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HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

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Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#141
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intellectual property protections aren't self-evident or part of nature. They are a human creation that, in theory, exist to encourage innovation and increase prosperity. In almost all cases, intellectual property is based on previous intellectual property. Whenever you create a work of art, or work of intellect, you are using the work of "someone else". The vast majority of stories, for instance, use plot devices an…

Wouldn't that argument undermine all property protection? What if anything of ours is uniquely ours vs somewhat derivative? Tangible property is even more derivative, i.e. inheriting a house. Absolutely no creativity going on in that case, yet it is protected much more strongly than IP.

You're getting closer!

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#142
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't thinks that lack of legal protections for IP is in any way an equivalent to communism. Money would still be on the table, it's just the way they are gained would be somewhat different. IP as a concept isn't even that old and our societies managed to exist, produce works of arts and various services just fine. As for the big tech firms - why wouldn't they exist? Would Google be disrupted if tomorrow all patent…

Well, as someone who may create IP, I would like recourse to the legal system in order to enforce ownership of what I create. I imagine there are many people like me.

Most of the people who ever told a story, sang a song, or drew a picture had no notion of intellectual property or expectation of its legal protection. Yet they told, sang, and drew anyway.

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#143
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies are made out of people, who have an agreement with the rights holders.

Is the implication that the public is the same thing as a narrowly interested group of people? If so, I reject.

No, but anyone in the public could potentially become part of such a group. So, what they disallow for what they consider a special group they are also disallowing for themselves.

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#144
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, as someone who may create IP, I would like recourse to the legal system in order to enforce ownership of what I create. I imagine there are many people like me.

Most of the people who ever told a story, sang a song, or drew a picture had no notion of intellectual property or expectation of its legal protection. Yet they told, sang, and drew anyway.

Did they make multi-million dollar movies?

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#145
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that argument undermine all property protection? What if anything of ours is uniquely ours vs somewhat derivative? Tangible property is even more derivative, i.e. inheriting a house. Absolutely no creativity going on in that case, yet it is protected much more strongly than IP.

You're getting closer!

Exactly. That is why I say such arguments are essentially arguments for communism, and we all know how that turns out.

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#146
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intellectual property protections aren't self-evident or part of nature. They are a human creation that, in theory, exist to encourage innovation and increase prosperity. In almost all cases, intellectual property is based on previous intellectual property. Whenever you create a work of art, or work of intellect, you are using the work of "someone else". The vast majority of stories, for instance, use plot devices an…

Wouldn't that argument undermine all property protection? What if anything of ours is uniquely ours vs somewhat derivative? Tangible property is even more derivative, i.e. inheriting a house. Absolutely no creativity going on in that case, yet it is protected much more strongly than IP.

This argument doesn't undermine property protection in general and is fully compatible with strong physical property rights (which I advocate).

I'm not particularly interested in convincing anyone, just to share a perspective that others might find useful in their own thought process, so here it goes...

The problem of the derivative nature of IP protection is that much of the discussion of IP rights revolves around the full ownership of what's being protected. I say that you can't copy this book, or translate it to Braille because I own it. What I'm arguing is that when someone claims there is a body of thoughts to be protected, they are actually arguing for the protection of a really small percentage of it - because the rest isn't really theirs, it was not transferred to them willingly and is just being freely acquired with no consultation of the original owners of the derivative portion. You wrote this book, but most of it actually came from somewhere else.

So they are then charging for this "delta" which they "added" and trying to negotiate a market price for it. Well, if we were to allow that, we should also allow all derivative work and let the market judge the value of the "delta". For instance, can I now create a "Revengers" group of Superheroes that are just like the Avengers, but with tweaked uniforms? (Hint: NO) Then the public can judge whether my uniforms are better and pay me accordingly.

But then a judge will say that my addition isn't "enough" or "substantial". Very subjective, isn't it? Law is subjective and we built a useful legal system around it, so it's ok to say that these compromises are needed for society to work. But having to compromise to create A system doesn't mean that the compromise is the right one.

There is an illusion that we can clearly identify the origin of all protected original, derivative elements in a work of art, point to their owners and compensate them. And we think that we are actually compensating these people. We are not.

There is a large body of precedent and very subjective opinions about all of this. But strong, long IP protection proponents are claiming higher moral ground on these fairly weak subjective options. So sure, say that it's ILLEGAL to copy stuff, but don't come and say that it's IMMORAL to break such laws as they are written and that breaking these laws equate to communism.

So about tangible property... Let's set aside whether I can create a copy of tangible property (this is IP rights again) and just focus on the ownership itself.

When you buy a lawnmower, there is a very clear, and easy to track chain of ownership of all the components of this lawnmower. The blade was purchased from X, who bought the metal from Y, who paid Z to mine it. The screws, case, box. The property rights of everything in the lawnmower, save the IP, are fully respected due to the clarity of origin of all components that make it. So it's not possible, as I can do with IP, to claim that it's hard to identify the ownership of all parts or that we are applying different standards to the compensation of the owners of these parts.

I think you can see how that affects the inheriting property example. All voluntary, all parts and origins clearly identifiable. When you inherit land/house, someone who fully owns was ok with that (otherwise, at least in the US, they would have written a will to the contrary).

We have a great system to tracing physical property, and its parts, to their owners and compensating them. Same doesn't exist (and CAN'T exist) for IP. Because, duh, IP and physical property aren't the same thing and we should stop trying to put them in the same bag to begin with ("copying a movie is like stealing from the store" as some say)

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#147
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that argument undermine all property protection? What if anything of ours is uniquely ours vs somewhat derivative? Tangible property is even more derivative, i.e. inheriting a house. Absolutely no creativity going on in that case, yet it is protected much more strongly than IP.

This argument doesn't undermine property protection in general and is fully compatible with strong physical property rights (which I advocate). I'm not particularly interested in convincing anyone, just to share a perspective that others might find useful in their own thought process, so here it goes... The problem of the derivative nature of IP protection is that much of the discussion of IP rights revolves around t…

I get that it is hard to say how derivative something is. There are certainly cases where this is hard to say. However, there are also cases where it is quite black and white where much effort was expended to come up with a particular design. What do you say about such cases, especially if it is an individual who doesn't have the resources to roll their own copy protection scheme?

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#148
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the implication that the public is the same thing as a narrowly interested group of people? If so, I reject.

No, but anyone in the public could potentially become part of such a group. So, what they disallow for what they consider a special group they are also disallowing for themselves.

Yes, that is essentially how laws and government work. I give up my own individual rights to extort the public, and in exchange I get the security of knowing I won't be exploited.

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#149
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we're all going to go to the library and start removing (maybe burning??) all the books that are no longer proper?

We're not talking about libraries, but private streaming services like HBO Max and Disney+. They've made their choice.

I'm pretty sure that we're talking more broadly about content that's "not allowed today" (according to some decision made by some people) and there's no reason why that decision wouldn't carry weight beyond a few private streaming services. Libraries distribute not just books, but also movies on disc, e-books, and even streaming content.

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#150
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't they just show trigger warnings Or people could just grow up and realize that you can't judge people who lived a hundred years ago by today's standards. Imagine what ordinary things you do every day that people a hundred years from now will consider a social crime and want you banned or cancelled for.

I reckon part of the reasoning is that they don’t want to make it too easy for these “controversial” bits to percolate to youtube. Of course they are already out there, but you have to know where to look; making them easy to find would empower too many random streamers to recycle it for shock value. It’s the inevitable tension between Warner’s will to forever use this art for outright commercial purposes (i.e. sell T…

They (Warner) actively remove content from Youtube but for some reason no one ever removes anything from Dailymotion.

This is one of the "Censored 11" cartoons:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6q8qen

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