Tag Archives: copyright

Beyond the Individual: Copyright Works for Us All

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More and more, I am getting the sense that copyright is not just some old prude’s law, its sole purpose hording texts for no greater good than money. Instead, copyright policy is working for the proliferation of culture, although some would see it as a stagnating force. According to one critic, lawmakers write copyright policy to encourage the creation of cultural works. Giving certain rights to the creators give them an incentive to create. However, should these laws become too protective, they will make censors out of creators. Vaidhyanathan in his epilogue to Copyrights and Copywrongs admits that cultural production flourishes on its previous productions; should creators censor their own work in other media, they run the risk of impeding the artistic proliferation of newer artists.

Trademarks

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We have talked a lot about copyright, but what about trademarks? The two are rather similar: both are protections for texts or images or even methods. Trademarks, like the one posted here, are important for bigger companies who want to disseminate their brand and create brand loyalty. You always see that little TM on most labels (the superscript to Friendship is Magic) or even a little restrictive R (the one on My Little Pony). Trademarks are very powerful marketing tools. In my example, Hasbro owns the My Little Pony trademark, and thus also has rights to all artistic or commercial manifestations of the name like a copyright. Hasbro’s main goal is to make money. When it sees that one medium of My Little Pony is doing well, it will branch into other mediums, like a virus, until everything is infected by the MLP:FiM logo. It went from a show to having its own toys to clothes to trading cards to tattoos to party accessories to you name it. The trademark was everywhere, and everyone knew this was Hasbro. Though copyright has a large commercial interest, trademarks are the real sons and daughters of capitalism.

Free Translations

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Ever since I’ve been in this class, it seems like these things keep finding me. My friend (who did not yet know I was taking this class) sent me a link to show me “a bubbling pot of stupidity.” Degree of intelligence aside, the page regarded IP and copyright. The article writer talks about a game translation that was being done by a group, and how they asked to not have their work taken and used for an illegal patch of the game. The writer then states to ignore that due to being hypocritical. “You cannot disrespect someone else’s intellectual property and then turn around and stamp your feet at others who disrespect yours.”

This statement incited an argument between the writer and and readers who felt insulted by the statement. Due to the nature of people on the internet, the argument quickly decayed to insults and name calling, but the point still stands: should the free translation made by a group of their own free will be protected from stealing through respect, or does the lack of actual copyright make it free game to take and modify?

For those interested, and to get a better idea of the debatess that occurred, the page is here, with the long list of comments/arguments at the bottom.

Copyright Controversy – The Verve

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This week, I’ve spend much time working on the essay for the first portfolio, with the central theme of the essay being the history of copyright laws. Doing this made me think of an instance involving one of my favorite bands, The Verve. During the mid-90’s, while working on an album, the Verve came to an agreement with Decca Records, the company that deals with the music made by The Rolling Stones. Both parties agreed that for a small fee, the Verve would use a five note sample from a relatively unpopular Rolling Stones song in the composition of one of their own songs, “Bittersweet Symphony”. When the album as released in 1997, “Bittersweet Symphony” became a worldwide hit, bringing The Verve both enormous fame and album sales.

After seeing the success of this song, former Rolling Stone manager Allen Klein filed a lawsuit against The Verve, arguing that they had used “too large of a sample” from the original song. This was an absurd claim, as not only did the Verve use the exact amount they agreed to, but their resulting song was essentially unrecognizable from the song that the five note sample came from. Nevertheless, the case went to court. Facing a difficult legal battle, in which there was the potential to lose much money and still lose the case, The Verve had no choice but to hand over 100 percent of their royalties from the song to the Rolling Stones.

This whole controversy represents a disgusting chapter in copyright history. Allen Klein, fueled by greed, created a false claim and cost The Verve all the money they would have made from a worldwide hit. What makes it even worse is that these are the types of instances that copyright laws are supposed to prevent, but it is arguable that they have created this problem.

http://www.thevervelive.com/2005/05/bitter-sweet-symphony-controversy-and.html

Law and Anime

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As if it were made for me to use in this class, I came across this feature which directly regards copyright along with the large and international fanbase of anime. It is fairly long and has two parts (with more to come), but in summary, it first defines and elaborates on the nature of a copyright. It continues to discuss how copyright can affect the fandom, from drawing pictures to sell at a convention, to making full blown doujinshi (in essence fan fiction) series.

In the end, the question still lingers: Is it right/okay to participate in these activities, despite them having many instances of infringing on copyright? And even if it is not right, does that mean they should be stopped?

Intellectual “Property”

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I hadn’t even thought of this before. The very term intellectual property has property in it. Copyrights, which seek to protect intellectual property, are nothing more than divergent land property laws. In reading this article, I came upon some recent historical roots of this idea. The article deals with the pains of authors by profession in 19th century England, before the Copyright Act of 1842. Seeing literary work as true labor, these authors would argue one should have a right to it as one does to his property. Only reading a bit of the article, it would appear that the desire for copyright laws comes out of the desire to make authorship a profession. To protect one’s own skill, some government assistance would be required. After all, no one can steal the skill of the carpenter, the metal worker, the engineer. It is the poor author, who’s very genius can be reproduced and disseminated unbeknownst to him, who needs the help.

Youtube is terrible

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So, I’m trying to get some study music off of youtube and I really felt like listening to Caparezza, an Italian artist. So youtube kept giving me a “This video has been blocked in your Country” message. Finally out of annoyance I went on the Italian language google page and still same thing.

I thought the whole purpose of Youtube and of the internet in general was to broaden the cultural horizons of the global population, so that as a global community people can share thoughts and ideas across borders. apparently this doesn’t apply to music.

Copyright and Fan Works

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Copyright is both a safety measure and a restriction. It prevents work from being stolen or used without consent. But it also prevents fans from drawing too much inspiration from a work. In the various media communities, fan fiction plays a big role in maintaining and strengthening a community. However, copyright prevents these fan works from being easily distributed without gaining legal attention.

Once again, as a fan of anime and manga, I have seen things function differently in Japan. It not only seems like the copyright law is more loose, but fan works are even encouraged. Many places are known to hold conventions for the distribution and selling of fan made parody works. And these don’t just include books, but games, and even animation. Despite working on preexisting and copyrighted works, artists and writers are discovered and make themselves known.

Licensing and Translation

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Now, I am someone who is a big fan of things like anime and manga, and naturally the issue regarding them is finding a translation that I can understand. Nowadays, many companies exist solely to translate and distribute the media. However, for a large consumer such as myself, I would say they do not license and bring over enough. This essentially forces me to rely on fan translations, which at essence, is pirating: taking a book, translating it, and distributing it for free around the internet. At heart, pirating robs the possible income for a company and creator. However, also DUE to it, a wider audience is reached, thereby creating a GREATER possible income.

Despite being a clear violation of IP rights, online distributors are more or less left alone to their own devices while consumers blissfully increase their digital collection. This leaves me to wonder if pirating, while still giving credit (but not profit) to the authors, can actually serve as a functional, international advertisement method.

Zero Draft Idea

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When I first thought about intellectual property I started to think back on a documentary I had watched last year on music sampling. In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a sound recording in a different song or piece. In this manner, artists are able to build off of each other’s works. The original artist gets a certain royalty from the use of their old track and sampling often enables their old song to gain new exposure. As I became more interested in this topic I started to research Creative Commons Licenses. Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that offers free legal tools to protect the use of creative work while maximizing the amount of material that is available for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing (Creative Commons 2010). It is interesting to consider Creative Commons Licenses as an “alternative history” to copyright laws.