom of expression, in my opinion.

As long as you aren't selling, it shouldn't be illegal. If that's not the law, then the law should be unconstitutional.

PvKLack of monetary compensation cannot become a defense. I know of people who would copy someone else's work and hand the copies out for free, solely because they can ... thus denying the copyright holder their rightful income from the production and distribution of that work.

That is the very sort of thing copyright law is supposed to address.

While I do disagree with the indefinite extension of copyright, I also cannot agree with "no profit, no foul" fallacies.

That is not a matter of a power grab (the letter from Marvel, below) ... it's a matter of law: if marvel DOESN'T actively and aggressively protect it's trademarks and associated intellectual property, they lose them. Marvel exists to profit form selling stories and other products based on that intellectual property.

Take the recent X-Men films; if copies and derivations (etc) could be made and distributed for free and without penalty by persons OTHER than those who made the films and/or own rights to the intellectual properties with which the films were told, then, the films would never have been made.

MOST films owuldn't get made, nor would most books be published. It's a business, and it's about profit. Just like the inventor of a new machine should profit from his or her creation, the creator of a new piece of intellectual property should be able to do likewise.

Put it in perspective WRT SE4: if anyone were allowed to hand out copies of SE4, without Aaron seeing a penny, and with him unable to seek any sort of legal intervention ...

... then SE would probably never have happened, let alone be onthe FOURTH Version. The man has to put food on his table, after all.

Erax

June 19th, 2003, 01:17 AM

Clearly it's awfully inefficient to have us designing hardware and software and lawsuits all for the purpose of limiting everyone's access to media, when the technology to freely share all of it is already in place. There needs to be another system developed for rewarding content creators, which allows creative people to earn a living while still making their content available for free distribution You just about said it all. But no one has come forward with such a system. Many people have tried and many more are still trying. But while we are not yet there we are, well, here, where the law is quite harsh but also ultimately unenforceable.

Jack Simth

June 19th, 2003, 01:18 AM

Originally posted by Rojero:
So does it mean that batman and superman are already public domain?As I mentioned, this has changed recently (I believe it has finally been extended to infinity, but I don't have a source on that, and may be recalling incorrectly). A 1910 Version might be; however, the comic industry slowly changes the character concept and images over time; the Batman and Superman of today aren't the Batman and Superman of 1910. There may be similarities, but they aren't the same. Originally posted by Rojero:

the whole issue was about just making skins, but I would think if it is common knowledge like that it would be ok, and most sites that I know of really are for non profitThere is a simple solution: ask the copyright holders for permission (in writing), describing your methods and intent. They will often grant you a license for non-commercial use, but not always. It is up to them to determine if your production of skins is going to hurt their market position or not.

[ June 19, 2003, 00:19: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

Jack Simth

June 19th, 2003, 01:40 AM

Originally posted by PvK:

Mhmm. But in the case of fan art, the corporations waving legal threats are not little businesses, and the fan art is not competing with the corporations' business in any signifigant way. Fan art is in fact a promotion, celebration, and endorsement of the product. Perhaps - but at present, there is no known way of making the one work (protection of the little business) without causing the other (protection of the big buisiness, often when it isn't really needed). Originally posted by PvK:
Moreover, private citizens should have the right to mention and produce non-commercial images or even duplicates of commercial media. If they can't, then you're very close to prohibiting things like parody or even discussion of corporate media.Not really - is is surprisingly easy to discuss the issues without recreating copyrighted media. For example, has anyone felt the need to post a dipiction of Superman to get the conversation going? Originally posted by PvK:
With even small children participating in discussions by means such as web pages etc., digital images have become a very common form of expression. Trying to make it illegal for the sake of paranoid corporations' intellectual property-mongering is preposterous and well, evil.

Perhaps - but it is the same rules that protect the little guy that allow for the paranoia. The system works much better when things expire after a time. Originally posted by PvK:

That's a very different kind of thing from fan art.

For one thing, you're talking about a patent of an algorythm. In many cases, the patent office grants patents for ideas which are something anyone can thing of by considering the problem, so that whole institution is in need of complete reworking.

For another, you're talking about a megacorporation as the perp, not a private citizen.
Only in specifics, not in effect. You want a fan art Version? Fine. Suppose Alice makes a comic named Zoe, which becomes a commercial success. Then Bruce produces a mod for SEIV based on Zoe that everyone loves. Due to this mod, SEIV doubles its revenue (we can dream, can't we?). Unfortunately, the Zoe fans who would be buying Zoe merchandise are now spending considerable sums on SEIV, reducing the amount Alice recieves. Totally unknown to Bruce, he has reduced the rewards Alice gets for her hard work. Further, it is almost impossible to track how much effect this had. The only way to deal is to require permissions on such things.

Sure, copyrights and patents have problems, but so far it is just about the only model that seems to work out. Besides, with a private citizen loophole, Megacorps would be able to hire private citizens to do the distribution to the same effect. Originally posted by PvK:

Megacorps will of course succeed in perpetuating their ownership of anything they can get their hands on, for as long as they can get away with it. I wonder how long it will take for another system to replace it. Clearly it's awfully inefficient to have us designing hardware and software and lawsuits all for the purpose of limiting everyone's access to media, when the technology to freely share all of it is already in place. There needs to be another system developed for rewarding content creators, which allows creative people to earn a living while still making their content available for free distribution.

PvKThe current system will Last until someone comes up with a demonstratably better system and can show that it is better, and either overthrow the megacorps or show them that the new system is in their best interests. However, this hasn't happened yet. The service based open-source model might be such a thing, but it has yet to pan out. We shall see.

DavidG

June 19th, 2003, 04:25 AM

Really does anyone seriously believe that website had even the slightest negative financial implications for Marvel comics?? Seems pretty clear to me that the only reason that letter got written was because otherwise the lawyer would be out of a job.

Jack Simth

June 19th, 2003, 04:37 AM

Originally posted by DavidG:
Really does anyone seriously believe that website had even the slightest negative financial implications for Marvel comics?? Seems pretty clear to me that the only reason that letter got written was because otherwise the lawyer would be out of a job.Not directly - but the way the laws are written, when it comes to Marvel's attention that a violation is happening, they either enforce the law or lose their rights to their stuff, which would mean someone else could use that website as a basis for posing serious financial difficulties for Marvel via abusing their characters. They have to prosecute (or get a cease-and-desist agreement from) anyone that doesn't first ask permission.

DavidG

June 19th, 2003, 04:52 AM

Jack are you telling me that if Marvel comics is aware of a site like that one and does nothing about it they lose their copyright??

Rojero

June 19th, 2003, 05:01 AM

I believe so, or rather that most companies personalities on fandom maybe that of extreme control or very lax control. IE Paramount has not really done anything about all the Star Trek conventions except promote it, whereas the Marvel company have gone the other way

Will

June 19th, 2003, 05:16 AM

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Rojero:
So does it mean that batman and superman are already public domain?As I mentioned, this has changed recently (I believe it has finally been extended to infinity, but I don't have a source on that, and may be recalling incorrectly). A 1910 Version might be; however, the comic industry slowly changes the character concept and images over time; the Batman and Superman of today aren't the Batman and Superman of 1910. There may be similarities, but they aren't the same.<hr /></blockquote>It hasn't quite reached infinity yet, but I don't doubt it will get closer around 2023. The "Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act" basically extended copyrights for twenty years. Since I don't really feel like summarizing, I'll just block quote an article describing the current law, and give the link (http://www.clwbar.org/resipsa/jan99/copyright.html) for citation purposes. Wouldn't want to get sued for wrongful use of IP, after all... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif
The new term of copyright, for works created after January 1, 1978, will be the life of the author plus 70 years. For works made for hire, and anonymous and pseudonymous works, the term will be 120 years from creation or 95 years from first publication, whichever occurs first. And for works created prior to 1978 whose terms have not yet expired, the term will be 95 years from first publication (or the date of registration if prior to publication). That article also mentions how Disney will retain rights to several of its characters (including Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, etc.) for twenty more years. You see, they were about to enter the public domain. Of course, Disney was pushing very hard for this Act to be passed...

Originally posted by Chief Engineer Erax:
<blockquote>quote:<hr /> Clearly it's awfully inefficient to have us designing hardware and software and lawsuits all for the purpose of limiting everyone's access to media, when the technology to freely share all of it is already in place. There needs to be another system developed for rewarding content creators, which allows creative people to earn a living while still making their content available for free distribution You just about said it all. But no one has come forward with such a system. Many people have tried and many more are still trying. But while we are not yet there we are, well, here, where the law is quite harsh but also ultimately unenforceable.<hr /></blockquote>Actually, there was a quite effective system for quite some time in Europe. The rich households would take in some writers, artists, and musicians, effectively sponsoring them. In other words, a "patron of the arts" was much more common. It was a status symbol to be able to support artists. However, it has now fallen on the masses to be patrons. And, frankly, most people couldn't care less... I don't blame them, either. Along with the shift to having the masses support art, the purpose of artistic ventures has increasingly been mass appeal. In effect, "Art for money's sake" instead of "Art for art's sake". Which, IMHO, is also why so much of what the American "entertainment industry" churns out... sucks. All the focus is on how to make more money, and no room for creativity and originality is left (ever wonder why there are so many sequels to crappy movies coming out, and crappy sequels coming out to ruin decent originals? or, why most songs you hear sound eerily similar?). Unfortunately, there aren't many among the wealthy that would be willing to be patrons of the arts anymore... profit is the only goal.

Jack Simth

June 19th, 2003, 06:39 AM

Originally posted by DavidG:
Jack are you telling me that if Marvel comics is aware of a site like that one and does nothing about it they lose their copyright??In such a case, Marvel effectively loses its right to a claim in later cases involving the originally breached copyrighted material where a lawyer can make a sufficiently solid case that the incidents are sufficiently similar; yes, the copyright doesn't go away in its entirety, but essentially that's the case.

Also, Marvel would have to be officially (proveably) aware of the breach for it to count.

Many companies contract out enforcement to other companies. In this way, they can claim in court that they were making an effort to enforce their rights, and any apparent inaction was really the result of the contracted company not fullfilling its obligations - it's a form of insurance.

However, in many cases you can get license to do non-commercial stuff with the simple expediant of writing a letter to the right person. This covers everyone's rear ends: you are licensed, so you aren't in violation of anything; you are licensed at the will of the company, so the company doesn't have legal issues with you doing stuff; you are producing the stuff, so people can't convincingly say that the company is choking creativity. They will likely toss several stipulations into the license (such as not putting the characters in positions that the company wouldn't put them in, and not selling the stuff, and that the company can terminate the license at any moment, on their whim) but they are unlikely to be too terribly restrictive in practice. Further, it doesn't need to be too terribly formal - if Atrocities recieved the word from Paramount in letter form saying that Paramount isn't concerned and wishing him luck on his web site, he could drop that off in a safe deposit box somewhere and merrily make Star-Trek ships to his heart's content.

Mind you, I am not a lawyer, and could be off on many of the details.

narf poit chez BOOM

June 19th, 2003, 07:16 AM

most game licenses have a 'failure to enforce any clause is not a waiver' part.

yes, i read game licenses.
marvel was a aggresive in there letter, but within there right's.

[ June 19, 2003, 06:30: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

Jack Simth

June 19th, 2003, 07:20 AM

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
most game licenses have a 'failure to enforce any clause is not a waiver' part.

yes, i read game licenses.Yes, but that is precisely becuase under normal circumstances failure to enforce copyright when a violation is known is a waiver; otherwise that phrase would be leagally implicit, and not need mentioning.

Atrocities

June 19th, 2003, 07:37 AM

Any one here know what the S.B.A. is? If you don't and you have pirated software, you should consider finding out. They "do" inforce copyright laws especially for MS.

Rojero

June 19th, 2003, 07:27 PM

What is SBA?

PvK

June 19th, 2003, 08:57 PM

Originally posted by Pax:
...
That is not a matter of a power grab (the letter from Marvel, below) ... it's a matter of law: if marvel DOESN'T actively and aggressively protect it's trademarks and associated intellectual property, they lose them. Marvel exists to profit form selling stories and other products based on that intellectual property.

Take the recent X-Men films; if copies and derivations (etc) could be made and distributed for free and without penalty by persons OTHER than those who made the films and/or own rights to the intellectual properties with which the films were told, then, the films would never have been made.

MOST films owuldn't get made, nor would most books be published. It's a business, and it's about profit. Just like the inventor of a new machine should profit from his or her creation, the creator of a new piece of intellectual property should be able to do likewise.

Put it in perspective WRT SE4: if anyone were allowed to hand out copies of SE4, without Aaron seeing a penny, and with him unable to seek any sort of legal intervention ...

... then SE would probably never have happened, let alone be onthe FOURTH Version. The man has to put food on his table, after all.No, I was talking about fan art, not piracy. Do you think fan art (i.e. mods and shipsets) are hurting SE4?

Even amateur movies modelled after existing commercial films mainly tend to promote and prolong interest in the commercial product - they don't reduce the sales of the product or its sequels.

PvK

Jack Simth

June 19th, 2003, 09:18 PM

Originally posted by PvK:
No, I was talking about fan art, not piracy. Do you think fan art (i.e. mods and shipsets) are hurting SE4?SE4 was designed with mods and new shipsets in mind - it's part of the attraction, and probably part of the license, so no - besides, Mods + shipsets don't really qualify as fan art. Sure, it's art; sure, it's by fans; but making a shipset doesn't usually mean taking the stock ships and altering their pictures slightly, or redrawing the stock ships from different angles; it means making new ones, pretty much from scratch, or making significant alterations to the stock ships.

PvK

June 19th, 2003, 09:26 PM

Originally posted by DavidG:
Really does anyone seriously believe that website had even the slightest negative financial implications for Marvel comics??
No, I don't think anyone smart and honest does. It's pretty clear to me that it has a positive effect, in any.

Seems pretty clear to me that the only reason that letter got written was because otherwise the lawyer would be out of a job.Well there might be other bad reasons, but yes, this is one of them.

PvK

PvK

June 19th, 2003, 09:50 PM

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by PvK:

Mhmm. But in the case of fan art, the corporations waving legal threats are not little businesses, and the fan art is not competing with the corporations' business in any signifigant way. Fan art is in fact a promotion, celebration, and endorsement of the product. Perhaps - but at present, there is no known way of making the one work (protection of the little business) without causing the other (protection of the big buisiness, often when it isn't really needed).
<hr /></blockquote>Sure there is. Corporations used to require a government charter for permission to even exist. If it were explained to the people, I doubt that the people would vote for a decision that corporations should have the same rights as private citizens. Corporations should exist and operate based on benefiting mankind, and not on maximizing profit for shareholders, and therefore doing whatever profiteering they can get away with. Corporations should not be allowed to perpetuate copyrights, and persecute individuals based on their fan art. Fan art does not have to be treated as a threat to the (dubiously desirable) right of a corporation to monopolize commercial rights to an intellectual property.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by PvK:
Moreover, private citizens should have the right to mention and produce non-commercial images or even duplicates of commercial media. If they can't, then you're very close to prohibiting things like parody or even discussion of corporate media.Not really - is is surprisingly easy to discuss the issues without recreating copyrighted media. For example, has anyone felt the need to post a dipiction of Superman to get the conversation going?
<hr /></blockquote>No, but that doesn't mean it should be illegal for me to post pictures of Superman. Who thinks it should be illegal for me to post pictures of Superman, besides a lawyer or a corporate sponsor?

...
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by PvK:

That's a very different kind of thing from fan art.

For one thing, you're talking about a patent of an algorythm. In many cases, the patent office grants patents for ideas which are something anyone can thing of by considering the problem, so that whole institution is in need of complete reworking.

For another, you're talking about a megacorporation as the perp, not a private citizen.
Only in specifics, not in effect. You want a fan art Version? Fine. Suppose Alice makes a comic named Zoe, which becomes a commercial success. Then Bruce produces a mod for SEIV based on Zoe that everyone loves. Due to this mod, SEIV doubles its revenue (we can dream, can't we?). Unfortunately, the Zoe fans who would be buying Zoe merchandise are now spending considerable sums on SEIV, reducing the amount Alice recieves. Totally unknown to Bruce, he has reduced the rewards Alice gets for her hard work. Further, it is almost impossible to track how much effect this had. The only way to deal is to require permissions on such things.
<hr /></blockquote>Do you really want to live in a society that is so concerned with ownership and greed that it would attempt to have its government determine and enforce exactly who owns the rights to every sale, even in such complicated situations?

Most importantly, the fan (Bruce) should be allowed to express himself and freely publish his work, without government interference or fear of megacorporate legal attacks.

Secondly, in your example, it seems pretty clear to me that Alice has done plenty well in your scenario, her future work will be more successful because of Bruce and Malfador/Shrapnel, and Malfador/Shrapnel deserves the extra profit for making SE4 a product which is capable of being used in this very enjoyable way!

Sure, copyrights and patents have problems, but so far it is just about the only model that seems to work out.
Mainly due to human inertial herd behavior, and powerful corporations dominating the economy and government to multiply their already-staggering control of wealth.

Besides, with a private citizen loophole, Megacorps would be able to hire private citizens to do the distribution to the same effect.
Mhmm, well there should be a million-dollar reward for ratting out megacorporations, the money for which comes from the guilty corporations. Also, more reason why corporations should be forced to work for beneficial purposes, and not just for maximizing their own profits.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />
Originally posted by PvK:

Megacorps will of course succeed in perpetuating their ownership of anything they can get their hands on, for as long as they can get away with it. I wonder how long it will take for another system to replace it. Clearly it's awfully inefficient to have us designing hardware and software and lawsuits all for the purpose of limiting everyone's access to media, when the technology to freely share all of it is already in place. There needs to be another system developed for rewarding content creators, which allows creative people to earn a living while still making their content available for free distribution.

PvKThe current system will Last until someone comes up with a demonstratably better system and can show that it is better, and either overthrow the megacorps or show them that the new system is in their best interests. However, this hasn't happened yet. The service based open-source model might be such a thing, but it has yet to pan out. We shall see.<hr /></blockquote>Yep. Sigh.

PvK

Phoenix-D

June 19th, 2003, 11:04 PM

"Also, more reason why corporations should be forced to work for beneficial purposes, and not just for maximizing their own profits."

Define how Shrapnel Games benifits mankind.

narf poit chez BOOM

June 19th, 2003, 11:32 PM

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
most game licenses have a 'failure to enforce any clause is not a waiver' part.

yes, i read game licenses.
{/QUOTE]
Yes, but that is precisely becuase under normal circumstances failure to enforce copyright when a violation is known is a waiver; otherwise that phrase would be leagally implicit, and not need mentioning.
which brings up the question of why other media doesn't have that.

TerranC

June 19th, 2003, 11:34 PM

Jack Simth

June 20th, 2003, 12:47 AM

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
which brings up the question of why other media doesn't have that.They enforce known breaches.

DavidG

June 20th, 2003, 03:41 AM

Even if we are to accept the fact that Marvel may have been 'forced' by the letter of the law to take some action against that site there is no excuse for the tone of that letter. It was aggressive, offenisve and damn right rude. If Marvel treats all it's fans this way it may find them in short supply in the future. I know if I ever pick up a product with ideas to purchase it and see the name Marvel on it I will think of that letter and quite possibly put it back on the shelf.

DavidG

June 20th, 2003, 03:46 AM

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
most game licenses have a 'failure to enforce any clause is not a waiver' part.

yes, i read game licenses.
{/QUOTE]
Yes, but that is precisely becuase under normal circumstances failure to enforce copyright when a violation is known is a waiver; otherwise that phrase would be leagally implicit, and not need mentioning.
which brings up the question of why other media doesn't have that.<hr /></blockquote>Well obviously if the lawyers spent 5 seconds and put in that clause they would lose all those big bucks they get from searching the net sending out those nasty letters to enforce their copyrights. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

DavidG

June 20th, 2003, 03:56 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
No, I was talking about fan art, not piracy. Do you think fan art (i.e. mods and shipsets) are hurting SE4?
Well I think Jack Simth answered this question but I think they real question should have been does that fan art involved in mods and shipsets hurt the shows they are modeled after? ie do the Trek mods hurt the Star Trek franchise or the B5 mod... I think the obvious answer to this is no. If fact, as has been mentioned, they are likely to have the opposite effect. As an example I recently joined a game as the Cardassian empire. A Star Trek race called the Breen is also in the game. Now I've never been a big STNG fan but I am now much more likely to watch the show if I new the Cardassians or Breen were in it.

narf poit chez BOOM

June 20th, 2003, 04:10 AM

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
which brings up the question of why other media doesn't have that.

They enforce known breaches.
yes, but with that clause, they wouldn't have to enforce all of them.

the letter might be a form letter that is distributed without any thought to destination. they might not have been thinking of fan art when they made it.

Jack Simth

June 20th, 2003, 04:50 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
Sure there is. Corporations used to require a government charter for permission to even exist.
There weren't near so many little buisnesses under that system - the crown picked a small number that thrived (pretty much on the crown's whim), and the rest were relegated to small shops - pretty much permanently. Further, the crown-selected buisnesses were essentially monopolies; they never needed to improve their product, and the only people they needed to keep happy was the royal family et all.
Originally posted by PvK:

If it were explained to the people, I doubt that the people would vote for a decision that corporations should have the same rights as private citizens. They might if the same decision also made for corporations to be subject to the same penalties - imagine how well a corp would behave if a significant slip up would cause, not a fine, but a total cease and desist order with frozen assets for five or ten years. Originally posted by PvK:
Corporations should exist and operate based on benefiting mankind, and not on maximizing profit for shareholders, and therefore doing whatever profiteering they can get away with. Corporations should not be allowed to perpetuate copyrights, and persecute individuals based on their fan art. Fan art does not have to be treated as a threat to the (dubiously desirable) right of a corporation to monopolize commercial rights to an intellectual property.
It isn't always corperations that have problems with others duplicating their work - I have read a fair number of Online rants from independant authors that were having the same problem, especially in cases where an upright character was put in compormising positions.
Originally posted by PvK:

No, but that doesn't mean it should be illegal for me to post pictures of Superman. Who thinks it should be illegal for me to post pictures of Superman, besides a lawyer or a corporate sponsor?
Superman? Maybe not. However, I have read a fair number of rants from Online artists who were having that exact problem, and were very annoyed by it.
Originally posted by PvK:
Do you really want to live in a society that is so concerned with ownership and greed that it would attempt to have its government determine and enforce exactly who owns the rights to every sale, even in such complicated situations?

Most importantly, the fan (Bruce) should be allowed to express himself and freely publish his work, without government interference or fear of megacorporate legal attacks.

Secondly, in your example, it seems pretty clear to me that Alice has done plenty well in your scenario, her future work will be more successful because of Bruce and Malfador/Shrapnel, and Malfador/Shrapnel deserves the extra profit for making SE4 a product which is capable of being used in this very enjoyable way!That only works out so cleanly if the comic is long-term gold, rather than the short-term fad variety that is surprisingly common. For a long-term gold comic, it helps if the image gets out there; for the short-term variety, money needs to be harvested quickly, as there won't be more coming in after a short time. Meanwhile, Bruce's work that increases SEIV's sales is taking money out of Alice's pockets. Shouldn't it be up to Alice to decide which she gambles on?
Originally posted by PvK:
Mainly due to human inertial herd behavior, and powerful corporations dominating the economy and government to multiply their already-staggering control of wealth.
So how do you propose to change human nature away from the herd mentality?
Originally posted by PvK:
Mhmm, well there should be a million-dollar reward for ratting out megacorporations, the money for which comes from the guilty corporations. Also, more reason why corporations should be forced to work for beneficial purposes, and not just for maximizing their own profits.
At present, they aren't being forced, they are being coerced - charitable donations help to maximize their profits, so corps make them. There are many similar incentive programs, as well as many forbidden type things out there.

Besides, the United States of America is in the top five nations for per-capita creature comforts for the average person; part of that is due to the corporations' greed: they need to sell stuff better than their competiters, and to do that, they need to: Have a better product, make their advertising more entertaining, or make their product cheaper - any one of which can increase the creature comforts of the population (better product -> easier/faster/more effective -> more comfortable life; more entertaining advertising -> people are more entertained -> slightly better lives; cheaper product -> can spend more recources on other things -> slightly better lives).
Originally posted by PvK:
Yep. Sigh.

PvKYay - we actually have something we agree on.

[ June 20, 2003, 03:58: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

narf poit chez BOOM

June 20th, 2003, 06:20 AM

i think that advertising should be informative, and only entertaining enough to not be irritating.

PvK

June 20th, 2003, 08:42 PM

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
"Also, more reason why corporations should be forced to work for beneficial purposes, and not just for maximizing their own profits."

Define how Shrapnel Games benifits mankind.I won't define it. However it obviously entertains many people, and games like SE4 get people to think, be creative, develop skills, and communicate with each other. It also supports and distributes the work of independent game developers. I'd say SE4 does some very unique and valuable things in the art of interactive entertainment.

PvK

PvK

June 20th, 2003, 09:21 PM

Jack Simth, sorry for not quoting, but it's too tedious.

For corporate charters, I was thinking of more recent US situations rather than British crown charters. In the 19th century, for example, corporations were formed to establish large companies for things like interstate railroad construction. They had to be approved by government to ensure they were doing something for the common good, and not forming an evil for-greed only monster like we have dominating today's economies. No doubt there was still plenty of corruption, but at least the power was theoretically in the hands of the public to deny the existence of large powerful organizations whose purpose is solely to maximize its own profit margin and power.

You suggested "a significant slip up would cause, not a fine, but a total cease and desist order with frozen assets for five or ten years." for corporations - sounds good to me.

"It isn't always corperations that have problems with others duplicating their work - I have read a fair number of Online rants from independant authors that were having the same problem, especially in cases where an upright character was put in compormising positions."
- You mean, taking someone else's fictional character, and creating fiction about it where it does perverse things or gets killed or whatever? That's an interesting question for society to decide if it wants to legislate against. I'd say it's pretty mean and insensitive to do so, but I'm not sure I'd want a law prohibiting it.

I agree there is an issue with people pretending other people's work is theirs. I just think the patent and copyright laws are unsatisfactory, and are abused by many lawyers and corporations. It's a tough question with a lot of grey areas, it seems to me. In the absence of a fair system, I'd rather freedom prevailed rather than unjust enforcement.

Regarding Alice's comic example, you wrote:

That only works out so cleanly if the comic is long-term gold, rather than the short-term fad variety that is surprisingly common. For a long-term gold comic, it helps if the image gets out there; for the short-term variety, money needs to be harvested quickly, as there won't be more coming in after a short time. Meanwhile, Bruce's work that increases SEIV's sales is taking money out of Alice's pockets. Shouldn't it be up to Alice to decide which she gambles on? It seems to me you are trying to enforce a certain unnatural market situation. It's up to Alice and her publisher to exploit her own commercial success. If Bruce's SE4 mod makes a lot of money for SE4, that's an unrelated market, and a natural success due to SE4's wonderful mod-ability, which it fully deserves, and is a natural product of the gaming market. It would be a real shame to say that generic modable game engines need to be outlawed, in order to protect an unnatural monopoly on the right of private citizens to generate free fan shipsets or mods for a generic game engine!

It's very similar to what Intel, Microsoft, and media megacorps are trying to foist onto the computer and media recorder industries! Humans have developed technology which could allow everyone to quickly and freely share all digital media, but these corporations are trying to criminalize, monitor, and prevent the simple act of copying digital information. Microprocessors that are hard-wired to check every data copy for "digital rights", etc. It's an amazing power grab, but I don't think it can Last forever.

You asked:
"So how do you propose to change human nature away from the herd mentality?"

Through good education that teaches people to think for themselves and question trends rather than follow them.

Individually, by pointing stupid herd behavior out to the more intelligent and receptive members of the species, and resisting stupid herd behavior wherever possible.

You wrote:
Besides, the United States of America is in the top five nations for per-capita creature comforts for the average person; part of that is due to the corporations' greed: they need to sell stuff better than their competiters, and to do that, they need to: Have a better product, make their advertising more entertaining, or make their product cheaper - any one of which can increase the creature comforts of the population (better product -> easier/faster/more effective -> more comfortable life; more entertaining advertising -> people are more entertained -> slightly better lives; cheaper product -> can spend more recources on other things -> slightly better lives).
How often are you entertained by American advertizing? How often is it mind-wrenching, moronic, inane, insulting, illiterate, vice-promoting, annoying-as-hell garbage? Hmm, how about software corps like Microslop and Harborg securing monopolies on their markets by tactics such as buying up creative smaller companies and then laying off their staff and making crap Versions of their products? How about McDonald's? How about corporate media? All vile crimes against goodness, if you ask me.

PvK

Jack Simth

June 20th, 2003, 10:03 PM

Originally posted by PvK:
Jack Simth, sorry for not quoting, but it's too tedious.
It's okay - I usually remove quotes of me anyway when I am replying. Originally posted by PvK:

For corporate charters, I was thinking of more recent US situations rather than British crown charters. In the 19th century, for example, corporations were formed to establish large companies for things like interstate railroad construction. They had to be approved by government to ensure they were doing something for the common good, and not forming an evil for-greed only monster like we have dominating today's economies. No doubt there was still plenty of corruption, but at least the power was theoretically in the hands of the public to deny the existence of large powerful organizations whose purpose is solely to maximize its own profit margin and power.
That's just government contracting, which the railroads needed to get the land to build the tracks on. If they'd had the money for it (and the land was for sale) they could have bought all the land they were building the tracks on and done it without a charter of any kind, which is why I figured that you meant the old European system. And actually, many types of buisness do require charters - in the form of licenses. Originally posted by PvK:
You suggested "a significant slip up would cause, not a fine, but a total cease and desist order with frozen assets for five or ten years." for corporations - sounds good to me.
Which was exactly my point - if you make corporations count as people, then you need to adjust things slightly so that they are treated like people; a total cease and desist is very similar to a prison sentence; freezing their assests just prevents it from being a death sentence; apparently you just hadn't thought the implications of corps counting the same as private citizens through. Originally posted by PvK:

"It isn't always corperations that have problems with others duplicating their work - I have read a fair number of Online rants from independant authors that were having the same problem, especially in cases where an upright character was put in compormising positions."
- You mean, taking someone else's fictional character, and creating fiction about it where it does perverse things or gets killed or whatever? That's an interesting question for society to decide if it wants to legislate against. I'd say it's pretty mean and insensitive to do so, but I'm not sure I'd want a law prohibiting it.

I agree there is an issue with people pretending other people's work is theirs. I just think the patent and copyright laws are unsatisfactory, and are abused by many lawyers and corporations. It's a tough question with a lot of grey areas, it seems to me. In the absence of a fair system, I'd rather freedom prevailed rather than unjust enforcement.
The modern copyright and patent system wouldn't be nearly as bad if there was a decent time cap on them. Of course, the only problem with "fair" or "decent" is that everyone has different definitions of them when it comes down to specific implementation. Originally posted by PvK:

Regarding Alice's comic example,
...
It seems to me you are trying to enforce a certain unnatural market situation. It's up to Alice and her publisher to exploit her own commercial success. If Bruce's SE4 mod makes a lot of money for SE4, that's an unrelated market, and a natural success due to SE4's wonderful mod-ability, which it fully deserves, and is a natural product of the gaming market. It would be a real shame to say that generic modable game engines need to be outlawed, in order to protect an unnatural monopoly on the right of private citizens to generate free fan shipsets or mods for a generic game engine!
I didn't say anything about outlawing SEIV; present law and rulings dictate that an object is leagal, not if it has no illeagal purpose, but if it has some leagal purpose, except for those things which are expressly outlawed (like crack). This is a small portion of the reason it is leagal to have butcher-knives in your kitchen. I was just trying to point out how Bruce could unintentionally hurt Alice by using her characters without her permission, which you had seemed to be denying was possible. Originally posted by PvK:

It's very similar to what Intel, Microsoft, and media megacorps are trying to foist onto the computer and media recorder industries! Humans have developed technology which could allow everyone to quickly and freely share all digital media, but these corporations are trying to criminalize, monitor, and prevent the simple act of copying digital information. Microprocessors that are hard-wired to check every data copy for "digital rights", etc. It's an amazing power grab, but I don't think it can Last forever.
No, that's someting different - they are trying very hard to reverse the above law+rulings on what makes an object leagal, changing it to "It must have no illegal purpose." Very different, and yes, an amazing power grab. It is actually quite leagle to make a backup copy of stuff you have a license to - you just aren't allowed to distribute them, modified or not, free or not, without totally transferring the license and all copies to a single recipient (many licenses prohibit trasfer). Originally posted by PvK:
Through good education that teaches people to think for themselves and question trends rather than follow them.

Individually, by pointing stupid herd behavior out to the more intelligent and receptive members of the species, and resisting stupid herd behavior wherever possible.
There have been a lot of people trying to design an education system that will do that for a long time; so far, they have had only very limited success with individuals that would likely have no problems with that in the first place. The other problem is that such attempts usually require a surprisingly small class size, which isn't going to happen until the school system gets considerably more funding. Originally posted by PvK:

How often are you entertained by American advertizing? How often is it mind-wrenching, moronic, inane, insulting, illiterate, vice-promoting, annoying-as-hell garbage? I find it depends on which shows I'm watching, which channel I am watching them on, and what time of day it is. Try it during a good documentary (and note: I said good documentary). Originally posted by PvK:
Hmm, how about software corps like Microslop and Harborg securing monopolies on their markets by tactics such as buying up creative smaller companies and then laying off their staff and making crap Versions of their products?That's what anti-trust laws are for; unfortunately, they aren't always enforced as diligently as they need to be. Originally posted by PvK:
How about McDonald's? How about corporate media? All vile crimes against goodness, if you ask me.
The problem with corporate media is more a problem of a glut of channels; when there were only two or three channels available for any given area, there were only a few good show ideas a year, and so the bad ones tended to get thrown out. Now, you can pipe a few hundred channels into a household, but there are still only a few good show ideas a year. Unfortunately, it is surprisingly difficult to sort a good idea out from a bad idea beforehand, so the good ideas don't get the relative budget they desreve, and seldom get prime time. As for McDonalds, if people stop buying their food, they will eventually go away. Originally posted by PvK:

PvKAm I correct in assuming that we both agree that cutting down on the amount of time patents and copyrights Last would help (though still not be perfect)?

Pax

June 21st, 2003, 03:54 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
No, I was talking about fan art, not piracy. Do you think fan art (i.e. mods and shipsets) are hurting SE4?

Even amateur movies modelled after existing commercial films mainly tend to promote and prolong interest in the commercial product - they don't reduce the sales of the product or its sequels.

PvKThe thing is, fan art or no, SE4 or Star Wars ... it's all one thing: IP.

You cannot remove protections of intellectual property for "the Big Guys", wihtout similarly stripping those protectiosn form the LITTLE guys.

If you removed the concept of copyright, then what would stop someone else from changing one bloody color in the SE4 UI, then handing out copies for free ... taking away from Aaron's ability to make a living producing the game ... ?

And, knowing that could be done, why in the nine hells would anyone MAKE such a game, and devote so much of their lives to improving it ... ?

PvK

June 21st, 2003, 09:40 AM

Originally posted by Pax:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by PvK:
No, I was talking about fan art, not piracy. Do you think fan art (i.e. mods and shipsets) are hurting SE4?

Even amateur movies modelled after existing commercial films mainly tend to promote and prolong interest in the commercial product - they don't reduce the sales of the product or its sequels.

PvKThe thing is, fan art or no, SE4 or Star Wars ... it's all one thing: IP.

You cannot remove protections of intellectual property for "the Big Guys", wihtout similarly stripping those protectiosn form the LITTLE guys.

If you removed the concept of copyright, then what would stop someone else from changing one bloody color in the SE4 UI, then handing out copies for free ... taking away from Aaron's ability to make a living producing the game ... ?

And, knowing that could be done, why in the nine hells would anyone MAKE such a game, and devote so much of their lives to improving it ... ?<hr /></blockquote>I never suggested removing the concept of copyright and not having anything to serve its good purposes.

What I do suggest though are that:

* Fan art shouldn't be a copyright violation nor any concern of any lawyers, to include Marvel characters in Dungeon Odyssey mods, or Star Trek ships in SE4 mods.

* The existing patent and copyright systems are flawed.

* Ideally and eventually, the existing systems will be replaced by something very different, because it's fundamentally silly and wasteful to not use computers and networks to do what they do with great and natural ease - duplicate and distribute data which, once we get over our ancient and corrupt economic and legal institutions, will allow us to use it to share all data with everyone freely. All that's required is a replacement for the corporate-dominated system of employment and intellectual property ownership, so that creative people can earn a reasonable wage by virtue of how much people appreciate their work, without a corporate monster devouring most of the profit and dictating what everyone creates.

PvK

PvK

June 21st, 2003, 10:14 AM

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by PvK:
You suggested "a significant slip up would cause, not a fine, but a total cease and desist order with frozen assets for five or ten years." for corporations - sounds good to me.
Which was exactly my point - if you make corporations count as people, then you need to adjust things slightly so that they are treated like people; a total cease and desist is very similar to a prison sentence; freezing their assests just prevents it from being a death sentence; apparently you just hadn't thought the implications of corps counting the same as private citizens through.<hr /></blockquote>
What I meant was that corporations should not have the same rights as people, for instance:

* No right to sponsor candidates for government or petition government as if a private citizen. All attempts to influence government should be highly suspect.

* No right to freedom of speech. Corporate speech should be controllable by legislation.

* No "freedom to innovate" abusive predatory business practices.

* No perpetuating patents or copyrights by acting like an immortal person with insane wealth.

etc.

I never meant to say that they should be free from any of the obligations that people have.

Supposedly the USA is a government "for the people", not "for the megacorps" - organizations whose declared purpose is to maximize the corp's bottom line don't help any people except accidentally, or where it serves the corp's own needs. That's not good - corps should only exist where they help people and don't do harm.

...I was just trying to point out how Bruce could unintentionally hurt Alice by using her characters without her permission, which you had seemed to be denying was possible.

I'm not sure it's not possible. I think society needs to decide what level of bad behavior to tolerate, as in your "pervo-fan fiction" example.

As far as Alice goes, as I explained, I don't think your example would count as damage, because the modder didn't get anything, the product was in a different market from Alice, and SE4 sales were benefiting from a unique and valuable feature of SE4 (the ability to use player-made mods of any setting). I don't believe Alice has any claim to a share of SE4 sales because someone makes a mod based on her work.

Ideally, I'd hope to see a reward system where consumers can give approval to content providers, which results in them getting credit for the work that people like, but with distribution of the work being unrestricted. So Alice, Shrapnel, and even fan sites and modders could all get something to allow them to do what they do best, as long as enough people like it enough to register their approval.

No, that's someting different - they are trying very hard to reverse the above law+rulings on what makes an object leagal, changing it to "It must have no illegal purpose." Very different, and yes, an amazing power grab. It is actually quite leagle to make a backup copy of stuff you have a license to - you just aren't allowed to distribute them, modified or not, free or not, without totally transferring the license and all copies to a single recipient (many licenses prohibit trasfer).

Yes, that too. Similar to the moronic and vile attempt to outlaw encryption software, and the sniffing of all computer traffic for anything Big Brother might be interested in. It's not that evil schemers are fictional; it's that real evil schemers tend not to be as visible as they are in fiction.

There have been a lot of people trying to design an education system that will do that for a long time; so far, they have had only very limited success with individuals that would likely have no problems with that in the first place. The other problem is that such attempts usually require a surprisingly small class size, which isn't going to happen until the school system gets considerably more funding.
 Well, the megacorps are dominating the economic system... if our civilization were more focussed on doing good than corporate commercialism, adding teachers and paying them enough would not be very hard at all.
...
The problem with corporate media is more a problem of a glut of channels; when there were only two or three channels available for any given area, there were only a few good show ideas a year, and so the bad ones tended to get thrown out. Now, you can pipe a few hundred channels into a household, but there are still only a few good show ideas a year. Unfortunately, it is surprisingly difficult to sort a good idea out from a bad idea beforehand, so the good ideas don't get the relative budget they desreve, and seldom get prime time. As for McDonalds, if people stop buying their food, they will eventually go away.

I'm more concerned about the level of control, and the motives behind the people with that control, than the quality level. Once again, it's controlled by organizations whose purpose is greed. Reporting standards are only valued as much as their perceived value as a commercial product, and to a slight degree, the amount to reduce fines and bribes to deflect ineffective government controls.

Am I correct in assuming that we both agree that cutting down on the amount of time patents and copyrights Last would help (though still not be perfect)?Yes, absolutely!

I think we actually agree in principle on most things - we're mainly just bonking on specifics because you're talking more about the realities of the existing system, while I'm talking as an idealist about what I'd like to see happen.

PvK

[ June 21, 2003, 09:17: Message edited by: PvK ]

Pax

June 22nd, 2003, 02:52 AM

Originally posted by PvK:I never suggested removing the concept of copyright and not having anything to serve its good purposes.Yet, to make fan art and otehr derivative works no longer protected by copyright (and, as an aside, trademark) laws ... you would have to do that very thing.

What I do suggest though are that:

* Fan art shouldn't be a copyright violation nor any concern of any lawyers, to include Marvel characters in Dungeon Odyssey mods, or Star Trek ships in SE4 mods.Define "fan art" in such a way that it does not permit, by any reasonable means, person X to profit off the creativity of person Y, without Y receiving their fair share ... ? Assuming Y does not give X permission from teh get-go, of course.

* The existing patent and copyright systems are flawed.The only flaw is that the period of protection has been extended indefinitely. Had we stuck to the original terms, the situation would be much better.

* Ideally and eventually, the existing systems will be replaced by something very different, because it's fundamentally silly and wasteful to not use computers and networks to do what they do with great and natural ease - duplicate and distribute data which, once we get over our ancient and corrupt economic and legal institutions,PvK, no offense, but your repeated cries against how corrupt, monolithically-conspiratorial "megacorporations" controlling this, that, and the other ... leaves me with nothing so much as the impression that you are, in a word ... a crackpot.

I'm serious. The copyright law itself is not what is flawed ... it is the additions and modifications to it that are the problem. And specifically, the interminable extensions of protected status.

will allow us to use it to share all data with everyone freely. All that's required is a replacement for the corporate-dominated system of employment and intellectual property ownership, so that creative people can earn a reasonable wage by virtue of how much people appreciate their work, without a corporate monster devouring most of the profit and dictating what everyone creates.Except, by the things you've described, there would be no way to guarantee that the most "appreciated" creative work would ever generate one thin dime for the author!

It's a little something I've heard called "the ******* factor" (pardon the language); you, PvK, might want to think there are enough good and honest people in the world that some sort of "honor system" would work ...

... but you'd be wrong; you'd be vastly overestimating humanity. And, perhaps more to the point, grossly UNDER-estimating man's capacity to be *******s to their fellow man.

People steal. It's that simple; theft has been with us from before we achieved sentience, and won't be going away anytime soon.

And when people steal, you need laws to PROTECT those who are stolen FROM.

It is not the fault of those laws, that they have been ABUSED by various corporate (and other) concerns.

DavidG

June 22nd, 2003, 03:24 AM

Originally posted by Pax:
PvK, no offense, but your repeated cries against how corrupt, monolithically-conspiratorial "megacorporations" controlling this, that, and the other ... leaves me with nothing so much as the impression that you are, in a word ... a crackpot.
Nice. "No offense" but you're a "crackpot" Gee how could someone be offended by being called a crackpot.

Pax

June 22nd, 2003, 06:46 AM

Originally posted by DavidG:
[QUOTE]Nice. "No offense" but you're a "crackpot" Gee how could someone be offended by being called a crackpot.Back at you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

I didn't CALL him an actual crackpot; I said his words leave me with that IMPRESSION. There is a difference with saying one is left with the impression of someone being something, and saying they actually are that thing.

And IMO, PvK's not-quite-IMO-rational opposition to all things corporate is teetering dangerously on the edge of that particular precipice.

Sue me for being completely honest, eh?

Phoenix-D

June 22nd, 2003, 08:34 PM

He does have a point. If you, say, eliminate copyright entirely, you get something like so:

Guy makes a web comic, its popular. He isn't getting paid, but he doesn't care because he likes doing it. He has a modest, not huge, readership.

Someone else (with more money) sees this, turns his creation into a huge, over-marketed over commericalized thing. No one will go near the web comic except the original viewers, because they naturally think its a rip off of the over-marketed thing. The over-marketed rip off eventually dies its inevitable death, leaving the first guy with..jack. He gains nothing from the cash grab, and most people have been turned off his comic now too.

I see only a few problems with copyright law, and one of them is a law in general problem.

1. It Lasts too long, and really shouldn't be renewable.

2. Its too expensive to defend yourself from accusations, or go after violators. Smaller Groups HAVE been run into the ground by baseless (but expensive!) lawsuits.

Pax

June 23rd, 2003, 08:02 PM

Originally posted by PvK:
it's fundamentally silly and wasteful to not use computers and networks to do what they do with great and natural ease - duplicate and distribute data which, once we get over our ancient and corrupt economic and legal institutions, will allow us to use it to share all data with everyone freely. All that's required is a replacement for the corporate-dominated system of employment and intellectual property ownership, so that creative people can earn a reasonable wage by virtue of how much people appreciate their work, without a corporate monster devouring most of the profit and dictating what everyone creates.Another thought for you, turning your words above to another concept and end:

it's fundamentally silly and wasteful to not use nuclear armaments and delivery systems to do what they do with great and natural ease - destroy cities and slay millions of innocents which, once we get over our respect for human life, will allow us to use it to obliterate all life on this planet. All that's required is a replacement for the instinctive system of morality, so that psychotic people can kill untold millions of people, without a single shred of guilt.

[ June 23, 2003, 19:06: Message edited by: Pax ]

Phoenix-D

June 23rd, 2003, 08:41 PM

Uh, Pax? I think I speak for more than myself when I say:

Where the HELL did that come from?

Rojero

June 23rd, 2003, 08:54 PM

Ditto

Erax

June 23rd, 2003, 10:03 PM

I think he meant to say that just because we have the technology to do something doesn't mean we should go ahead and use it.

But there are, um, better ways to say it. In fact, I can't think of many worse ways to say it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Pax, you sometimes come across as... intense. Too intense. Maybe you should reword your example.

PvK

June 23rd, 2003, 11:42 PM

Yeah, you could just say that you disagree with the premise that it would be a good thing if everyone could have free access to all content.

I suppose I overstated my cases about megacorporate evil, particularly if you happen to be someone who thinks megacorporations are good. I've just seen plenty of examples, and to me the idea of most of the wealth and power being concentrated in organizations whose stated overriding purpose is to maximize their own wealth in any way they can come up with, satisfies my definition of evil.

I agree there are plenty of people (you used the word "***") who will try to steal other people's work for their own ends. It seems clear to me that megacorporations tend to institutionalize and legalize this behavior, for instance by buying up smaller companies for their intellectual property, and then laying off the staff, destroying their competition at the same time. However I don't agree that the existing copyright system (even with shorter time limits) is the best answer.

PvK

Pax

June 24th, 2003, 10:21 AM

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Uh, Pax? I think I speak for more than myself when I say:

Where the HELL did that come from?It's really very, very, unbelievably simple:

Just because a tool CAN do a thing, does not mean it is wise nor right to actually do that thing with a tool.

Ease of accomplishment is NOT justification for the deed itself.

I chose to illustrate that point in as shockingly glaring a way as I could -- by using PvK's words RE: the ease etc of free sharing of data via computer, only as applies to nuclear munitions. After all, it is about as easy for a nuclear munition (once constructed, ofc) to destroy a city, as it is for a computer to download a few score MB of mp3's.

And would take less time, if you didn't need ot ship the bomb to the target city.

Pax

June 24th, 2003, 10:36 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
[QB]Yeah, you could just say that you disagree with the premise that it would be a good thing if everyone could have free access to all content.[/b]I fully support the use of computers to facilitate the transfer of data within the bounds of reasonable law; reasonable in this case would be, fair protections for the rights and fonancial (or nonfinancial) interests of the creator of such data or content.

I suppose I overstated my cases about megacorporate evil, particularly if you happen to be someone who thinks megacorporations are good.I hold a neutral stance on them, actually. I hold some corporations -- those with high community-minded standards, for example. Do the corporations do good works in order to "buy" that intangible but nonetheless incredibly valuable commodity known as "public good will" ... ? Well of course.

But seriously, do you care WHY a company might support, say ... children's hospitals and hostels? Isn't it enough that the corporation DOES so?

I.E., McDonald's and the Ronald McDonald House ... ?

A corporation, regardless of size, is never inherently evil -- nor good -- based solely on it's being a corporation that exists to generate profit for it's owner(s).

It is the actions of that corporation that defines it as a good, or bad, entity within our economy and society.

I've just seen plenty of examples, and to me the idea of most of the wealth and power being concentrated in organizations whose stated overriding purpose is to maximize their own wealth in any way they can come up with, satisfies my definition of evil.It satisfies my definition of greed, but not evil.

The holocaust ... that was evil.

Squeezing every dreg of legal profit possible out of a product ... that's just greed.

I agree there are plenty of people (you used the word "***") who will try to steal other people's work for their own ends.A friend calls this the "turd in the punchbowl" concept -- no matter how wonderful the punch is, it only takes one turd floating in it to ruin the whole thing.

It seems clear to me that megacorporations tend to institutionalize and legalize this behavior, for instance by buying up smaller companies for their intellectual property, and then laying off the staff, destroying their competition at the same time. However I don't agree that the existing copyright system (even with shorter time limits) is the best answer.I think the best thing to do would be to extend Trademark status to characters in continual, renewed use (that would protect Superman and Batman as continued sources of income for DC Comics, for example -- and keep Mickey Mouse et al solidly in Disney hands).

Individual products -- films, shorts, music, etc -- shoudl have a corporate life of 75 to 100 years, or a private life of "creator's life + 25 years" ... and that's it.

The corporation gets a solid entury of profit out of something; an individual author or artist can know that their profitable products (if any, ofc) will continue to support their family after they die, even supporting newborn children until after their expected college graduation.

But you don't end up with "mine in perpetuity" issues.

The thing is, PvK, the ends you want to achieve cannot be reached by changing the law. I'm sorry, but, the law just can't do that. What you want would require massive social re-engineering; you would have to change the very fabric of society, and readjust what EVERYone thinks is right and wrong.

That's the work of generations ... if it's even humanly possible; social constructs tend to defy proactive engineering by we mere humans.

"Free all the information" looks good on paper. In reality ... it simply wouldn't work; too many people would simply decide the effort needed to produce a piece of (unprotected) artwork, given the almost-assuredly-low return on their investment of time, effort, and self.

Seriously -- do you think SE4 would be as good as it is, if Aaron had no guarantee that at least some money from the sale of SE4 would find it's way into his pocket? He'dhave to get and keep a "real" job, and SE would be relegated to a "project in his spare time" -- if it didn't get dropped altogether.

narf poit chez BOOM

June 24th, 2003, 10:48 AM

legal does not always mean good or right. any action motivated purely by greed is close to evil, because greed, by it's nature, seeks to be unchecked and is evil. or in other words, you can't stick your hand in the fire without getting burned.

Jack Simth

June 24th, 2003, 08:53 PM

Originally posted by Pax:
There is absolutely no such thing, though, as an action wholly and completely unmotivated by greed, aside perhaps from autonomous reflex activities like breathing -- and even that, I bet, would be arguably motivated by a form of greed, at the cellular or biochemical level.I would agree that there is no action for which an argument cannot be made that there is some amount of greed behind the action; I would not agree that there are no actions completely unmotivated by greed. This isn't exactly something that can be argued; it's more of a philisophical position, I suppose.

Erax

June 25th, 2003, 01:16 AM

Greed is not, itself, evil. Rather, it is a motivation for evil. Most of us have some measure of greed, which is (usually) kept in check by our moral / ethical standards.

The conscious decision to violate those standards, motivated by greed, is evil.

Having a set of personal standards that is incompatible with the society you live in is also considered to be evil, although that is a separate debate in itself.

Edit : Wealthy people / corporations are often guilty of avarice, which is a different condition from greed. Greed involves amassing more wealth; avarice involves holding on to what you have even if you don't need / don't use it.

[ June 24, 2003, 12:20: Message edited by: Chief Engineer Erax ]

Pax

June 25th, 2003, 01:32 AM

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
legal does not always mean good or right. any action motivated purely by greed is close to evil, because greed, by it's nature, seeks to be unchecked and is evil. or in other words, you can't stick your hand in the fire without getting burned.There is absolutely no such thing, though, as an action wholly and completely unmotivated by greed, aside perhaps from autonomous reflex activities like breathing -- and even that, I bet, would be arguably motivated by a form of greed, at the cellular or biochemical level.

Will

June 25th, 2003, 06:34 AM

Originally posted by Pax:
Seriously -- do you think SE4 would be as good as it is, if Aaron had no guarantee that at least some money from the sale of SE4 would find it's way into his pocket? He'd have to get and keep a "real" job, and SE would be relegated to a "project in his spare time" -- if it didn't get dropped altogether.Actually, Aaron did have a "real" day job until, IIRC, just before the release of SEIV Gold. The whole SE series was initially just a "labor of love" sort of thing, trying to make a game like Starfire (he has said that Starfire was his main inspiration in the series), and continually improve it and make it better. So, for something like seven or eight years, SE really was a "project in his spare time", which makes the games all the more remarkable to me. And this is also why SEIV Gold, DO, SE:SF, and SEV are coming out in quick succession; Aaron is VERY good at what he does, and the exposure he's gotten since Shrapnel picked up publishing duties has allowed him to quit his day job and work with (play with?) his games full time.

But, back to the topic of copyrights... Pax, it seems that you think PvK is advocating the removal of copyright entirely. At least that's how your arguements are sounding to me. But how I'm understanding PvK's position is that copyright is held in too broad a sense, which very often turns out to be a Bad Thing.

To go back to the original example, with the the character skins in the game, I don't think copyright should cover the Marvel characters in a case like this. The trademarks would cover it, yes, but not copyright. Copyright should be used to protect individual works, but should not be expanded to entire abstract concepts and ideas, as it often is. Examples: 20th Century Fox suing Universal saying that Battlestar Galactica is a copy of Star Wars; Nancy Stouffer suing J.K. Rowling because "Harry Potter" was somewhat similar to "Larry Potter", then J.K. Rowling suing Dmitry Yemets because "Tanya Grotter" was somewhat similar to "Harry Potter"; Pets.com suing "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" because Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is a dog puppet just like Pets.com's mascot. And I'm sure there are several more examples of absurd claims. If you took this view of copyright just a little farther, then SE4 is infringing on MoO's "copyright" on 4X games (or whichever was the 'first' 4X game). Or any manual on the C language is violating the copyright on K&R's original C manual, etc.

Fan art is an independant, creative work modeled off of some other work that the fan appreciates. To me, it just seems wrong that something that is not a direct copy be a violation of copyright, the right of a creator/copyright holder to determine how his/her/its individual works are duplicated and distributed. It does not give the creator/copyright holder the right to prevent the creation of any similar works.

Rojero

June 25th, 2003, 07:03 AM

Just to lighten the mood a bit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif
Originally posted by PvK:
it's fundamentally silly and wasteful to not use computers and networks to do what they do with great and natural ease - duplicate and distribute data which, once we get over our ancient and corrupt economic and legal institutions, will allow us to use it to share all data with everyone freely. All that's required is a replacement for the corporate-dominated system of employment and intellectual property ownership, so that creative people can earn a reasonable wage by virtue of how much people appreciate their work, without a corporate monster devouring most of the profit and dictating what everyone creates.Another thought for you, turning your words above to another concept and end:

quote:it's fundamentally silly and wasteful to not use nuclear armaments and delivery systems to do what they do with great and natural ease - destroy cities and slay millions of innocents which, once we get over our respect for human life, will allow us to use it to obliterate all life on this planet. All that's required is a replacement for the instinctive system of morality, so that psychotic people can kill untold millions of people, without a single shred of guilt.

it's fundamentally silly and wasteful to not use men and women to do what they do with great and natural ease - to make love and multiply, respect for human sensitivity, which will allow us to use it to recreate all life on this planet. All that's required is a replacement for the instinctive system of sensuality, so that attractive and non-attractive people can have untold millions of couplings, without a single shred of guilt.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ June 25, 2003, 06:04: Message edited by: Rojero ]

Will

June 25th, 2003, 07:08 AM

Originally posted by Rojero:
Just to lighten the mood a bit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

*snip*

it's fundamentally silly and wasteful to not use men and women to do what they do with great and natural ease - to make love and multiply, respect for human sensitivity, which will allow us to use it to recreate all life on this planet. All that's required is a replacement for the instinctive system of sensuality, so that attractive and non-attractive people can have untold millions of couplings, without a single shred of guilt.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ROTFLMAO! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Jack Simth

June 25th, 2003, 07:16 AM

Originally posted by Will:
To me, it just seems wrong that something that is not a direct copy be a violation of copyright, the right of a creator/copyright holder to determine how his/her/its individual works are duplicated and distributed. It does not give the creator/copyright holder the right to prevent the creation of any similar works.Simply saying no direct copies is insufficient; for example: what happens if someone changes the color on the menu for SEIV? It isn't a direct copy any longer, after all. However, it still has all the problems of a direct copy. Sure, something as independant as producing skins from Marvel characters as a mod for a game is far removed from simply changing a color on a menu. However, the main difference between the two is one of degree (granted, an extreme degree). Where do you draw the line between that which you would like to be acceptable (skins) and that which you would not (changing a menu color)? Any such line is arbitrary, and subject to interpertation.

Jack Simth

June 25th, 2003, 07:32 AM

Originally posted by Pax:
I think the best thing to do would be to extend Trademark status to characters in continual, renewed use (that would protect Superman and Batman as continued sources of income for DC Comics, for example -- and keep Mickey Mouse et al solidly in Disney hands).

Individual products -- films, shorts, music, etc -- shoudl have a corporate life of 75 to 100 years, or a private life of "creator's life + 25 years" ... and that's it.

The corporation gets a solid entury of profit out of something; an individual author or artist can know that their profitable products (if any, ofc) will continue to support their family after they die, even supporting newborn children until after their expected college graduation.

But you don't end up with "mine in perpetuity" issues.It might actually be possible to get enough corporate support for that solution to make it through legislation.

Wait, no - you still couldn't make skins - the characters you are making skins of would be trademarked in perpetuity.

Interesting suggestion though.

Baron Grazic

June 25th, 2003, 08:04 AM

What I don't understand about this discussion is why Marvel or their 'reprentatives' sent the letter in the first place, when on their web site is "The Freedom Force Webkit contains awesome assets to help you build your own fan site". (http://http://www.myfreedomforce.com/news/flat_index.html)

So they will help you build your own fansite but acording to the letter Rojero received, he "is not permitted to copy or reproduce the copyrighted images or distinctive likenesses of Marvel's characters, nor use the registered trademarks associated with those characters such as Spider-Man, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, etc". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

Why the hell do they have the fan site web kit, if you can not use their images on the web?
If they have tools avaiable for people to use, they can't then claim that their images are copyrighted, can they?

Jack Simth

June 25th, 2003, 08:09 AM

Originally posted by Baron Grazic:
What I don't understand about this discussion is why Marvel or their 'reprentatives' sent the letter in the first place, when on their web site is "The Freedom Force Webkit contains awesome assets to help you build your own fan site". (http://http://www.myfreedomforce.com/news/flat_index.html)

So they will help you build your own fansite but acording to the letter Rojero received, he "is not permitted to copy or reproduce the copyrighted images or distinctive likenesses of Marvel's characters, nor use the registered trademarks associated with those characters such as Spider-Man, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, etc". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

Why the hell do they have the fan site web kit, if you can not use their images on the web?
If they have tools avaiable for people to use, they can't then claim that their images are copyrighted, can they?Many companies contract out to another company to protect their intellectual property, and that company is sometimes (often?) overzealous in protecting that IP; I suspect this is the case with Marvel.

Erax

June 25th, 2003, 03:36 PM

Here's another real-life IP issue : the company I work for purchases machine parts from a certain supplier (the only one in the country for those specific parts).

Our maintenance people would like to have the supplier's drawings for a few critical parts so they could measure them on arrival, to ensure that they will assemble correctly when needed.

The problem is that the drawings are the supplier's IP and they might not want to hand them over, no matter how many non-disclosure agreemeents we sign. The reason is that if those drawings get out, the market may be flooded with pirate parts and the damage to their business will be so extensive that it isn't worth the risk.

We are essentially paying for other people's crimes. There may be a solution but it won't be easy.

Pax

June 25th, 2003, 05:36 PM

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
I would agree that there is no action for which an argument cannot be made that there is some amount of greed behind the action; I would not agree that there are no actions completely unmotivated by greed. This isn't exactly something that can be argued; it's more of a philisophical position, I suppose.I will restate: there is absolutely NO action which is wholly unmotivated by greed. IOW, greed is a component of the motivation behind every action of every human being on the planet, past present or future -- either an instinctive greed, or a conscious one.

Note, ofc, that greed doesn't have to reflect only material acquisitiveness. If you do something "because it makes you feel good to help people" ... that good feeling is what you're greedy for; the more you can manage to get it, the more you will, until the cost exceeds the gain (IOW, until you bump into some other element of greed in your life).

Pax

June 25th, 2003, 05:41 PM

Originally posted by Baron Grazic:
What I don't understand about this discussion is why Marvel or their 'reprentatives' sent the letter in the first place, when on their web site is "The Freedom Force Webkit contains awesome assets to help you build your own fan site". (http://http://www.myfreedomforce.com/news/flat_index.html)

So they will help you build your own fansite but acording to the letter Rojero received, he "is not permitted to copy or reproduce the copyrighted images or distinctive likenesses of Marvel's characters, nor use the registered trademarks associated with those characters such as Spider-Man, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, etc". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

Why the hell do they have the fan site web kit, if you can not use their images on the web?
If they have tools avaiable for people to use, they can't then claim that their images are copyrighted, can they?I'm sure the SKINS wer enot in the fansite webkit, though. The webkit would contain a liscense -- at least implicit -- allowing the INCLUDED images to be used, without alterations beyond resizing to fit the website, as-is.

When you go beyond that liscense ... the whole thing can be revoked, and ALL your use of such images can become a problem -- even the ones used as-is from the website kit.

Jack Simth

June 25th, 2003, 05:54 PM

Originally posted by Pax:
I will restate: there is absolutely NO action which is wholly unmotivated by greed. IOW, greed is a component of the motivation behind every action of every human being on the planet, past present or future -- either an instinctive greed, or a conscious one.

Note, ofc, that greed doesn't have to reflect only material acquisitiveness. If you do something "because it makes you feel good to help people" ... that good feeling is what you're greedy for; the more you can manage to get it, the more you will, until the cost exceeds the gain (IOW, until you bump into some other element of greed in your life).As I said (paraphrase), an argument can be made that there is some amount of greed behind any given action; however, that does not necessarily mean that there is greed behind that action, nor does it mean that there is greed behind all actions. Also, as I said, this isn't exactly something that can be argued. In order to proove my side, it would require the ability to proove the full set of motivations behind some pure action (which is impossible at present). In order to proove your side, it would require the ability to proove the full set of motivations behind all actions (which is even more impossible at present). As I said, it is more of a philisophical position. Arguing and contradiction will go exactly nowhere.

DavidG

June 25th, 2003, 08:52 PM

Greed:

n 1: excessive desire to acquire or possess more (esp material wealth) than one needs or deserves 2: reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins)

Many actions do not fit the above definition. Eating a bowl of cereal in the morning is not greed. Eating 20 is.

PvK

June 25th, 2003, 09:28 PM

Originally posted by Pax:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by PvK:
It's yet another power grab by corporations motivated entirely by greed, and an attack on freedom of expression, in my opinion.

As long as you aren't selling, it shouldn't be illegal. If that's not the law, then the law should be unconstitutional.

PvKLack of monetary compensation cannot become a defense. I know of people who would copy someone else's work and hand the copies out for free, solely because they can ... thus denying the copyright holder their rightful income from the production and distribution of that work.

That is the very sort of thing copyright law is supposed to address.

While I do disagree with the indefinite extension of copyright, I also cannot agree with "no profit, no foul" fallacies.
<hr /></blockquote> Ok, but that's not what I meant. I didn't mean you could replace my word "it" with "piracy" or "nuclear holocaust" - I was just talking about fan art. If someone wants to draw a picture of Spock and not make any money off it, I say that should be allowed, and I have zero sympathy for any imaginary damage done to Paramount Pictures Inc.. Nor should they be required to mount such attacks in order to preserve their rights.
That is not a matter of a power grab (the letter from Marvel, below) ... it's a matter of law: if marvel DOESN'T actively and aggressively protect it's trademarks and associated intellectual property, they lose them. Marvel exists to profit form selling stories and other products based on that intellectual property.
 Well, in my opinion, even though you may be correct about the current legal situation, in my opinion, that's ridiculous. Fan art should not invalidate copyrights.

"Marvel exists to profit..." yeah well, I certainly don't feel much concern for the continued existence, let alone support, of organizations which "exist to profit". You do?

Take the recent X-Men films; if copies and derivations (etc) could be made and distributed for free and without penalty by persons OTHER than those who made the films and/or own rights to the intellectual properties with which the films were told, then, the films would never have been made.

MOST films owuldn't get made, nor would most books be published. It's a business, and it's about profit. Just like the inventor of a new machine should profit from his or her creation, the creator of a new piece of intellectual property should be able to do likewise.

Put it in perspective WRT SE4: if anyone were allowed to hand out copies of SE4, without Aaron seeing a penny, and with him unable to seek any sort of legal intervention ...

... then SE would probably never have happened, let alone be onthe FOURTH Version. The man has to put food on his table, after all.Well again, you're talking about piracy, not fan art. I think there's a huge difference.

It may be true too that you're discussing practical legal reality under the current system, whereas I'm arguing what I think should ideally the the case.

PvK

PvK

June 25th, 2003, 09:35 PM

Originally posted by DavidG:
Greed:

n 1: excessive desire to acquire or possess more (esp material wealth) than one needs or deserves 2: reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins)

Many actions do not fit the above definition. Eating a bowl of cereal in the morning is not greed. Eating 20 is.Well, eating 20 bowls would be gluttony.

Greed would be having a million bucks, and buying all the cereal in your town so you can re-sell it to everyone for more than you paid for it, so you can have more than a million bucks. Some people might call that entrepreneurship, though.

Pax saying any action has elements of greed in it though, seem to me to be mistakenly thinking greed means simply the desire to improve one's position.

PvK

[ June 25, 2003, 20:36: Message edited by: PvK ]

Pax

June 26th, 2003, 12:58 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
Ok, but that's not what I meant. I didn't mean you could replace my word "it" with "piracy" or "nuclear holocaust" - I was just talking about fan art. If someone wants to draw a picture of Spock and not make any money off it, I say that should be allowed, and I have zero sympathy for any imaginary damage done to Paramount Pictures Inc.. Nor should they be required to mount such attacks in order to preserve their rights.Paramount owns the likeness of Spok as IP -- either through copyright, or, trademark (and trademark is forever, as it should be).

What if Paramount wants to profit by selling depictions of the TOS crew (which in fact, they do) ... ? Someone out there, no matter how talented (or not), handing out free depictions thereof, prevents Paramount form properly and fairly profiting by their creation(s).

Well, in my opinion, even though you may be correct about the current legal situation, in my opinion, that's ridiculous. Fan art should not invalidate copyrights.Under the law, there is no such thing as "fan art"; there are original works, derivative works, and unlawful copies or derivations thereof.

"Marvel exists to profit..." yeah well, I certainly don't feel much concern for the continued existence, let alone support, of organizations which "exist to profit". You do?
MM exists for profit; so does Shrapnel Games. I feel concern for their continued existance, and their continued support.

I happen to appreciate their products, as you also presumably do.

Well again, you're talking about piracy, not fan art. I think there's a huge difference.Fan Art is a (minor) form of piracy, however. If you draw Bugs Bunny on a piece of paper, you have created a derivative work -- your work is not original, it is derived from the owned work of WB, Inc.

You do not have the right to photocopy that drawing and hand copies out; you do not own copyright on "your" derivative work, WB does.

It may be true too that you're discussing practical legal reality under the current system, whereas I'm arguing what I think should ideally the the case.

PvKI think the current case would be fine, if __ things became true:

One, people started having some RESPECT for the concept of IP, and asked PERMISSION before displaying or distributing their fan art. Many companies would probably grant such permission -- look at how many offer "Fansite Webkits" to help people make fansites focussed on their IP look better ... and usually (if not always) offer the kits for FREE, one might add?

Two, character likenesses were redefined as "trademark" IP, and not "copyright" IP.

Three, the original constitutionally-mandated expiry dates were reinstated on copyright laws.

Those three things, taken together, would IMO render the system as close to workably perfect as humanly possible.

The first one is the one that's likely impossible ... it's the one that buts up against innate human greed and the "******* factor" alike.

But, it's a darned sight more achievable than your (IMO) blue-sky-fantasy ideas of honor systems and free exchange of data, etc.

Will

June 26th, 2003, 01:00 AM

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Will:
To me, it just seems wrong that something that is not a direct copy be a violation of copyright, the right of a creator/copyright holder to determine how his/her/its individual works are duplicated and distributed. It does not give the creator/copyright holder the right to prevent the creation of any similar works.Simply saying no direct copies is insufficient; for example: what happens if someone changes the color on the menu for SEIV? It isn't a direct copy any longer, after all. However, it still has all the problems of a direct copy. Sure, something as independant as producing skins from Marvel characters as a mod for a game is far removed from simply changing a color on a menu. However, the main difference between the two is one of degree (granted, an extreme degree). Where do you draw the line between that which you would like to be acceptable (skins) and that which you would not (changing a menu color)? Any such line is arbitrary, and subject to interpertation.<hr /></blockquote>Jack, you're misunderstanding. If someone only modified SEIV by changing a menu color and distributing the work as their own, that does violate copyright. This doesn't mean changing parts of SEIV like this cannot be done; in fact, Aaron has made it quite easy to make these modifications, and the mods can be distributed independantly of the game. To distribute anything else as your own essentially is plagerism.

Using SEIV as an example, what I'm talking about would be someone writing a game similar to SEIV on their own. A programmer could mimic, reverse-engineer, the exact setup of SEIV (systems connected by warps and containing planets, ships to colonize, attack, etc, resources generated from colonies, research, intelligence, diplomacy), and as long as the programmer does not copy any of the individual parts of the game (this includes the copyrighted images, sounds, etc. in SEIV, those would have to be reproduced independantly), it is fine. Of course, in the process of creating the "clone", it will inevitably become a different thing from the original, as the clone author imparts its own personal style and biases to the clone.

You're trying to visualize a line where copyright ceases to cover a work, and are using examples to draw that line within distinct components of a work. If you must imagine a line, however, it should be seperating the work itself and its components, and the ideas behind them.

=0=

On the disscussion of the nature of greed, the philosophical meanings of motivation, et cetera...

I usually think of the arguement as "There is no action that is not, at least in part, affected by selfishness". If you look up greed or selfishness in a thesaurus, you'll see that they're synonyms... and for most people, the two words are completely interchangable. I think that there are no two people that speak the exact same language; there are vast similarities in the words and structure in what we call language, but subtle differences between each person's interpretations in different parts. For me, `greed' and `selfishness' carry pretty much the same definition; however, for me, `greed' is stronger form, with more negative connotations, while `selfishness' is a softer form with both negative connotations and connotations to practicality, which are positive. The result is: "There is no action that is not, at least in part, affected by greed" makes me think, `People are inherently evil', while "There is no action that is not, at least in part, affected by selfishness" makes me think `People tend to look after themselves first, but looking out for others is also a form of looking out for oneself'.

The point of whatever it was I just typed up there is -- every person has a slightly different take on the meaning of a word, so quit quibbling on the details http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Jack Simth

June 26th, 2003, 02:17 AM

Originally posted by Will:
Jack, you're misunderstanding. If someone only modified SEIV by changing a menu color and distributing the work as their own, that does violate copyright. This doesn't mean changing parts of SEIV like this cannot be done; in fact, Aaron has made it quite easy to make these modifications, and the mods can be distributed independantly of the game. To distribute anything else as your own essentially is plagerism.
No, I'm not confused; If you'll notice, I said "Simply saying no direct copies is insufficient; for example" (emphasis added). Another way of saying that would be to say that I found the definition you posted to be lacking. Further, I later said "[...] and that which you would not [like to be acceptable] (changing a menu color)?" - which also implies that I know it isn't what you are actually after. That was just an example to demonstrate a problem with things as you had worded them; you now appear to be saying that you didn't mean things exactly as they were posted, so that's fine. Originally posted by Will:

Using SEIV as an example, what I'm talking about would be someone writing a game similar to SEIV on their own. A programmer could mimic, reverse-engineer, the exact setup of SEIV (systems connected by warps and containing planets, ships to colonize, attack, etc, resources generated from colonies, research, intelligence, diplomacy), and as long as the programmer does not copy any of the individual parts of the game (this includes the copyrighted images, sounds, etc. in SEIV, those would have to be reproduced independantly), it is fine. Of course, in the process of creating the "clone", it will inevitably become a different thing from the original, as the clone author imparts its own personal style and biases to the clone.

You're trying to visualize a line where copyright ceases to cover a work, and are using examples to draw that line within distinct components of a work. If you must imagine a line, however, it should be seperating the work itself and its components, and the ideas behind them.
They won't be inevitably measureably different (there are people who are that thourough and can suppress their own preferences). A copy made to be extremely similar for the user made in the fasion you describe and distributed freely by a malicious institution wanting to bring Aaron down would have a similar effect to just changing a menu color (especially if they took more time with the graphics, fixed the bugs people complain about on the forums, can accept the same data file format, and used it as an advertising gimmick to get people to come to their website (where they actually sell something else)). That would be a great tool for big corporations which wanted to drive little companies out of business.

PvK

June 26th, 2003, 08:28 PM

Corporations don't need to be able to own copyrights or trademarks indefinitely in order to profit from producing products, as long as no one else is allowed to sell (or give away) the majority of complete pieces of work that they actually produced.

Notice that plenty of money has been made by corporate media making films about history or pre-copyright literature. Also notice that much of the media produced by megacorps that is capitalizing on their monopoly of "intellectual property" turns out to be really bad, usually because the corp only cares about cashing in to the max, sees it has a monopoly on something popular, and decides to minimize the production quality precisely because its overriding purpose is to maximize profit.

PvK

PvK

June 26th, 2003, 09:14 PM

Originally posted by Pax:

Paramount owns the likeness of Spok as IP -- either through copyright, or, trademark (and trademark is forever, as it should be).

Unless I'm mistaken, Gene Roddenberry invented Spock, and he died. I'd say it would be fine if humanity could inherit the right to use his literature without fighting about who first invested in the rights to use it decades ago. The absence of copyrights on pre-(c)/pre-TM literature isn't causing problems, and megacorps continue to profit from using such creations, even though I still don't agree that megacorp profits are something to try to protect. After all, they only exist to increase their own wealth and power, so they can continue to do the same thing, until they own it all, or as much as they can get away with - megalomania without the megalomaniac.

What if Paramount wants to profit by selling depictions of the TOS crew (which in fact, they do) ... ? Someone out there, no matter how talented (or not), handing out free depictions thereof, prevents Paramount form properly and fairly profiting by their creation(s).

Untrue. Handing out my own Versions of TOS characters will have little or no impact, and might even help, Paramount sell their own junk based on Roddenberry's work. Big deal.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Well, in my opinion, even though you may be correct about the current legal situation, in my opinion, that's ridiculous. Fan art should not invalidate copyrights.Under the law, there is no such thing as "fan art"; there are original works, derivative works, and unlawful copies or derivations thereof.
<hr /></blockquote>
You're playing definition games, and I'm not really interested in the particulars of actual legal definitions. If fan art is illegal and a threat to corporations under the current laws, then I think the current laws are ridiculous.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />"Marvel exists to profit..." yeah well, I certainly don't feel much concern for the continued existence, let alone support, of organizations which "exist to profit". You do?
MM exists for profit; so does Shrapnel Games. I feel concern for their continued existance, and their continued support.

I happen to appreciate their products, as you also presumably do.
<hr /></blockquote>
I disagree. I would say, from what I have read of Shrapnel and MM's publications about their work (q.v. on this web site) and their goals, is that they exist because they want to publish and develop the kinds of games that they really like, and be able to avoid working for a megacorp doing uninteresting junk to maximize profits.

If maximizing their profits were their reason for existence, they'd work in a different field, or concentrate on mass marketting trendy crap or trying to make a mega-hit, like the megacorps do.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Well again, you're talking about piracy, not fan art. I think there's a huge difference.Fan Art is a (minor) form of piracy, however. If you draw Bugs Bunny on a piece of paper, you have created a derivative work -- your work is not original, it is derived from the owned work of WB, Inc.

You do not have the right to photocopy that drawing and hand copies out; you do not own copyright on "your" derivative work, WB does.
<hr /></blockquote>
I think that's a bad thing.

Bugs Bunny is the creation of Chuck Jones, who I believe died Last year (according to this article) (http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/pentagram/7_08/features/14532-1.html). Recent Bugs Bunny cartoons may be the work of wage slaves, well-paid minions, or computers of WB, Inc., but why is that system a good one? If I want to draw Buggs and xerox it, I'm not going to do anything negative to WB, Inc., from a realistic non-twisted-legal standpoint. I'd probably have a positive effect by reminding people of something WB sells. If that's defined as piracy, then it's just another abuse of the English language by legal texts. If I wanted to argue about stupid legal definitions, I might have been a lawyer... eeeew. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

<blockquote>quote:<hr />It may be true too that you're discussing practical legal reality under the current system, whereas I'm arguing what I think should ideally the the case.

PvKI think the current case would be fine, if __ things became true:

One, people started having some RESPECT for the concept of IP, and asked PERMISSION before displaying or distributing their fan art. Many companies would probably grant such permission -- look at how many offer "Fansite Webkits" to help people make fansites focussed on their IP look better ... and usually (if not always) offer the kits for FREE, one might add?

Two, character likenesses were redefined as "trademark" IP, and not "copyright" IP.

Three, the original constitutionally-mandated expiry dates were reinstated on copyright laws.

Those three things, taken together, would IMO render the system as close to workably perfect as humanly possible.

The first one is the one that's likely impossible ... it's the one that buts up against innate human greed and the "******* factor" alike.

But, it's a darned sight more achievable than your (IMO) blue-sky-fantasy ideas of honor systems and free exchange of data, etc.<hr /></blockquote>Mainly because so many people just herd along without questioning the status quo, and buy into the existing system. Kind of like the Brobroba (sp? - OOPS! TM INFRIGNEMENT! $5000 dollar fine!) States, who refuse to believe in the existence of Warp Points.

PvK

[ June 26, 2003, 20:15: Message edited by: PvK ]

Will

June 27th, 2003, 05:52 AM

Originally posted by Jack Simth:
No, I'm not confused; If you'll notice, I said "Simply saying no direct copies is insufficient; for example" (emphasis added). Another way of saying that would be to say that I found the definition you posted to be lacking. Further, I later said "[...] and that which you would not [like to be acceptable] (changing a menu color)?" - which also implies that I know it isn't what you are actually after. That was just an example to demonstrate a problem with things as you had worded them; you now appear to be saying that you didn't mean things exactly as they were posted, so that's fine. Well, I had a response written for your post, but I seemed to have hit "Add Reply" about five minutes after the forums went all narcoleptic... so my response essentially went *POOF!*.

The gist of it: I never said you were confused, I said you were misunderstanding what I posted. Confused would be the recipient having reduced mental faculties (I would consider saying confused in that situation unwarranted and an insult). Misunderstanding is a problem in the act of communication (and has absolutely no malice behind it), something being lost in the translation, so to speak.

To attempt to rehash my position on the limits to be put on copyright (not even going to touch trademarks or patents here, that's a completely different 900-pound purple gorilla): Copyright should protect against what is commonly accepted as plagerism, but nothing beyond that. That means that no significant portion of the copyright-protected work can be used by someone else. With the changing-menu-color example, that would violate copyrights because the rest of the game most certainly constitutes "significant". However, if the game was reverse-engineered, and every piece of it was created independantly, taking nothing but inspiration from the original, then that does not violate the copyright. Another example: say a writer has a terrible case of writers block. The writer comes across a short story done by someone else, and begins writing with the story as a model; the writer doesn't take a single sentance fragment from the original, but does use the same characters (with different names), plot, setting, etc. That, in my view, is more than a bit unoriginal, but should not violate copyright... the writer's story is its own, nothing tangible was taken from the "original". (As a side note, I would personally think it proper to let the "original's" author and any readers know about the source of the story idea, but I don't think that should be mandated by copyright law).

Also, there should be leeway given for personal use. There is already some in the current laws, but certain Groups are trying their damnedest to remove all personal copying. I think it's perfectly acceptable to do things like: make a backup copy of a CD, photocopy a poem and stick it on your wall, take a hex editor to SEIV and change menu colors (not to distribute, mind you!), multiple installations of software (several people on this board have more than one installation of SEIV on their computer), copy a DVD onto a VHS cassette so you can watch it with the VCR in the other room, etc. Not only are these legitimate uses in my view, but if copyright holders actually bother trying to collect payment for things so utterly trivial, then they seriously need to be institutionalized.

Pax

June 27th, 2003, 07:27 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
Unless I'm mistaken, Gene Roddenberry invented Spock, and he died. I'd say it would be fine if humanity could inherit the right to use his literature without fighting about who first invested in the rights to use it decades ago. The absence of copyrights on pre-(c)/pre-TM literature isn't causing problems, and megacorps continue to profit from using such creations, even though I still don't agree that megacorp profits are something to try to protect. After all, they only exist to increase their own wealth and power, so they can continue to do the same thing, until they own it all, or as much as they can get away with - megalomania without the megalomaniac.Roddenberry invented the idea of the Trek series, and pitched it to Paramount. Have you seen "The Glass Menagerie" ... ? The bits they watch in recording form, was the idea Roddenberry made and pitched to Paramount, and was the original pilot (re-used to make TGM itself).

Obviously, many changes happened -- the Spock character underwent significant changes, taking the place of the then-female first officer.

Ergo, the character of Spock as we know him, was created by Roddenberry while he worked under contract to Paramount. Thus, he was acting as an agent of Paramount, so, Paramount has reasonable and fair claim on Spock, the character, as IP. This is in terms of logic, reasonable common sense, and not under the especial light of the law itself.

Untrue. Handing out my own Versions of TOS characters will have little or no impact, and might even help, Paramount sell their own junk based on Roddenberry's work. Big deal.[QUOTE]

Really? When people can get something for free (your pics), why should they pay for almost-the-same-thing (Paramount's pics) ... ?

Your free pics have denied Paramount potential sales based on their properties.

[QUOTE] You're playing definition games, and I'm not really interested in the particulars of actual legal definitions. If fan art is illegal and a threat to corporations under the current laws, then I think the current laws are ridiculous.[QUOTE]

And I think they're not. I think it IS important to stress, under the law, that if you take, for example, the characters and setting of Star Wars, and write novels that put them in situations and crises which George Lucas disapproves of, Lucas should have EVERY RIGHT to say "those are MY characters, that's MY setting, and you don't have permission to use them! Cease and desist!"

And the law should back him up on that.

Yet your story might have been intended as true fan art; perhaps you felt your stories owuld "add to the Star Wars legacy" in a positive way.

Star Wars doesn't belong to you, though, so [b]you have no right -- and should have no right -- to make that decision.

FWIW, Lucas is still alive, and "life +25 years" would still cover all of SW.

[quote][qb] I disagree. I would say, from what I have read of Shrapnel and MM's publications about their work (q.v. on this web site) and their goals, is that they exist because they want to publish and develop the kinds of games that they really like, and be able to avoid working for a megacorp doing uninteresting junk to maximize profits."they exist because they want to publish and develop the kinds of games that they really like," ... and make a profit doing so.

Without profit, after all, they can't avoid the "work for a megacorp" bit.

If maximizing their profits were their reason for existence,Did I say maxxing profit? No. Did I ever even imply it was their ONLY reason to exist? No.

Rare, IMO, is the corporation that truly DOES exist solely for profit's own sake. Even Micro$haft has other motives, at some levels of the hierarchy at least.

I think that's a bad thing.

Bugs Bunny is the creation of Chuck Jones, who I believe died Last yearThen the copyright should be running for ... 24 more years (life of author/creator plus 25 years). Your point is?

Recent Bugs Bunny cartoons may be the work of wage slaves, well-paid minions, or computers of WB, Inc., but why is that system a good one? If I want to draw Buggs and xerox it, I'm not going to do anything negative to WB, Inc., from a realistic non-twisted-legal standpoint.In terms of copyright, it's not far form making a picture and xeroxing it, and making a home-done animated short and broadcasting it -- over the internet, perhaps.

Copyright relates to the rights to make ABSOLUTELY ANY KIND of copy. Period.

I'd probably have a positive effect by reminding people of something WB sells. If that's defined as piracy, then it's just another abuse of the English language by legal texts. If I wanted to argue about stupid legal definitions, I might have been a lawyer... eeeew. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif [qb][QUOTE]

The law defines what you describe as an infringement; "piracy" is a common-usage term applied by people OUTSIDE the legal profession.

[QUOTE][qb]Mainly because so many people just herd along without questioning the status quo, and buy into the existing system. Kind of like the Brobroba (sp? - OOPS! TM INFRIGNEMENT! $5000 dollar fine!) States, who refuse to believe in the existence of Warp Points.

PvKPvK -- that behavior is evolved into us. Youw ant to change that -- prove there is a god, and take it up with her.

I find your blue-sky wishful thinking to be of no use in the real world. Sure, it'd be NICE if artists just kinda got PAID, commensurate with the appreciation of their work by society-at-large;; it'd be NICE if noone stole form anyoen else.

But being nice doesn't make something possible. We live in a world where people lie, cheat, and steal.

As a result, we need laws that provide legal redress AGAINST those who have lied, cheated, and stolen.

Blue-sky wishful thinking won't change reality, no matter HOW hard you try to malign the corporate aspect of capitalism.

Speaking of capitalism -- you wouldn't happen to be a socialist or communist, would you? Because you sure as hell sound like one!

Jack Simth

June 27th, 2003, 07:33 AM

Originally posted by Will:
Well, I had a response written for your post, but I seemed to have hit "Add Reply" about five minutes after the forums went all narcoleptic... so my response essentially went *POOF!*.
Been there - a lot. I've taken to using the clipboard and notepad to save my larger Posts before actually posting them to prevent just that. Originally posted by Will:

The gist of it: I never said you were confused, I said you were misunderstanding what I posted. Confused would be the recipient having reduced mental faculties (I would consider saying confused in that situation unwarranted and an insult). Misunderstanding is a problem in the act of communication (and has absolutely no malice behind it), something being lost in the translation, so to speak.
You're right; you did say misunderstanding. Sorry about that. Originally posted by Will:

To attempt to rehash my position on the limits to be put on copyright (not even going to touch trademarks or patents here, that's a completely different 900-pound purple gorilla): Copyright should protect against what is commonly accepted as plagerism, but nothing beyond that. That means that no significant portion of the copyright-protected work can be used by someone else. With the changing-menu-color example, that would violate copyrights because the rest of the game most certainly constitutes "significant". However, if the game was reverse-engineered, and every piece of it was created independantly, taking nothing but inspiration from the original, then that does not violate the copyright. You are talking about "should not," correct? Such an implementation would pretty much only benefit the big corporations; if a small-time develper produces something, the big corporation could throw a million at it to duplicate it from scratch, then throw a few more million to advertise it, and pretty soon everyone is buying the big corporation's Version, forgetting where it came from, even though it is exactly like the original. A very large portion of the time spent developing a game is put into the design work; having the original as the design would eliminate most of that phase. A perfect clone could be put out, and even take over, in perhaps six months. Then, the creator of the original goes bankrupt, unable to compete with the corporation. The megacorps would love to be able to do that; it would be the perfect tool for driving small competiters out of business; reverse-engeneer everything they put out and distribute it for free. While driving the small competitor out of business, the megacorp can absorb the loss (they absorb the loss from most of the software they put out anyway - a few more aren't going to hurt them). After, the megacorp can mop up the market. Originally posted by Will:
Another example: say a writer has a terrible case of writers block. The writer comes across a short story done by someone else, and begins writing with the story as a model; the writer doesn't take a single sentance fragment from the original, but does use the same characters (with different names), plot, setting, etc. That, in my view, is more than a bit unoriginal, but should not violate copyright... the writer's story is its own, nothing tangible was taken from the "original". (As a side note, I would personally think it proper to let the "original's" author and any readers know about the source of the story idea, but I don't think that should be mandated by copyright law).
That is different from the case of copying software from scratch; with the case of a story, it is the wording that is important for copyright issues (as that is what the user sees), especially considering that most ideas in print have their roots in other ideas in print. Using not one scrap of the originals wording will invariably produce a vastly different story. With the case of software, it is possible to completely duplicate something without the source code and without duplicating the binary. However, the design (which would be duplicated in your case) isn't dependant on any specific bit of code being done in a particular fashion (barring the standard things to deal with the hardware and OS that virtually every program for a particular hardware/OS combination use, of course). Originally posted by Will:

Also, there should be leeway given for personal use. There is already some in the current laws, but certain Groups are trying their damnedest to remove all personal copying. I think it's perfectly acceptable to do things like: make a backup copy of a CD, photocopy a poem and stick it on your wall, take a hex editor to SEIV and change menu colors (not to distribute, mind you!), multiple installations of software (several people on this board have more than one installation of SEIV on their computer), copy a DVD onto a VHS cassette so you can watch it with the VCR in the other room, etc. Not only are these legitimate uses in my view, but if copyright holders actually bother trying to collect payment for things so utterly trivial, then they seriously need to be institutionalized.Most of those actually are legal at this point for private individuals: backups (if not distributed), medium conVersions (this one covers both the poem-on-the-wall and DVD-to-VHS); however, multiple installations and editing the finished product aren't. No-multiple installations can be programmatically enforced reasonably well, and has some reasonable correlation with solid products - if you wanted to use a toaster in five different locations, you would either need to buy more toasters or carry one of them around with you and plug/unplug it every time.

But yes, trying to make those legal ones illegal is quite the power grab.

Erax

June 27th, 2003, 02:51 PM

Blue-sky wishful thinking won't change reality, no matter HOW hard you try to malign the corporate aspect of capitalism. Pax, I'm going to pull a Pax on you (in a friendly way, no offense intended) : http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I can imagine someone in America around, say, 1770, defending King George this way :

Blue-sky wishful thinking won't change reality, no matter HOW hard you try to malign the tyrannical aspect of monarchy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Erax

June 27th, 2003, 03:08 PM

Posted by Will :

say a writer has a terrible case of writers block. The writer comes across a short story done by someone else, and begins writing with the story as a model; the writer doesn't take a single sentance fragment from the original, but does use the same characters (with different names), plot, setting, etc. That, in my view, is more than a bit unoriginal, but should not violate copyright... the writer's story is its own, nothing tangible was taken from the "original". (As a side note, I would personally think it proper to let the "original's" author and any readers know about the source of the story idea, but I don't think that should be mandated by copyright law). That is essentially what I did in my story here in the forums in the June 19 post, although with me it wasn't a case of writer's block, I had been meaning to do that scene for about 20 days and had to move the story along until it was possible to insert it. And I mentioned the original work, encouraging people to go out and buy it.

Pax

June 27th, 2003, 04:02 PM

Originally posted by Chief Engineer Erax:
Pax, I'm going to pull a Pax on you (in a friendly way, no offense intended) : http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I can imagine someone in America around, say, 1770, defending King George this way :

<blockquote>quote:<hr /> Blue-sky wishful thinking won't change reality, no matter HOW hard you try to malign the tyrannical aspect of monarchy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif <hr /></blockquote>http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif But, not ALL monarchs are tyrants (George III was also likely not well, which might explain some of his treatment of the colonies). Monarchs come, and monarchs go ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK

June 27th, 2003, 07:37 PM

Pax, I've been over the same points with you a few times, and the energy required to keep responding exceeds my interest in the conversation at this point, particularly as I have a lot of work to do and one of my main computers had a hard-drive crash yesterday.

I will say though that there is a world of difference between making "a profit" and making "as much profit as possible, no matter what it takes."

Again, yeah it's difficult to change bad laws and institutions, particularly when there are people who decide it's "practical" or to their advantage to defend the status quo even when they know there is a better way. So stop it already! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

To answer you're oh-so-polite question about whether I am a communist or a socialist, I wouldn't say so, but I have received that question (usually voiced as an accusation...) from people who well, I'll just say I guess you'd probably get along with better than I would. Is there something that offends or threatens you about discussing better systems of ecomony and law than the current ones? Nor would I call myself a "capitalist" - would you?

PvK

Pax

June 27th, 2003, 10:48 PM

Originally posted by PvK:
To answer you're oh-so-polite question about whether I am a communist or a socialist, I wouldn't say so, but I have received that question (usually voiced as an accusation...) from people who well, I'll just say I guess you'd probably get along with better than I would. Is there something that offends or threatens you about discussing better systems of ecomony and law than the current ones? Nor would I call myself a "capitalist" - would you?

PvKThere's nothing wrong with beign a communist or socialist -- though I tend to think such systems, taken as-is, have their OWN set of inherent flaws.

As for myself -- I consider myself a pragmatist. I know the current system isn't perfect, however, I consider it to be, generally speaking, close to the instinctive ideal of human behavior. And I don't think trashing the whole thing is a workable premise (the soviets found out that total communism just didn't work that well).

I tend to think a hybrid of the various economic models might function best -- a semi-free market socialism, if you will. Socialist models for such things as basic health care, education, mass transit, public utilities like power water and heat, and construction/maintenance of roads, bridges, and other publicly-used structures.

All else ... somewhere between a free market (at the smallfry end of the spectrum) to a planned economy (at the big-fish end of the spectrum). With the whole, preferably, ecologically "friendly".

I support the creation, maintenance, and enforcing of laws which do indeed promote the public weal; OTOH, I also support the concept of minimist government: do the most governing with the least intrusive measures.

IP is one of the things I think should be zealously guarded and protected. Elsewhere in this thread, someone -- I don't know if it was you or someone else -- suggested a return to the older ways, where wealthy families supported artists as a prestige symbol.

Which would only mean that art would, inherently, reflect only the ideals and aims of the rich; that the only artists whoc oudl afford to devote themselves to their work, would be those who were friends with wealthy people ... or were wealthy themselves.

I cannot accept that; art should belong to all of society, in terms of being valued. In order to encourage it's creation, and promote a never-ending effort to better the art produced by each artist ... protected IP and a free market economy for art is important. Artists then can feel safe making art that reflects their own views; if need be, they can also churn out schlock that the wealthier people will pay for, in order to fund their "real" art -- if there's a difference, ofc.

Protecting IP protects art from plagiarist theft; since "art" is defined individually by ech of us -- one man's trash is another's abstract art -- we must protect all IP, without prejudice.

The only real problems I see WRT copyright laws are (a) the ever-extended periods of protected status, and (b) the fact it is a civil, and therefor purely monetary, issue.

As for asking if you were communist or socialist ... your position is very strongly pro-socialist or pro-communist WRT economics; it's the whole "down with the evil corporations, up with the individual people" thing; I figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

Lastly -- the question of wether or not discussing "better" economic models offends me: not at all. When someone presents to me a truly better economic model, which will work in the real world, I'll step right up to support them in "spreading the word" ...

That has yet to work, though; socialism and communism trade some old problems, for some new problems -- all you do is shuffle around who gets screwed and who doesn't; who's happy and who isn't; who has opportunity and who doesn't. You don't improve the whole, only those parts with which the proponent (in this case you) most closely identifies.

So of course, corporate bigwigs support capitalism (it lines their pockets and makes their lives better); small folks who've been burned by capitalist corporations support a more socialist economy (it lines THEIR pockets and makes THEIR lives better); and so on.

All of it is about redistribution of wealth, and none of them are lily-white perfect-and-fair systems. None of them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Will

June 28th, 2003, 03:51 AM

Originally posted by Pax:
*snip*

IP is one of the things I think should be zealously guarded and protected. Elsewhere in this thread, someone -- I don't know if it was you or someone else -- suggested a return to the older ways, where wealthy families supported artists as a prestige symbol.

Which would only mean that art would, inherently, reflect only the ideals and aims of the rich; that the only artists who could afford to devote themselves to their work, would be those who were friends with wealthy people ... or were wealthy themselves.That would have been me... and I wasn't exactly advocating a complete return to this system (feudalism had its own problems too, and we don't want to go back to that), but more wishing that those with large amounts of money and power would support the arts through "philanthropy"; as it is, most of the wealthiest people spend most of their time trying to make even more money. For a lot, the only real reason they donate to various charities is to get a tax break. So, pretty much, it was wishful thinking; I don't expect it to happen.

And as to the reflections made of art... if that observation were really true, then today, art would only reflect the ideals and aims of the middle- and upper-class. They're the only ones who can actually afford to spend on things of artistic value and still be able to pay for necessities. Yet instead, a lot of the art I've seen reflects the ideals and aims of others -- minorities, blue-collar workers, urban gangs, etc. -- just as much, and you could argue more so than, as it reflects the ideals of those who are paying for it.

Gryphin

June 30th, 2003, 02:26 PM

I have not followed this thread so I hope the following is not too far off topic:

This is from the Sunday edition of the Boston Globe. The Globe is a fairly liberal newspaper now owned by The NY Times.

"Taking Liberties With Harry Potter
Thousands of spinoffs of J.K. Rowling's novels - many steamy with graphic sex - can be read on the Internet. But why is this fan fiction, often of questionable legality, allowed to flourish?

By Tracy Mayor, 6/25/2003

A teacher locks a classroom door, orders his student to disrobe, and whips his bare backside with a long leather belt. Thinking the assault is over, the schoolboy at Last dares to turn his head, just in time to catch a salacious gleam in his professor's eye. His detention, it turns out, has only begun. . . .

t's not the latest from the clergy scandals, and it's not something from Pee-wee Herman's video collection, either. The student being violated is Harry Potter. The teacher is his nemesis, Professor Severus Snape. The author of this particular narrative is a 30-something mother from the Midwest.
Welcome to the world of fan fiction.

Since its June 21 debut, readers around the globe have been devouring Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the long-awaited fifth book in J. K. Rowling's blockbuster series of youthful wizard tales. They might not know, however, that a surprising number of Potter fans had already taken matters into their own hands, writing and distributing stories that put Rowling's famous trio, Harry, Ron, and Hermione - as well as every other character mentioned in her books - into situations that are often romantic, sometimes homosexual, and occasionally pornographic.

Fan fiction, or "fanfic," didn't start with Harry Potter or the Internet, but that combination has brought it as close as it's ever been to the mainstream. On the way, fanfic is raising a host of legal, moral, and creative questions that only promise to become more entangled as the remainder of Rowling's Harry Potter books is released (seven are planned in all).

On first read, it might seem illegal, futile, or just plain strange that people spend hours and often months writing stories and novels that appropriate another writer's characters, plot lines, and settings. But fanfic practitioners, who cite as their antecedents everything from James Joyce's Ulysses to Michael Cunningham's The Hours, say their writing pays tribute to Rowling even as they adopt the same kind of populist-editing values that have brought to the culture everything from rap music sampling to Star Wars bootleg DVD that leave annoying characters like Jar Jar Binks on the cutting-room floor.

Is fan fiction part of a newly energized pop movement to put art back in the hands of the consumer class, or is it a cynical exercise in ego that rides roughshod over a living author still in the throes of creating her oeuvre? The answer depends largely on how you feel about copyrights and creative entitlement.

"There's no question that J. K. Rowling is the author of the original work, but Hogwarts [Rowling's imaginary wizarding school] may have room for more stories than she wants to write," says Henry Jenkins, the director of MIT's Comparative Media Studies Program who writes frequently about fan behavior. "And she might not be the best writer for every possible story set in Hogwarts."

There are literally thousands of websites dedicated to Harry Potter fan fiction. One popular destination alone, www.FictionAlley.org, (http://www.FictionAlley.org,) hosts upward of 15,000 short stories or book chapters, supports 24,500 registered Users who have posted 563,000 fanfic-related Messages, and receives on average more than 100 new pieces of writing every day. Another popular site, the entry-level www.FanFiction.net, (http://www.FanFiction.net,) houses a whopping 71,600 Potter fanfics and regularly appears in Nielsen/NetRating's list of top "stickiest" websites (places where surfers spend the longest amount of continuous time). And that's after the site's operators kicked all the explicit material off its pages Last year.

Harry slid his hand behind her back and pulled her close. He used his other hand to tip her chin up so that she was looking at him. Then, carefully and deliberately, he lowered his mouth to hers. It was a kiss like nothing Ginny had ever imagined.
The Rebirth - Irina

Though Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll are among famous authors to be "fic'd," modern fan fiction took off as a bona fide subculture in the mid-1970s, centered first on Star Trek, then later on the Star Wars and Star Trek movies, and, into the 1990s, on television shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, and Smallville.
Fan-fiction writers are overwhelmingly women, in part because women are more likely to want to fill in gaps, resolve inconsistencies, or piece together the backstory when the original hasn't fully satisfied, says MIT's Jenkins, whose 1992 book Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture is much quoted by fanfic writers and readers.

So if Mulder and Scully aren't getting together fast enough on The X-Files, or if a television network cancels a cult favorite like Highlander, fans take up the pen, or the keyboard, and write themselves what they want to see or read.

For "Irina," a 22-year-old Boston art history graduate student, that would be romantic entanglements between Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley, his best friend's little sister. Irina has two novel-length fanfics and a handful of shorter stories under her belt. She's a volunteer moderator on FictionAlley.org. She devotes between four and seven hours to fan fiction each week and doesn't think her hobby is any more unusual than the hours her boyfriend spends burning CDs and playing computer games. Still, she doesn't want her real name used.

"Liza" is a doctoral candidate in classics at an Ivy League university who writes literate, lyrical fan fiction peppered with quotes from Russian poets, references to Roman philosophers, and chunks of dialogue in French. There are frequent footnotes. What Liza wants to see, and therefore what she writes, is "slash" - relationships, often sexual, sometimes graphic, between two characters of the same sex, nearly always two men. In fact, everything Liza writes is slash, and because of this, she doesn't want to use her real name either.

Though their carefully guarded anonymity might suggest otherwise, writers and readers insist that fan fiction is just one of many perfectly valid ways of responding to pop culture. "With Harry Potter, people are always trying to figure out what's going to happen next. Fanfic just puts that speculation into narrative form," says Heidi Tandy, a Miami intellectual-property lawyer who has no problem using her real name Online and in print.

On the surface, Tandy has a lot in common with J. K. Rowling. Both are 30-something working mothers who spent Last fall and winter racing to finish book-length manuscripts about Harry Potter and his friends before the arrival of a second child (Rowling gave birth in late March, Tandy in June. Tandy's first child is called, surprise, Harry.)

Rowling was writing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Tandy was at work on Surfeit of Curses, a teen-appropriate novel-length fiction (600 manuscript pages and counting) that explores the inner life of Draco Malfoy, Harry's schoolboy rival at Hogwarts. "Fanfic stories grow out of discussion," says Tandy. "People said, `Draco could never be anything other than horrible,' and I said, `Well, maybe not.' "

Like many other fanfic writers, Tandy makes it clear that she's not a frustrated novelist who can't think up plots or characters on her own. And she bristles at the suggestion that fan fiction is somehow a lesser calling because it's derivative work.

"I have heard people say that if something isn't completely original, it's not creative, that it's bad, bad, bad," says Tandy. "Do they mean bad like West Side Story or bad like Clueless" (the takeoff on Jane Austen's Emma)? "Fan fiction has made me a better writer and a better reader. And you get feedback in two days! There's an emotional benefit, even if it's hard to quantify."

Like many other fanfic sites Online, FictionAlley, which Tandy formed two years ago, functions like a highly organized, self-policing support group. It has its own rules, language, and publishing structure. "Beta" readers provide story critiques for work in progress. Message Boards and e-mail links let readers instantly comment on stories they've read. Stories are rated by writers and Moderators with the same G/PG-13/R/NC-17 system used by the movies, and people take the Ratings seriously.

Writers and readers maintain a strict distinction between "canon," the original works as Rowling wrote them, and "fanon," the embellished, alternative retelling by fans. (In canon, Draco Malfoy is evil; in fanon, Draco Malfoy can be any number of things, including a leather-pants-wearing hottie who's after Hermione's goods.) "The fan community will tolerate an incredible array of interpretations, but they do have sets of rules. If you do it wrong, you'll get flamed," observes Jenkins. "There's a moral economy around what's right and wrong."

Cross-posting of stories - linking to a story from another website - isn't done unless the original author gives permission. Plagiarism isn't tolerated - one writer was kicked off a board for failing to fully disclose that her plot was lifted in part from an old Buffy episode. And, apparently without irony, most fan artwork and some fan fiction is copyrighted.

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books are the property of J. K. Rowling. This is an original work done for my own amusement, and no profit is being made from it.
Pixiezombie - Adamo Fidelitas

Is fan fiction legal? Probably not. But, as copyright specialists and fanfic defenders alike agree, it doesn't much matter if it is or not. Fanfic writers and the websites that post their work always dutifully include some type of boilerplate disclaimer - often copied from another story and embellished with various personal asides - that says, in essence, "J. K. Rowling owns these characters" and "I'm not making any money off them."
That's a first step but no guarantee of protection in preparing a "fair use" defense should they be sued by Rowling, her agents, publishers, or by Warner Bros., which holds the various trademarks associated with the Harry Potter movies and merchandise. "Fair use is one of the most complex and opaque areas of law," says Ieuan Mahony, cochairman of the intellectual property and technology group at Holland & Knight LLP, a Boston law firm. "You could spend days in court just fighting out each element" of the infringement, he says.

In the United States, that's never happened, not yet at least, because a "cease and desist" letter from an author's lawyer to the website hosting the fiction is often enough to stop the writing or send it underground, according to Meredith McCardle, a recent graduate of Boston University's School of Law who wrote a paper on the legality of fan fiction for the school's Journal of Science and Technology Law.

"Ninety-nine percent of the time, the website is run by some teenager who has no money and would never think of consulting a lawyer, so nobody's tested it out in court," says McCardle.

But legal technicalities are only part of the puzzle. Culturally, fan fiction can act like a pair of golden handcuffs, a loving tribute from an author's most ardent fans that's also something of a veiled threat. Any attempt by a writer of Rowling's stature to shut down fan fiction would probably backfire into a public-relations disaster that would only serve to draw more attention to the disputed material.

And Rowling and the various companies that make money off the Potter franchise can ill afford to alienate the most lucrative segment of their audience: people who often own several hardcover Versions of each of Rowling's books, collect audio books in various foreign Languages, and buy up at least part of the trademarked tonnage of T-shirts, shampoo, and coffee mugs stamped with the likeness of Harry Potter.

With those considerations firmly in mind, the various corporate entities involved in Harry Potter are very careful about how they couch their response to fanfiction. Rowling was unavailable for comment for this article, but it's unlikely she would say more than what her business partners present as a unified public front.

From SchoLastic, her US publisher: "We are very appreciative of Ms. Rowling's fans. We are only concerned with anything that denigrates the property or is disparaging of it." From Warner Bros.: "We object only to fan fiction that is offensive to children, meaning anything sexually explicit, violent, or profane."

From Rowling's London-based agent, The Christopher Little Literary Agency, this comment: The author "welcomes the huge interest that her fans have in the series and the fact that it has led them to try their hand at writing." Therefore, the agency says, Rowling and her agents act to enforce her copyrights only when there is a commercial angle, when work purports to be written by Rowling herself, or "where the fan fiction is pornographic or inappropriate for kids."

The agency recently issued two cease-and-desist orders against websites in Great Britain that feature NC-17-rated fan fiction, confirms spokesman Neil Blair. Both sites are back up and running, with registration and password procedures in place designed to deter readers younger than 18 from viewing the pornographic material.

This archive contains slash, which is the term used for relationships between two characters of the same sex, in this case, male/male. If you don't like the idea of two boys together, this site is not for you. If you're curious, go ahead, but make sure you know what you're heading for and understand the warnings.
The Potter Slash Archive

"Mira" won't give out her real name or let her screen name be used here, because she doesn't want to call any attention to her website. She doesn't talk about her baby, who is mentioned on the site and gurgles in the background as she talks; will not say what she does for a living, though she does allow that she has a professional job; and will say only that she lives somewhere in the Midwest. She has many close friends among the fanfic community, but not one person in her everyday life knows what she does Online.
Mira writes explicit slash stories, each of which contains descriptions of anal- and oral-sex acts detailed enough to singe the eyebrows off every staff member in the United States Copyright Office. Mostly she writes about Harry Potter having sex with Professor Snape, though, as Mira is careful to point out, it's always a Harry who's been magically aged by a few years. (Her classroom-spanking story, for example, turns out not to be rape, as it initially appears, but a consensual role-playing sex game initiated by a 20-year-old Harry.)

Though it may sound otherwise, the term "slash" isn't meant to imply violence; it refers to the punctuation mark between the characters' names - as in Harry/Ron or, in what's widely considered to be the first modern slash pairing, Star Trek's Kirk/Spock.

Why do women write fantasy stories about males having sex with other males? There are nearly as many theories as there are slash writers out there. Slash can be a distancer, a way for readers to try out eroticism without being fully implicated, says MIT's Jenkins, "like safety wheels for younger readers and writers." It can be a feminist act, turning the tables and becoming the observer rather than the observed. Or it can be driven by more practical considerations - namely a lack of decent female characters.

"If you're trying to work with well-developed characters, in most fandoms, that means male characters," says Jenkins. Further, he points out, Rowling has chosen a setting - the English boarding school - that in literature and real life has traditionally been a place where boys experimented with their sexuality.

Slash and pornography are not one and the same. There are Potter website slash stories that are rated G, where, say, Harry and his best friend, Ron, do nothing more than look longingly across the room at each other. And there are non-slash, heterosexual Harry Potter fan fictions that are rated NC-17, and deservedly so. But when the cease-and-desist orders go out, and the publicity people talk off the record about stories that are harmful to children, they're talking about the kind of stories Mira writes.

Yet when Mira talks about her fanfic, she speaks eloquently, pauses often to choose her words carefully, and reflects on the long history of homosexual relationships in Western culture. She says she writes slash because that's where she feels the emotional energy in the stories. There are simply no female characters that interest her in the same way. And she writes explicit sex scenes because they're an integral part of her story lines.

"There is a lot of sex in my stories," Mira concedes. "Lots of times it's a kind of catharsis. It's there for emotional healing. Sex is an easy way for most men to communicate, so in that way, it's not all that different from real life."

Whose real life that would be is mighty hard to say, however. Mira's thoughtful observations on the writing life and gender roles stand in sharp relief to the rough and raw writing she actually Posts Online. And Mira is by no means alone.

Scratch the surface of a few slash sites Online, and it doesn't take long to find tales of bestiality, rape, sexual torture, and Weasley twins sodomizing each other. This is by no means mainstream fan fiction, it's not even mainstream slash fiction, but it is out there and available to anyone willing to click "yes" when a little warning box pops up on-screen saying, "I am old enough to read this."

o one wants to put words in J. K. Rowling's mouth, but it's safe to assume that when she hails her readers' creativity, she has in mind something other than tales wherein Professor Snape is fellated by the Sorting Hat.

Ulysses this isn't. And when James Joyce wrote his 1922 masterwork, Homer had been dead for many centuries. Rowling is a living, breathing, solo artist in the midst of creating what she and her publishers, and many critics, consider works of serious artistic merit. Fan fiction, then, is actually a kind of literary karaoke, taking the words out of the author's mouth as she's still trying to write them.

Rowling's Online fans passionately appreciate that she allows them to write fanfic without legal consequence. But when asked how they think she might feel, not as a copyright holder but simply as a writer of a work in progress, the discussion turns clinical.

"As soon as she writes a book and puts it out there, it's a public text," says Liza, the PhD classicist. "The relationship isn't between author and author," agrees slash writer Mira, "it's between the fan fiction and the original text. Once [the books are] produced and out there, the works are disassociated from the person or people who produced them."

In an age of endless and easy digital interaction, an author becomes merely the first in a line of people pitching ideas into the pot. "It's an object-oriented approach, like when computer programmers reuse code," observes Holland & Knight's Mahony. "They're taking the raw materials of the culture and lumping them together to make something new."

Publishers, academics, intellectual-property specialists, and certainly fanfic writers tend to take a long view of the phenomenon. "The purpose of copyright law is not to benefit publishers, it's to benefit public discourse," Mahony points out. "People are putting in the time to come up with new and creative material, so there is a good robust debate going on here. You may not agree with the slash sites, but if it's not cutting into [Rowling's] sales, it will and probably should continue."

Tracy Mayor lives in Hamilton. One of her essays will be published this fall in The Pushcart Prize XXVIII: Best of the Small Presses.

This story ran in the Boston Globe Magazine on 6/29/2003.
� Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

Rojero

June 30th, 2003, 07:07 PM

Hey Gryphin an excellent view on the topic from a different perspective. It shows that altering the perception of the intended subject matter further destroys the image. As the person who started this thread it has become quite evident that have been various view points that have been explored. I feel that if a topic such as "Harry Potter" is exploited in such blatant terms should be pursued in the legal sense. Yet those fans who wish to Play as their favorite superheroes as does Freedom Force allows, it is not whatsoever destroying the image or personality of the subject, but rather it gives the person some joy in portraying their hero . This community as a whole proves at just how intelligent and thought provoking we as fans can be and I am glad I am a part of it.

[ June 30, 2003, 18:10: Message edited by: Rojero ]

Will

July 8th, 2003, 05:45 AM

Hmmm... *bump*

Artists Just Wanna Be Free (Wired) (http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,59501,00.html)