Without Copyright, Hollywood Would Never Be Incented To... Make A Bunch Of Remakes?
from the nothing-new-under-the-sun dept
We keep hearing about how the entertainment industry needs strong copyright in order to create incentives for the creation of new and original content, saying that without such things, there would be no new creative works at all. And, at the same time, we have the very same people mocking any cultural attempts to build new content by remixing and mashing up old works into something new. So I'm curious to see how those same people explain the fact that Hollywood's entire focus these days seems to be on taking old works and redoing them, rather than creating new and "unique" stories:In fact, over the next 12 months, audiences can expect to see a new episode or version of "Planet of the Apes," “The Avengers,” “Spider-Man,” “Fright Night,” “The Great Gatsby,” “When Worlds Collide,” “RoboCop,” “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” “The Thing,” “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” “The Raven,” “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “Red Dawn” and “Footloose.”But Hollywood is producing all these wonderful "new" and creative works, right? And remixing old works isn't creative at all?
Add those to recent updated versions of “Winnie the Pooh,” “Clash of the Titans,” “Karate Kid,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “War of the Worlds,” “Arthur,” “Charlotte’s Web,” “The Tourist” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”
And deja vu happens when you turn the television on too.
This fall ABC are bringing back the 1970s series “Charlie’s Angels,” FOX is awakening “The Flintstones,” MTV has its hands on “Teen Wolf,” and we’ve already been slapped with Aaron Spelling’s “90210” and “Melrose Place” on the CW, while NBC re-imagined “The Bionic Woman” and “Knight Rider.”
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So in other words...
I wonder if they'll CGI Gene Autry or get a new actor.
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Re: So in other words...
You made the bed, now you get to sleep in it.
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Good thing they have this old, free material lying around to use. Otherwise, they'd have to just record peoples everyday lives.
OK, maybe using the old material isn't so bad...
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Businesses have the right to expect a legal, fair playing field. Commerce wouldn't function without that.
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Remember when you could type any song into YouTube and listen to it?
Ain't progress grand?
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Oops... I guess someone's business model is screwed...
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When your business model depnds on a law that can no longer be enforced without unacceptable collateral damage then it's a business model problem.
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What I see is that they make money despite the piracy. You didn't answer why that is. What you are saying is that the industry wants to get highest revenues at minimum risk. What I see is that if they couldn't get the same returns, then this would drive the cost of the staff (eg, the actors, producers, writers, etc) down, perhaps even sending some of the actors towards independents doing more interesting and challenging work. Studies and common sense indicate that if you get paid less than a yearly salary of millions, you will likely still be willing to work just as hard and creatively if not more.
Here are some more questions.
If the remixes are not very original (don't "promote the progress") and if these are low risk ventures with an increased chance of being reworked and pulling money away from efforts at more original material, then copyright is failing by encouraging this lack of progress.
If the remixes are original, but copyright is giving monopoly control to a single entity, then how can this be promoting the progress since we have just thrown obstacles in the path of creativity?
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What's an original script going to add to the production cost of a big budget extravaganza with expensive stars and excessive special effects?
This isn't about piracy. This is about studios being run by risk averse bean counters that are afraid of real art.
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Avengers
Everything I've read about it says this is the first time such an ambitious franchise-crossing feature film has ever been attmepted.
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Strapped to another person, that is. A corpse could go sky diving strapped to a person. Just sayin...
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In superhero-land, The Avengers was a team of Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Captain America. Now that all of these funny-suited guys have made solo movies, there's going to be a team-up movie soon. One could regard the "Avengers" movie as a sequel to all of the preceding solo movies.
In the land of people without superpowers, The Avengers was a British TV series about a pair of secret agents starring Patrick MacNee and a series of actresses, most notably Diana Rigg as "Emma Peel". This concept was remade as a film with Uma Thurman in the late 1990s.
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Re: Avengers vs Avengers
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Sorry, what? Oh right, yeah to me "The Avengers" is the British 60s-70s tv-series.
Never really went for comics myself. And the US comic books never really caught on in Europe for some reason.
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Re: Re: Avengers
Print, yes. But the claim was these are remakes of previous films. As far as I know, there's never been another Avnegers film.
Merely making a film from an existing story is hardly a remake or some sign of a recent dearth of creativity.
Hell, some of Hollywood's greatest films, considered all-time classics, are based on books and other non-film source material. "Gone With the Wind", "A Few Good Men", "Casablanca", "Silence of the Lambs", the list goes on-- all were books and plays before being filmed. "The Avengers" would seem to fall into that category as well.
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"some of Hollywood's greatest films, considered all-time classics, are based on books and other non-film source material"
I rather think that makes the very point being discussed - none of those films were original stories. If copyright laws had been as strict back then as they are now, most of those films would never have gotten off the ground. The industry 'gatekeeper' are presenting us with a two-faced standard, and the trolls are trying to keep us from speaking up too loudly.
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> of those films were original stories. If copyright laws had been
> as strict back then as they are now, most of those films would
> never have gotten off the ground.
I disagree. The exhaustive list of remakes the article listed shows that studios are having no problem making movies from previously copyrighted works.
Best-selling authors are being paid handsome sums for the film rights to their books just as often today as they were in 1950 or 1970.
I don't see a 'Silence of the Lambs' not being able to find its way to the screen in 2011 because of copyright law.
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Re: Avengers
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Yes, but that has nothing to do with "The Avengers" coming out next summer. Just two unrelated stories that share the same title.
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Re: bring it on lol
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The irony is that this is not creative. The sad truth is that executives are afraid to go out on a limb with something new. They don't want to get fired by taking on a new concept that fails. If the remake fails they can always blame someone else because in the past the concept was a hit. There is less risk in their mind on repurposing a known brand. "Let the struggling fiction authors take on that risk," they might think since they have less to lose.
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It' hard to create a hit and most new stuff might be viewed as boring and fail.
Yet, appealing to nostalgia might be a safer bet. Afterall, what worked for one generation might surely work for the next generation. History is full of examples where this has worked.
The viewing audience is fickle and quite varied so digging up past hits probably stands a better chance of success than an unknown product.
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Absolutely. But I think the general consensus here is that remakes, prequels, TV-to-film, and sequels ARE creative works.
The may re-use known characters, common story lines, proven successes, but in any case, they are re-worked. New scripts are written, and the result is absolutely derivative and new.
Just as an example, people produce the plays of Shaw and Shakespeare all the time. They normally quote exactly the same script. The storyline is the same. Yet, despite this, every theater company, director, actor, stage designer, costumer designer, etc is taking some poetic license with their interpretation, and is adding their creativity on top of the base layer of Elizabethan quartets.
Art is derivative, has intrinsic value, and has no need to be wholly original. We know it. We just want Hollywood to admit it's true.
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Then there was the spin off with Jet Li, where Romeo was a kung fu badass. "Romeo must Die"
Hollywood can continue to remake, they just don't have the monopoly on ideas.
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Obviously copyright isn't strong enough yet
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Re: Obviously copyright isn't strong enough yet
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Re: Obviously copyright isn't strong enough yet
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Re: Obviously copyright isn't strong enough yet
That will provide an incentive for them to make every new work from scratch without any influence whatsoever and thus be truly original!
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Re: Obviously copyright isn't strong enough yet
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Movies, music, same thing
So the big record labels in their nutty quest for fantasy profits decided that they didn't want to take any more risks, to get their money back after the payola payments and so on, everything had to sell - and since people are hardwired to equate "familiar" with "good", hellooo fifteen trillion remakes and remixes and re-recordings of old hits. That's basically all we get out of the big labels these days, any innovation happens on the Internet or independently.
So why this long discussion about the horrors of radio deregulation? Because the same mechanisms are in place for the movies, I think. Familiar = good, remember? In the incessant quest for more money, going with something that has once been a hit and mildly massaging it and doing it again, the studios hope for a surefire moneymaker, and innovation and art etc don't even register on anyone's radar.
Copyright schmopyright, this is all completely anchored in the profit motive. To these people, music, movies or TV are just a cash machine with the output being a side product, not the goal.
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Hollywood puts out plenty of "new story" movies, but they also understand the value of a franchise or a proven concept. Those "retreads" are a very small percentage of the total movies coming out (a dozen examples in a slate of 1000 or so movies this year).
Now, where copyright does come in is controlling who gets to do the remake, and to avoid diluting the "brand". Instead of having a dozen people all trying to make knock off Mission Impossible movies, we get one "brand" that we can trust. If someone else wants to come up with their own secret agent doing wild things and call it "Agent Incredible" nobody will worry.
Another issue of course is piracy. One of the problems of piracy is that it taking away a lot of the "cream" money that was used to take risks in the past. Ticket sales for movies are down, revenue is flat and only there because of more expensive 3D / Imax ticket prices, otherwise things would be falling off the charts fast. The movies are still very desired (and heavily pirated), but fewer people are paying for the product. That cuts margins, and cuts the amount of risk the studios will take. The result is re-using proven ideas that they feel confident will sell, rather than taking chances on uncertain productions that may or may not make money.
Hollywood can't afford to fail anymore, they can't afford risks. Thank the pirates for that.
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Also, I hope you are joking about the remakes being quality because some random jerkoff who ended up with the rights gets to tell me I can only make a remake if I give him 80%. You might consult the creator to make your remake better, but definately not the copyright holder. You only do that to give them money. Not that it matters since we can easily ignore any extra bad movies made anyway.
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Imax is usually quite empty exactly because of price. After the initial hype of 3D ppl are thinking again. I get headaches depending on the movie so I kinda quit the 3D thing. And.. Dude, glasses? Citations boy, I don't see the revenue of Hollywood as a whole falling. Unless they are altering the financial data they release. Citation, please.
"If someone else wants to come up with their own secret agent doing wild things and call it "Agent Incredible" nobody will worry." Tell that to the MAFIAA and the lawsuits on parodies and similar attempts. Oh wait, parodies are not creative works even though they get you a good laugh and sometimes are more worthy of your time than the original movie. Derp.
Hollywood IS FAILING and it has nothing to do with "pirates". And even FAILING tI'm amazed how they can setill do shitloads of money.
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Me: Techdirt.com. It's something that has been discussed over and over again here.
If you are unable to find it, ask Mike. He has discussed it many times as well.
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If you are unable to find it, ask Mike. He has discussed it many times as well."
So you're trying to be an ass?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/business/media/as-ticket-prices-rise-theater-audiences-shr ink.html
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You can try to dilute oil by adding all the water you want: it won't. Same concept applies to "intellectual property". Unless you are ready to admit that what Hollywood and most artists are putting out isn't so too resistant to dilution (i.e. it is a piece of S***)?
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Real strong argument you have there, Sparky.
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Rango
Do you know how many copies I bought? Two. How many worked? Neither.
So you tell me, why the fuck would I want to pay for something that doesn't work?
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I don't need to "rip them off". I can just wait for Netflix or Cable.
Hollywood's content has always been freeware.
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People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
I very seldom watch movies. When I do, they're classics like The Body Snatcher or The Mask of Dimitrios. I'd never watch one of the glorified CGI demos churned out by Hollywood this century; just seeing the commercials for them sickens me.
Next time, come up with a counterargument more detailed than "omg u must be a pirat lolnoob". This isn't 4chan, you know.
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Yet still they made record after record at the box office, in a recession no less. Go figure.
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Usually this means we get a "safe" version - and the really creative people who might make soemthing new and worth watching don't get a look in. If this system had been in place in the 16th century then that upstart Shakespeare might never have been able to remake Romeo and Juliet because Arthur Brooke and or William Painter who had both published versions a few years earlier.
What you mean of course is that we're guaranteed a version made with high production values and star names at great expense - not necessarily synonomous with good.
If you want a good remake you have to throw the field open and let the best man win.
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OK, name some. I know of no movies that are coming out that aren't just remakes. Hell Avatar and District 9 (the two most unique movies in the past few years) were just taken from indie films several years before.
Movie ticket sales are down due to the fact that it costs $10 just for one ticket in 2D non-IMAX. And when you get there, the video quality is crappy, the loud noises are too loud, the quiet is too quiet, the floors are sticky, the place stinks. Yeah, I don't go to the theaters any more.
If Hollywood is failing so hard, maybe they should start looking at themselves first. They don't need to make $200 million to $500 million movies. They don't need to pay one actor $20 million. They don't need 90 writers working on something less complex then a book one person wrote by themselves. Maybe they should start making smart business decisions instead of spending money like the US government.
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Honestly, I'm looking forward to seeing Cowboys and Aliens.
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I will happily give them 10 dollars if they would just try and fail one last time.
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So What your saying is.... There is a high demand for a product and they can't figure out how to market and monetize that demand?
Sounds like a Business Model Issue...
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Then you can all sit around and watch Sita Sings The Blues over and over again and try to remember when you last saw a decent movie.
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Hasn't it also been shown that the movie industry isn't run like a business, but a government agency; spending asinine amounts of money for the sake of spending money.
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It doesn't mean they don't desire the product.
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Bullshit.
"Nobody feels any need to actually pay for content anymore..."
Bullshit.
"...it's like they have a mental disconnect between the idea of paying and the idea of how this stuff gets made."
Bullshit.
Anybody who believes these statements is doomed to fail in any business. If your opinion of your customers is that low, you're unlikely to do the sorts of things that would make them want to support you financially. Like providing content when and how the technology allows for example.
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Of course with industry accounting, the Bazillion dollars is split something like this:
Actors: 1.000% (if the film makes 'net' revenue)
Crew: 0.001%
Middlemen: 98.999% (of this 5% goes to advertising, 5% to production costs, 20% to hookers and blow, 30% to political marketing (bribes, lobbying, and related graft), and the rest goes in their pocket so they can make that vacation home payment).
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The Avengers?
That's actually a new movie about characters who have appeared in other movies but not together.
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Re: The Avengers?
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People want drivel...
For every one of these intelligence-insulting feature movies, there are 10 low-budget films that blow it away. For every insanely vapid TV show, there's 10 more interesting things online. For every shallow untalented hack of a pop star, there are 10 wonderful musicians playing in your town or posting their work online.
The trick is to wean yourself from mass-produced "culture" and seek out the individual efforts: the visions and craft and creativity of people who are making things not because they think they'll make $500M, but because they're artists and THAT'S WHAT THEY DO. Thanks to them, there are small bits of genius to be found almost everywhere -- and once in a while, a masterpiece.
Hollywood is obsolete. The TV networks are obsolete. The record companies are obsolete. We don't need them any more.
(And of course this is why they're frightened out of their minds: they KNOW this is true.)
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Not necessary - the so called theory behind copyright is blown away by the last 300 years of experience. It was never about incentivising production and always about protecting the incomes of a favoured few publishers.
What the article says in the headline is the truth however - you just read it the wrong way. Copyright certainly incentivises re-makes because the rightsholders for the originals wish to refresh their franchise and make a bit more money for nothing. Without copyright, production would centre around things that artists were inspired to make (that could include re-makes, but only if the artist felt he had something new to add).
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It's a theory now? I thought it was a law but if it's a theory, that changes everything!
Like a scientific theory, right? Where facts and observable phenomena need to be taken into account?
I call this progress.
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We just want Hollywood to admit it's true.
Because if it is true, then by locking up characters under copyright and trademark, the public loses access to all kinds of derivative works that are currently blocked. If so, then the IP laws are not meeting their stated purpose: to provide more art to the public.
If we judge Hollywood by their actions, based on all the re-hashes that creative community produces, then we conclude that they DO agree that re-hashes are art.
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We just want Hollywood to admit it's true.
Um, don't you think the fact that they're making remakes is because they know it's true that people like them?
Because if it is true, then by locking up characters under copyright and trademark, the public loses access to all kinds of derivative works that are currently blocked. If so, then the IP laws are not meeting their stated purpose: to provide more art to the public.
The public got to see the copyrighted work to begin with. That's the public's side of the bargain. And it will enter the public domain when the copyright expires. The other side of the bargain is that the copyright holder gets certain exclusive rights, including the right to make remakes and other derivative works. The public doesn't get those rights by design. Yes, some things are temporarily locked up, but so what? The public gets their end of deal too.
If we judge Hollywood by their actions, based on all the re-hashes that creative community produces, then we conclude that they DO agree that re-hashes are art.
Of course they know this. This whole argument is a silly straw man from the get go.
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What do you think we are doing?
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I keep talking, pointing to studies with hard evidence, and a reviewed methodology that isn't, "well, uhh, we asked people."
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Whining.
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Whining.
Which has the practical purpose of keeping people like you busy writing comments like the above. Since there are more of us than there are of you this is an effective tactic.
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In your haste to poste, I think you put an unncessary "h" in that word, and forgot an "n" in that double consonant in the middle.
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Conflating the Constitution and the USC...
It's like saying that you are allowed to eat the whole gallon of ice cream, rather than saying you must eat the whole gallon of ice cream.
That permission is also dependent on some conditions first.
That's like being required to run off that gallon of ice cream beforehand. It's not a one sided proposition.
Copyright is a highly optional thing that the government is allowed to do only because it's a greater good for society in general. It's not meant as a virtual land grab for individuals.
That stuff is extra and is NOT enumerated in the Constitution.
What is enumerated in the constitution is that "creative ownership" is not permanent. It is not like property.
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Re: Conflating the Constitution and the USC...
You're contradicting yourself. The Constitution grants Congress the power to make copyright laws. Congress's copyright laws are created pursuant to that enumerated power. Therefore, copyright in its current form is most definitely enumerated in the Constitution. The Constitution leaves it to Congress to work out the details.
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Um, don't you think the fact that they're making remakes is because they know it's true that people like them?"
What they DO and what they SAY are not in sync. This is exactly what Masnick (and I) is pointing out. Seems a little thick not to have picked up the key takeaway.
The media industry (perhaps not exactly the movie industry) has been suing derivative artists like Girl Talk for 'appropriating' their art, and building something new with it. We feel like these derivative works are fair use. The motion picture industry has attacked all sorts of fan fiction in much the same way. Techdirt has dozens of posts where media backers comment how these "remixers are nothing better than thieving punks." So, in these cases, the media industry seems to think that derivative works are NOT creative works of their own.
Clearly this isn't a "slam dunk" argument we just made.
We're just pointing out a little more hypocrisy to add to the pile.
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But if our societal goal is to end up with more art in the public domain, now we have a force for copyright (offers incentive) and AGAINST copyright (prevents derivatives).
This makes the arguments for copyright something worthy of debate.
PS, Regarding "Nobody is denying that remixes and remakes are artistic on some level." Well, you haven't been around the TechDirt comments much, then. We often get industry hacks on here telling us that remixes are not creative. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090327/1611474282.shtml#c376
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If this were true, and the "temporary" term was of a reasonable length, I would have much less of a problem with US copyright.
But the reality is that it isn't temporary. Yes, technically it may be but in reality, every time Micky Mouse is about to enter the public domain, congress extends the duration of copyright. I see no reason why this trend will change, so the end effect is that the temporary is actually permanent.
The deal has been reneged on. There is no deal.
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It's not a limited time in reality, only technically, because every time the "limited time" is about to elapse for Micky, the limit is lengthened. This will continue, unless radical changes (that you seem to be opposed to) are made, forever.
So the reality is the "limited time" is "infinite."
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What's a good enough level of certainty?
How about we let this industry shill play Russian Roulette with this proposition? Which option would he choose?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
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Re: big vs. small
what is troubling with this post is that all movie making is lumped together. in terms of budgets and revenue then what mike has to say may be true, but in terms of quantity i believe that there are more movies made that do not rely on the sequel/remake methodology.
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Adaptations
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Re: Adaptations
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Re: Adaptations
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No conflict, Mike: remixing and mashing up are HACKERY,
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Re: No conflict, Mike: remixing and mashing up are HACKERY,
Remaking movies is plain old boring businessy. There is no curiousity required.
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Re: No conflict, Mike: remixing and mashing up are HACKERY,
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...and “Footloose.”
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Re:
Probably two factors at play:
1) Regression towards the Mean. Probably not something I should take the space to explain here, so if you don't know what it is, you should. Try this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_to_the_mean
2) Business incentives. Producers of sequel films can trade on the success of the prequels, and thus can cut corners in costs and effort of the subsequent film. Even when word gets out that the sequel is bad, the film will still be over-compensated by the market, because fans may have some affinity for the characters - enough to incentivize them to hold their noses just to follow the characters along. (See: "The Phantom Menace")
IMHO, factor 1 above is the biggest factor at play. It is a powerful statistical reality. Factor 2 assumes a fairly cynical approach by writers and artists to just produce crap that makes money, but I believe that these artists have an inherent desire to create a highly acclaimed product, not a knock-off. The studio 'suits', OTOH, might drive some of factor 2.
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YARM is what they do best.KRAP is what they are.
If I need a MAFIAA film I will buy it used some where or download it.They are never seeing my wallet again.
Bye Bye Can't Wait to see Ya Die !!!!
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But...
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The real tragedy here...
Also when everyone tells me what they've done at Disneyland it still sounds like paying a ton of money to wait in line, why is a company that makes waiting in line something to pay lots of money for called a creative company?
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Re: The real tragedy here...
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Re: Re: The real tragedy here...
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But, But, the children
Wait, am I defending fair use and creative evolution, or the **AA industry..... okay, who tricked me.....
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"Damn Hollywood locks up stuff and won't reuse it and won't let anyone else use it. They are just hoarding IP and being pricks about it!".
There is no winning in the Tardian world.
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Re:
Yes, there is! Stop thinking that you've already lost and instead try to figure out what you potential customers want. Trial and error will also help you to determine what will serve them best. Perhaps, the funding for a movie should come from somewhere other than ticket/disc/download sales; that way those items could be priced much lower and the profits are hardly impacted. Imagine a world where recorded entertainment is created alongside the fans, bring them along for the ride as the film is being made, let them have the chance to sculpt the movie with additional ideas and maybe even charge a small fee and open it up for donations with some rewards!
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here you go: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/04/avatar-pocahontas-in-spac_n_410538.html
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the next episode
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Bigger explosions and more GFX does not equate to a better movie. If the GFX does not move the plot along then it is wasted money.
Hollydud has been bankrupt for ideas for some time now. The last big break through they had was movies of comic book heroes. Only that has pretty much come to an end.
Add this to the depressive box office environment and I come out with zilch to be interested in. Not interested means no money spent for tickets.
Being risk adverse also means less and less box office draw.
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