Would a "moron in a hurry" assume that a T-shirt with Mickey Mouse on it must be a Disney product? I would think so. Therefore Disney gets to maintain their monopoly on Mickey Mouse T-shirts (and other merchandise) purely as a matter of Trademark.
Letting the copyright on Steamboat Willy expire would really only give people the right to distribute copies of Steamboat Willie. Even a 'remix' might still violate Disney's trademark. New movies with the same trademark characters would, I'm pretty sure, because every "moron in a hurry" is going to assume that an animated movie with Disney Characters is a Disney Movie even if disclaimers on the packaging clearly says it isn't.
Mickey Mouse when used as a trademark - Still protected.
Used as a trademark would probably include anyone else using a Mickey Mouse character in their own work since there's a very high chance that a "moron in a hurry" would assume it was a Disney film. Disney could perfectly well protect the mouse as a trademark without perpetually extending copyright.
Youtube already have such a system, only it doesn't work on checksums (that would be almost impossible, everyone who rips their own CD or re-encodes at a different bitrate or makes even the slightest change to a file will generate a different checksum) youtube's system recognizes a fingerprint of the music or video itself, the actual sequence of notes and/or images even if they're not bit-for-bit identical.
Of course that's not good enough for the music industry either; only in the last few days some record label was complaining about the excessive burden involved in uploading all the content they wish to claim copyright over.
I personally think google should long ago have told the recording industry to go fuck themselves. I'm quite certain that even if Google went ahead and indexed and generated a fingerprint for every CD in existence, at their own expense, just to police copyright infringement the record labels would still consider this fingerprint an 'infringing derivative work' and demand some small fee every time the fingerprint gets used by google to verify a non-infringing upload.
Re: from the business model as a "right" department...
The other way of looking at this; normal advertisers pay for airtime. The RIAA gets twice as much airtime (which they KNOW is advertising because it sells more CDs, hence 'payola' etc) and yet they get the radio stations to pay them for it.
I think the RIAA underestimate the value that radio stations add themselves. I've got Jango set up here so the family can listen to nonstop music that's very precisely tuned to our preferences. (It's legal too, apparently!) But they'd still rather listen to the radio every morning because there's entertaining DJ chatter, news, weather, stuff that's on locally.
If people will 'tune out' how do you explain those one-hour "Best commercials" shows that seem to be really, really popular just about everywhere? People know those are going to be one hour of just ads before they even turn the Telly on.
Or all those viral ad clips on youtube. People know it's an ad from the description but it still 'goes viral' which is pretty much the polar opposite of 'tuning out'.
I don't think Sun are making OpenOffice free to the world out of the kindness of their hearts. There's a business model in there somewhere. Same for Novell, Redhat, IBM, Google, Canonical. These companies make large contributions to FLOSS as necessary to sell related services. Kinda like NiN making Ghosts I-IV free for download (free advertising) and then selling a whole bunch of CDs and DVDs and Vinyl and concert tickets and perhaps even a few T-Shirts on the back of that.
is the automatic assumption by all involved that the government should aim to 'maximize' tax revenue in the first instance. Governments should provide essential services only where it makes no sense for the private sector to provide, regulate collusion or 'naturally occurring monopolies' so that the private sector are forced to provide the remaining services in a competitive environment, and collect only the revenue required to fund this.
when the encryption is broken. And by that, I mean broken to the extent that I can practically and easily bypass it.
Just like I held off buying anything remotely DVD related until I knew that the DRM was broken six-ways-to-Sunday and copying most DVDs was trivially easy. (as it happened I went out and bought my first DVD burner about the time Jack Valenti died. It seems a good thing to celebrate. I'm a cold bastard.)
On the post: Should There Be A Penalty For Falsely Claiming Copyright Over Public Domain Material?
Re: Re: Mickey Mouse
Letting the copyright on Steamboat Willy expire would really only give people the right to distribute copies of Steamboat Willie. Even a 'remix' might still violate Disney's trademark. New movies with the same trademark characters would, I'm pretty sure, because every "moron in a hurry" is going to assume that an animated movie with Disney Characters is a Disney Movie even if disclaimers on the packaging clearly says it isn't.
On the post: Should There Be A Penalty For Falsely Claiming Copyright Over Public Domain Material?
Re:
Copies of Steamboat Willie - Public domain.
Mickey Mouse when used as a trademark - Still protected.
Used as a trademark would probably include anyone else using a Mickey Mouse character in their own work since there's a very high chance that a "moron in a hurry" would assume it was a Disney film. Disney could perfectly well protect the mouse as a trademark without perpetually extending copyright.
On the post: German Court Says Rapidshare Must Get Magical Powers To Know Which Songs Infringe And Which Do Not
Re: GEMA would ....
Of course that's not good enough for the music industry either; only in the last few days some record label was complaining about the excessive burden involved in uploading all the content they wish to claim copyright over.
I personally think google should long ago have told the recording industry to go fuck themselves. I'm quite certain that even if Google went ahead and indexed and generated a fingerprint for every CD in existence, at their own expense, just to police copyright infringement the record labels would still consider this fingerprint an 'infringing derivative work' and demand some small fee every time the fingerprint gets used by google to verify a non-infringing upload.
On the post: UK Newspaper Agency Wants To Regulate, Charge For Linking Privileges
Re: http://tapthehive.com
He'd have to be practically paralytic to take two hours; its a three-line entry in .htaccess.
On the post: RIAA Has A Blog? And They Use It To Read My Mind!
Re: from the business model as a "right" department...
I think the RIAA underestimate the value that radio stations add themselves. I've got Jango set up here so the family can listen to nonstop music that's very precisely tuned to our preferences. (It's legal too, apparently!) But they'd still rather listen to the radio every morning because there's entertaining DJ chatter, news, weather, stuff that's on locally.
But what would I know, I'm just a consumer.
On the post: NY Times Discovers That Advertising Is Content; Content Is Advertising
"best commercials"
Or all those viral ad clips on youtube. People know it's an ad from the description but it still 'goes viral' which is pretty much the polar opposite of 'tuning out'.
On the post: And Of Course: RIAA Mouthpieces Defend $1.92 Million Judgment
Re: Re: Did the RIAA Just Sentence This Woman To a Life of Slavery?
Like Solomon Linda?
On the post: And Of Course: RIAA Mouthpieces Defend $1.92 Million Judgment
Re:
On the post: IRS Wants To Tax Your Work-Provided Mobile Phone As A Fringe Benefit?
what annoys me most about the Laffer curve
On the post: Blu-Ray To Allow Users To Make 'Copies' -- With Lots Of Strings Attached
I'll buy blue ray
Just like I held off buying anything remotely DVD related until I knew that the DRM was broken six-ways-to-Sunday and copying most DVDs was trivially easy. (as it happened I went out and bought my first DVD burner about the time Jack Valenti died. It seems a good thing to celebrate. I'm a cold bastard.)
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