So could the writer of Troll (the awesome '80s horror movie) be able to sue JK Rawling because their story involved a young boy named Harry Potter that gets introduced to witchcraft and sorcery.
The Harry Potter books could EASILY be seen as a sequel to that movie, where his family gets killed and he gets whisked off to Hogwarts.
Because there's a character name that's the same, they both speak in English and use some of the same words (like "the", "uh", and "and") and mannerisms (like standing around like a loaf while stuff happens around him) the set-up from the movie is loosely similar to the book, so it's obvious that JK Rawling owes her entire fortune to ripping off an '80s horror movie and creating a series of "sequels".
According to the story as written, the choreographer embraced sharing ... his estate does not. It's not the choreographer that's being attacked in the rewrite, but the estate of the choreographer which is claiming to be doing what it's doing in what it believes are the wishes of the dead choreographer.
So, the rewrite states:
Choreographer - totally cool with sharing
Estate of choreographer - totally cool with controlling everything
Mike is claiming the estate is actually going against the wishes and mentalities the choreographer held while alive.
The problem is you are confusing where the incentive is placed.
The point of copyright is to put for an incentive for the ORIGINAL CREATOR to create in the first place. The original point is say "you create this, you get a limited monopoly" so that by providing protection, a person will create art to begin with. The idea being that without this incentive, people wouldn't create art because it'd instantly become public domain. They're supposed to get a LIMITED monopoly to incentivize them to create, then it becomes public domain in time for them to have created their next piece of art.
What's happening is, people are creating art to avoid the previously created art. So, the original artist no longer needs to create, but now it takes a new artist to come in and create, allowing the original artist to STOP CREATING new work, because they can effectively cash in on one piece of art for the rest of their lives.
It REDUCES the incentive for the ORIGINAL CREATOR to ever create anything else again in their lives. Because why create 100 novels and get paid once each, when you can create 1 novel and get paid 100 times (hard cover, soft cover, audiobook, 5 different eBook versions to put on different eBook readers, and then each person that has the audacity to reference or talk about your book).
So, the original protectionism to create through copyright is a failure, because it reduces the need to commission the original artist to create more.
Now as a side effect, because now art requires people to continuously pay monetarily for its influence on culture is other artists are forced to IGNORE THE PREVIOUS ART, thus removing it from popular culture, to create new works to avoid continuing that works influence. Because to continue its influence would require to continue paying the original artist. So, it is effectively creating an incentive for OTHER PEOPLE to create, so that ORIGINAL CREATOR doesn't get to live a cushy life on the work of other people by getting paid for work they've already been paid for.
To boil it down:
Copyright exists to create an incentive on the original artist to create.
Copyright in practice creates an incentive on other artists to create while reducing the incentive for the original artist to create.
So, it's not contradictory. It's talking about different things entirely. Would Shakespeare have written as much as he had had he (1) had to pay all the previous story creators whom he "borrowed" and was "influenced" by, or (2) was able to continuously get paid over and over again for Romeo & Juliette and got paid for each and every revision or version through copyright?
Re: Individuals owe society not the other way around.
I don't owe society anything, other than the agreements I have made as an adult without being under duress.
Of course, society doesn't owe me anything, either. My parents owe me 18 years of care because of their decisions/actions that brought me into this life ... but that's about it, and my mom has paid that & more.
But me owing society anything? Naw, because I had no say in the society I was born in to.
I have a personal obligation to see to the betterment of myself and the world & people around me that I love & support. But I don't owe anything, and it's an obligation I have placed on myself because I see value in my personal life from increasing the value others get from their lives.
Are you viewing this as an extension of "original sin"? You have to apologize for & work off being born in the first place? Or, do you view just being born into a society as a form of contractual agreement between a 0-minute-old baby & the place they happened to come out of the womb at?
Because it's progressive. It slowly gets worse and worse. So, the talk started in 1776 as people felt entitled to have a representative voice in Parliament in exchange for taxation ... and over the years has gone to people feeling entitled to being able to tax other people for any and all use of their writing/artwork.
Not really cute. It's not as if there's a magic line that people can go "there! society has crossed it. NOW we're an entitlement culture". It's just that each generation goes through another step, and then points at the progress in their lifetime, or from the previous generation.
Echoing the sentiment, but who has been wondering about Facebook's APIs? This is the first I've ever heard of anyone questioning Facebook's APIs.
And it's easy to mimic a set of APIs from another product. In fact, it's pretty common to allow for code for one service to be interchangeable with another service. It'd be SMART for Facebook to use existing API references used by other products so that developers wouldn't need to change as much source code to allow their code to work with different services.
None of that requires the underlying code to be at all similar. Just the API call references.
If it happened today, television news, since they are currently 100% ad-supported, and 0% fee-based for television or web viewers.
So, we'd have a television news sourced system. I get 5 different news programs beamed over the air for free to my television several times a day, and each channel provides its news on-line for free, frequently with video clips of the aired news story. All that news is already paid for by the time it gets to me, they never have wanted money from anyone else, because they've already been compensated by their advertisers.
Additionally, local bloggers who first-hand witness news in progress would be another point of news creation. A passerby with a camera phone captures the event, and then the blogosphere spreads the news and analyzes it, while also conducting investigations into validity and background information on the incident. Investigative journalism would happen in the public, in real-time, by real people. And would build upon other people's efforts in a community developed news story.
I agree in theory, though most people I know have a movie in mind and find out when the most convenient time listed is nearby. Though, I live in a major city with several equally convenient movie theater options for most locations.
I don't see AMC having any issues with their decision.
I have a netbook. It still doesn't fit in my pocket. I personally think it's sillier to have to find a WiFi hotspot or at least place to sit if one has a cell dongle, boot/wake up a laptop, do searching. By the time you're getting your backpack off your back and are unzipping it, the iPhone user should already be on the next phase of their journey.
To each his own, you're right, but I don't consider a laptop, even with a cell dongle, to be at all a reasonable replacement for the speed and convenience of the iPhone or similar device.
Personally, automatics have their place. Long road trips are made significantly easier & safer driving an automatic with cruise-control. I get less fatigued having to manage gas & shifting pedals and can drive longer on road trips.
But, I prefer standard shifting, because I can move the gears myself, and am able to squeeze a bit more performance in various ways. Particularly on mountain roads in Colorado. And it's just more FUN!
I think it should all be about choice. I would like to see a rise in dual-mode transmission. Standard transmission with an option to engage automatic transmission. I don't like one-size-fits-all solutions.
I had a 1st gen iPhone & currently iPhone 3G. I love the device, though it is the worst phone I've ever had. It is the greatest mobile Internet device I've ever used, and brought Apple's expertise in UI to a market that was severely lacking in that area. But the phone function itself is riddled with bugs, issues, and flaws ... but I hate talking on the phone, so I consider these features ("sorry I missed your call, but my iPhone didn't ring at all. See, no missed calls from you!")
And what troubles me the most about the iPhone, after the App Store's approval process or lack of transparency or consistency, is Apple making choices on how my phone should act FOR me.
Example: Originally, a text message was received, and the phone alerted once. Then a software update made it alert 3 times, and Apple gave no way to change this. Now, 6 months later, there's an option to have it beep once again. Why was the functionality changed to begin with? Why wasn't the OPTION to enable or disable it given? Why is it 1 or 3, why not give the option to set a number? Why can I change only ringtones but not alert tones?
The real problem I have with Apple is it doesn't like to give OPTIONS. It likes to make decisions for me. I'm all about choice, and Apple is about total control.
The iPhone has revolutionized the mobile Internet device market. It has shown how a great UI can work on a small device that is easy to use. But, their levels of control are limiting because it requires a user to adjust how they use their technology to how Apple believes it should be used. They give limited options and change them without giving the ability to maintain the old options. I believe technology should adjust to how the user wants to use it, and the iPhone is not that device.
Google, RIM, and Palm have all learned lessons on UI, and now are able to compete with easier to use devices themselves, and they offer devices that can be customized to suit the user ... not require the user fit into what an iPhone user is supposed to be.
Going beyond technical limitations (2 years for copy & paste, still no MMS or video on pre-3GS, etc), it's Apple's inability to think about how users MAY want to use their devices and instead focuses on how they SHOULD use their devices ... that's what's truly frustrating for me.
With the plethora of ways Techdirt gives their content away (RSS, e-mail), I still come to the website regularly throughout the day to get my news & analysis.
Though, I use AdBlocker Plus, because after years of irresponsible banner ad usage & shady advertisers, I don't appreciate or trust the on-line banner ad market anymore. So, sorry about not giving back with ad monies. But, I'll likely buy into the CwF + RtB program this weekend. I support this site, but not banner ads.
"I suppose they are anticipating that people will see the listings for AMC competitors and go there instead, but still..."
That's precisely the point. Out of sight/out of mind. They seem to think that most people still get movie times from those ads, so when they go to the newspaper they'll go to a Regal or UA theater instead of an AMC one. If only AMC sees a decline in attendance, then they can spout off "see, if you don't pay us to put your times in the newspaper, people will forget you exist!"
I would say people dropping Windows because it's blocking websites is more of a deterrent than anti-trust issues. How long would businesses (Microsoft's bread & butter industry) continue to use Windows, if the operating system started blocking websites?
Question: How popular would Apple/Linux have gotten had Microsoft started blocking Google?
"most influential entertainment company in the world" is not the same thing as saying "most influential entertainment company in every market in the world"
Just that Apple, as a single entity, has more global influence than any other single entity. How much influence do those local artists have globally? Less than Apple's.
So, becoming the #1 music store in the world isn't much of a success? iTunes sells more music than Walmart, that little store that sells a couple things.
And I'm willing to wager that a majority of music on people's iPods are ripped from CDs, which most people would argue is not "stolen".
On the post: This Is America... Why Are We Banning Books?
Re:
The Harry Potter books could EASILY be seen as a sequel to that movie, where his family gets killed and he gets whisked off to Hogwarts.
Because there's a character name that's the same, they both speak in English and use some of the same words (like "the", "uh", and "and") and mannerisms (like standing around like a loaf while stuff happens around him) the set-up from the movie is loosely similar to the book, so it's obvious that JK Rawling owes her entire fortune to ripping off an '80s horror movie and creating a series of "sequels".
On the post: Copyright Conundrum: Was 'Public Domain' Music Silenced On YouTube?
Re: The guy was just an idiot.
On the post: Famed Choreographer Dies... Intellectual Property Lawyers Take Over?
Re: I think you missed it Mike
So, the rewrite states:
Choreographer - totally cool with sharing
Estate of choreographer - totally cool with controlling everything
Mike is claiming the estate is actually going against the wishes and mentalities the choreographer held while alive.
On the post: Famed Choreographer Dies... Intellectual Property Lawyers Take Over?
Re:
The point of copyright is to put for an incentive for the ORIGINAL CREATOR to create in the first place. The original point is say "you create this, you get a limited monopoly" so that by providing protection, a person will create art to begin with. The idea being that without this incentive, people wouldn't create art because it'd instantly become public domain. They're supposed to get a LIMITED monopoly to incentivize them to create, then it becomes public domain in time for them to have created their next piece of art.
What's happening is, people are creating art to avoid the previously created art. So, the original artist no longer needs to create, but now it takes a new artist to come in and create, allowing the original artist to STOP CREATING new work, because they can effectively cash in on one piece of art for the rest of their lives.
It REDUCES the incentive for the ORIGINAL CREATOR to ever create anything else again in their lives. Because why create 100 novels and get paid once each, when you can create 1 novel and get paid 100 times (hard cover, soft cover, audiobook, 5 different eBook versions to put on different eBook readers, and then each person that has the audacity to reference or talk about your book).
So, the original protectionism to create through copyright is a failure, because it reduces the need to commission the original artist to create more.
Now as a side effect, because now art requires people to continuously pay monetarily for its influence on culture is other artists are forced to IGNORE THE PREVIOUS ART, thus removing it from popular culture, to create new works to avoid continuing that works influence. Because to continue its influence would require to continue paying the original artist. So, it is effectively creating an incentive for OTHER PEOPLE to create, so that ORIGINAL CREATOR doesn't get to live a cushy life on the work of other people by getting paid for work they've already been paid for.
To boil it down:
Copyright exists to create an incentive on the original artist to create.
Copyright in practice creates an incentive on other artists to create while reducing the incentive for the original artist to create.
So, it's not contradictory. It's talking about different things entirely. Would Shakespeare have written as much as he had had he (1) had to pay all the previous story creators whom he "borrowed" and was "influenced" by, or (2) was able to continuously get paid over and over again for Romeo & Juliette and got paid for each and every revision or version through copyright?
On the post: Entitlement Society: Grad Can't Find Job, Sues Her College For Tuition Back
Re: Individuals owe society not the other way around.
Of course, society doesn't owe me anything, either. My parents owe me 18 years of care because of their decisions/actions that brought me into this life ... but that's about it, and my mom has paid that & more.
But me owing society anything? Naw, because I had no say in the society I was born in to.
I have a personal obligation to see to the betterment of myself and the world & people around me that I love & support. But I don't owe anything, and it's an obligation I have placed on myself because I see value in my personal life from increasing the value others get from their lives.
Are you viewing this as an extension of "original sin"? You have to apologize for & work off being born in the first place? Or, do you view just being born into a society as a form of contractual agreement between a 0-minute-old baby & the place they happened to come out of the womb at?
On the post: Entitlement Society: Grad Can't Find Job, Sues Her College For Tuition Back
Re:
Not really cute. It's not as if there's a magic line that people can go "there! society has crossed it. NOW we're an entitlement culture". It's just that each generation goes through another step, and then points at the progress in their lifetime, or from the previous generation.
On the post: UK Wants Surveillance Cameras To Watch 20,000 Worst Families?
Re:
On the post: Judge Orders Facebook To Reveal Source Code In Patent Dispute
Re:
And it's easy to mimic a set of APIs from another product. In fact, it's pretty common to allow for code for one service to be interchangeable with another service. It'd be SMART for Facebook to use existing API references used by other products so that developers wouldn't need to change as much source code to allow their code to work with different services.
None of that requires the underlying code to be at all similar. Just the API call references.
On the post: Ripped Off News? Or Spreading The News?
Re: Re: If they got what they want
So, we'd have a television news sourced system. I get 5 different news programs beamed over the air for free to my television several times a day, and each channel provides its news on-line for free, frequently with video clips of the aired news story. All that news is already paid for by the time it gets to me, they never have wanted money from anyone else, because they've already been compensated by their advertisers.
Additionally, local bloggers who first-hand witness news in progress would be another point of news creation. A passerby with a camera phone captures the event, and then the blogosphere spreads the news and analyzes it, while also conducting investigations into validity and background information on the incident. Investigative journalism would happen in the public, in real-time, by real people. And would build upon other people's efforts in a community developed news story.
On the post: AMC Theatres Pull Movie Listings From Washington Post; Post Hopes Movie Attendance Drops
Re: Re: Re: Attendance will drop?
I don't see AMC having any issues with their decision.
On the post: iPhone Haters Are Stick-Shifters In An Automatic World
Re: Re: Re: Mass market?
To each his own, you're right, but I don't consider a laptop, even with a cell dongle, to be at all a reasonable replacement for the speed and convenience of the iPhone or similar device.
On the post: iPhone Haters Are Stick-Shifters In An Automatic World
But, I prefer standard shifting, because I can move the gears myself, and am able to squeeze a bit more performance in various ways. Particularly on mountain roads in Colorado. And it's just more FUN!
I think it should all be about choice. I would like to see a rise in dual-mode transmission. Standard transmission with an option to engage automatic transmission. I don't like one-size-fits-all solutions.
I had a 1st gen iPhone & currently iPhone 3G. I love the device, though it is the worst phone I've ever had. It is the greatest mobile Internet device I've ever used, and brought Apple's expertise in UI to a market that was severely lacking in that area. But the phone function itself is riddled with bugs, issues, and flaws ... but I hate talking on the phone, so I consider these features ("sorry I missed your call, but my iPhone didn't ring at all. See, no missed calls from you!")
And what troubles me the most about the iPhone, after the App Store's approval process or lack of transparency or consistency, is Apple making choices on how my phone should act FOR me.
Example: Originally, a text message was received, and the phone alerted once. Then a software update made it alert 3 times, and Apple gave no way to change this. Now, 6 months later, there's an option to have it beep once again. Why was the functionality changed to begin with? Why wasn't the OPTION to enable or disable it given? Why is it 1 or 3, why not give the option to set a number? Why can I change only ringtones but not alert tones?
The real problem I have with Apple is it doesn't like to give OPTIONS. It likes to make decisions for me. I'm all about choice, and Apple is about total control.
The iPhone has revolutionized the mobile Internet device market. It has shown how a great UI can work on a small device that is easy to use. But, their levels of control are limiting because it requires a user to adjust how they use their technology to how Apple believes it should be used. They give limited options and change them without giving the ability to maintain the old options. I believe technology should adjust to how the user wants to use it, and the iPhone is not that device.
Google, RIM, and Palm have all learned lessons on UI, and now are able to compete with easier to use devices themselves, and they offer devices that can be customized to suit the user ... not require the user fit into what an iPhone user is supposed to be.
Going beyond technical limitations (2 years for copy & paste, still no MMS or video on pre-3GS, etc), it's Apple's inability to think about how users MAY want to use their devices and instead focuses on how they SHOULD use their devices ... that's what's truly frustrating for me.
On the post: AMC Theatres Pull Movie Listings From Washington Post; Post Hopes Movie Attendance Drops
Re:
On the post: Is There Really A 'Piracy' Problem For Newspapers?
Though, I use AdBlocker Plus, because after years of irresponsible banner ad usage & shady advertisers, I don't appreciate or trust the on-line banner ad market anymore. So, sorry about not giving back with ad monies. But, I'll likely buy into the CwF + RtB program this weekend. I support this site, but not banner ads.
On the post: AMC Theatres Pull Movie Listings From Washington Post; Post Hopes Movie Attendance Drops
Re: Attendance will drop?
That's precisely the point. Out of sight/out of mind. They seem to think that most people still get movie times from those ads, so when they go to the newspaper they'll go to a Regal or UA theater instead of an AMC one. If only AMC sees a decline in attendance, then they can spout off "see, if you don't pay us to put your times in the newspaper, people will forget you exist!"
On the post: Looking Back At The Microsoft Antitrust Suit: Did It Matter?
Re: Now Think About That
Question: How popular would Apple/Linux have gotten had Microsoft started blocking Google?
Answer: Significantly.
On the post: Looking Back At The Microsoft Antitrust Suit: Did It Matter?
Re: Did Antitrust matter?
One is allowed to state an opinion without footnotes.
*rolls eyes at some people*
On the post: Looking Back At The Microsoft Antitrust Suit: Did It Matter?
Re: Little arrogant are we
Just that Apple, as a single entity, has more global influence than any other single entity. How much influence do those local artists have globally? Less than Apple's.
So, the original statement still holds true.
On the post: Looking Back At The Microsoft Antitrust Suit: Did It Matter?
Re: iTunes Red Herring
And I'm willing to wager that a majority of music on people's iPods are ripped from CDs, which most people would argue is not "stolen".
On the post: Is Apple Suggesting That The DMCA Prevents Terrorism?
Re: But...
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