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Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

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Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#61

Post by giorgioz »

I did an exam in European and International Copyright Law in college even though I studied Computer Science. Based on my knowledge this whole story about forgetting the copyright logo and entering the publich domain sounds like a myth/fictional.

Copyright of movies covers the video frames but it does not cover the concept of the story. The only part that could be protected are maybe fictional names of characters, cities and maybe special breeds. But the movie does not even mention the word zombie. So anyone would have been able to use the word zombie freely. The general concept of someone dead coming back alive is not protected by copyright simply because general concepts are not protected.

Even if somehow the movie was called ZOMBIE and they copyrighted and patent it, others would have been able to do movies/comics/books WITHOUT using the word zombie.

In the Walking Dead, zombies are called walkers so they would have got around the zombie patent by calling zombies something else.

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#62

Post by diffeomorphism »

thereisnospork wrote: post #36
jan888 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thirty years? Why have copyright at all? I've yet to hear a good argument that doesn't boil down to "because my business model deserves to be profitable." Intellectual property isn't a scarce resource. I look forward to the day we all exploit that. We'll find new business models, ones that take advantage of being able to build on all proir human knowledge, and we'll all be more productive because of it.

>"because my business model deserves to be profitable" Why have authors? Or poets? Or scientists? Or SWEs? we don't work for free. Or would you prefer to drive the aforementioned out of business.

Why do you think copyright is necessary for that? The entirety of federally funded research in the US shows just how wrong that idea is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_t...

It all by law is public domain, i.e. copyright free (+legalese).

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#63

Post by giorgioz »

giorgioz wrote: post #61

I did an exam in European and International Copyright Law in college even though I studied Computer Science. Based on my knowledge this whole story about forgetting the copyright logo and entering the publich domain sounds like a myth/fictional. Copyright of movies covers the video frames but it does not cover the concept of the story. The only part that could be protected are maybe fictional names of characters, cit…

Also Shawn of the dead is a parody and copyright has a special section to allow parody/satire of other works if it's clear they are not the original work but are a parody of it.

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#64

Post by diffeomorphism »

masonic wrote: post #45
Polylactic_acid wrote: post #5

imo copyright should last 30 years from creation. Thats plenty of time to make a profit and it also allows things to fall in to public domain while they are still culturally relevant. Currently anything made within your lifetime will not be public until well after you have died which is a shame. It would be great if all of the past content which is now slipping in to irrelevancy could be revived by the public domain.

So, Star Wars (A New Hope) should have gone public domain 12 years ago?

Obviously yes? The social contract is "we are willing to give you a time-limited monopoly, so that you get compensated for the work you did".

Are you seriously arguing that star wars was financially unsuccessful and needs many more decades to break even?

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#65

Post by giorgioz »

giorgioz wrote: post #63
giorgioz wrote: post #61

I did an exam in European and International Copyright Law in college even though I studied Computer Science. Based on my knowledge this whole story about forgetting the copyright logo and entering the publich domain sounds like a myth/fictional. Copyright of movies covers the video frames but it does not cover the concept of the story. The only part that could be protected are maybe fictional names of characters, cit…

Also Shawn of the dead is a parody and copyright has a special section to allow parody/satire of other works if it's clear they are not the original work but are a parody of it.

To sum up I think more than a failure on copyright notice it was a failure in BRANDING. Branding requires special names. Terminator can be easily protected but if the movie was called Rising of the robots it would have not been possible to protect it. BRANDING is an important way to create a moat of defence around the product. Others can copy the product but not the branding

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#66

Post by ZoomZoomZoom »

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #28
Gustomaximus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am ok with copywriter being lifetime plus. Often a creator doesn't see benifits of their material til many decades after creation. And they created this so during their life it seems fair they can use. Patents on the other hand I feel should be dropping in time scale. Technology is advancing more rapidly yet we extend protection no reduce it to match generally faster cycles of development. Shortening patents to 20…

>Often a creator doesn't see benifits of their material til many decades after Is this the common case? It would seem logical that most content makes the most amount of money soon after it comes out. I think for many kinds of content, the first week makes about as much as the rest of the lifetime of sales. And even in the rare case where some content becomes rediscovered after the 30 years, the creator simply needs t…

>Is this the common case?

Absolutely! For artists, the price of their paintings is a function of their popularity, which more often than not comes later in life. When and if it strikes it doesn't matter, on what stage of life the exact painting was created, they all become more expensive.

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#67

Post by dpwm »

giorgioz wrote: post #65
giorgioz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Shawn of the dead is a parody and copyright has a special section to allow parody/satire of other works if it's clear they are not the original work but are a parody of it.

To sum up I think more than a failure on copyright notice it was a failure in BRANDING. Branding requires special names. Terminator can be easily protected but if the movie was called Rising of the robots it would have not been possible to protect it. BRANDING is an important way to create a moat of defence around the product. Others can copy the product but not the branding

I'm not even sure that Terminator can be so easily protected. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminators_(film)

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#68

Post by anticensor »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #23
Polylactic_acid wrote: post #5

imo copyright should last 30 years from creation. Thats plenty of time to make a profit and it also allows things to fall in to public domain while they are still culturally relevant. Currently anything made within your lifetime will not be public until well after you have died which is a shame. It would be great if all of the past content which is now slipping in to irrelevancy could be revived by the public domain.

I am ok with copywriter being lifetime plus. Often a creator doesn't see benifits of their material til many decades after creation. And they created this so during their life it seems fair they can use. Patents on the other hand I feel should be dropping in time scale. Technology is advancing more rapidly yet we extend protection no reduce it to match generally faster cycles of development. Shortening patents to 20…

> Shortening patents to 20 years type thing

It already is.

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#69

Post by thereisnospork »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #62
thereisnospork wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"because my business model deserves to be profitable" Why have authors? Or poets? Or scientists? Or SWEs? we don't work for free. Or would you prefer to drive the aforementioned out of business.

Why do you think copyright is necessary for that? The entirety of federally funded research in the US shows just how wrong that idea is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_t... It all by law is public domain, i.e. copyright free (+legalese).

How much federally funded research becomes a product you (or anyone can use) that isn't protected by some intellectual property? Hint: its not a lot. Because people don't work for free, chemicals don't buy themselves, research and development needs to be paid off. If you want to upend capitalism and the market economy, fine, but figure out a sensible way to do that before trying to break the current system by removing the mechanism the creators and inventors and commercializers of new and novel things are able to do that.

I am talking about IP-protections more generally than 'copywrite' alone per parent's discussion. Moving copywrite more in line with patents would be a sensible change.

Re: Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

#70

Post by kelnos »

bsder wrote: post #22
DrPhish wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its fair that renewals would be allowed beyond that, but that the cost of doing so should increase on an exponential scale. That way the value of keeping a thing copyrighted would eventually be eclipsed by its value as a public property, fulfilling the social contract of limited protection in exchange for eventual public ownership.

Original author should probably get one free renewal that should cover most of his lifetime. After that, renewals should occur every 5 years and get expensive . The goal is to encourage those who can create to do so--not create a rental property in perpetuity for corporations or estates.

> Original author should probably get one free renewal that should cover most of his lifetime.

I don't really get this. If someone spends 6 months, or even a year or two, writing a book, why should they be entitled to profits from the sale of that book for the rest of their lives? That seems a little excessive to me.

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