Anonymoose Custard (profile), 25 Jan 2012 @ 3:31pm
What about Star Wreck?
Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning was produced, filmed, edited, and published on a total budget of 13,462.33 €, and yet still managed to garner a sizable fan base and made boatloads of money.
Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy (a fan movie based on the popular MGS video games) cost a mere 10,000 € to produce, and is distributed for free, to great success.
If Hollywood chooses to ignore these successes, then they're surely in the wrong business: They don't know how to make movies.
Anonymoose Custard (profile), 24 Jan 2012 @ 4:42pm
I feel that Leahy and Smith should both be censured for this fiasco. It's absurd that they are even on committees, as clearly out of touch with reality that they both are.
The problem is that Copyright came with a promise similar to the promise that Patents have: That once the creator has profited from the work, the work enters the collective cultural domain. The reasoning is that then the Public will always have access to the works.
As it is, though, these works remain under Copyright, and it is still technically illegal to create archival copies for cultural preservation, and it's also therefore illegal for the Public to gain access to those archival copies for their enjoyment.
Right now, there is a collection of recordings of Jazz music from the '30s by some of the masters of early Jazz - from Armstrong to Basie - that no one is allowed to listen to because they're under Copyright, even though it's not clear that anyone actually holds the Copyright to these recordings. So they will remain in an archive in Harlem until the Copyrights expire, probably sometime around 2025 at the earliest, if not longer. It's a travesty that no one will be able to listen to it.
Worse, there are huge storerooms at the movie studios in Hollywood that hold collections of some of the most influential and (culturally) important movies of the Silent Era and the early "Soundies" that are simply decaying in their tins. The film is a material that is extremely fragile and doesn't survive even in controlled conditions, and so the reels are covered in a brow-gray gunk that used to be film. None of those movies will ever be seen again because the Copyright owners have no interest in recovering what's left (they don't see a market) and no one who has the funding is able to recover them all because they can't get the Copyright releases - if they can get it at all. In many cases, the studio that "owns" them can't even prove they have the Copyright.
And so our Culture is being destroyed or lost because no one is allowed to make valuable archival copies, and no one is allowed to view them because the proper royalty payments can't or won't be made.
Even if it can be proven that the works are true orphan works, no one will touch them because someone will make a Copyright claim that needs to be verified, even if the claim is invalid.
Worse yet, derivative works that build on this culture (like tributes and documentaries and the like) can't use this material, even if they can get their hands on it.
It is as if Copyright is making it illegal to record and share any of our History that occurred between 15 years ago (which is roughly when most Copyright owners seem to abandon their works) and 95 to 170 years ago (which is when the current Copyright extensions expire).
On the post: Once Again, If You're Trying To Save The $200 Million Movie, Perhaps You're Asking The Wrong Questions
What about Star Wreck?
Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy (a fan movie based on the popular MGS video games) cost a mere 10,000 € to produce, and is distributed for free, to great success.
If Hollywood chooses to ignore these successes, then they're surely in the wrong business: They don't know how to make movies.
On the post: Senator Leahy Hands Republicans A Gift By Giving Them Credit For Delaying Vote On PIPA/SOPA
On the post: Why Johnny Can't Read Any New Public Domain Books In The US: Because Nothing New Entered The Public Domain
Re: A little confused
As it is, though, these works remain under Copyright, and it is still technically illegal to create archival copies for cultural preservation, and it's also therefore illegal for the Public to gain access to those archival copies for their enjoyment.
Right now, there is a collection of recordings of Jazz music from the '30s by some of the masters of early Jazz - from Armstrong to Basie - that no one is allowed to listen to because they're under Copyright, even though it's not clear that anyone actually holds the Copyright to these recordings. So they will remain in an archive in Harlem until the Copyrights expire, probably sometime around 2025 at the earliest, if not longer. It's a travesty that no one will be able to listen to it.
Worse, there are huge storerooms at the movie studios in Hollywood that hold collections of some of the most influential and (culturally) important movies of the Silent Era and the early "Soundies" that are simply decaying in their tins. The film is a material that is extremely fragile and doesn't survive even in controlled conditions, and so the reels are covered in a brow-gray gunk that used to be film. None of those movies will ever be seen again because the Copyright owners have no interest in recovering what's left (they don't see a market) and no one who has the funding is able to recover them all because they can't get the Copyright releases - if they can get it at all. In many cases, the studio that "owns" them can't even prove they have the Copyright.
And so our Culture is being destroyed or lost because no one is allowed to make valuable archival copies, and no one is allowed to view them because the proper royalty payments can't or won't be made.
Even if it can be proven that the works are true orphan works, no one will touch them because someone will make a Copyright claim that needs to be verified, even if the claim is invalid.
Worse yet, derivative works that build on this culture (like tributes and documentaries and the like) can't use this material, even if they can get their hands on it.
It is as if Copyright is making it illegal to record and share any of our History that occurred between 15 years ago (which is roughly when most Copyright owners seem to abandon their works) and 95 to 170 years ago (which is when the current Copyright extensions expire).
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