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The Big [Censored] Theory

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Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#511

Post by Ajedi32 »

IX-103 wrote: post #436
Ajedi32 wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taken to it's logical extreme though, such a service could easily render copyright effectively useless. Break the movie into 10 second clips, "rent out" each of those clips during the 10 seconds they're being viewed and automatically return them after. There, you can now "legally" stream 720 concurrent copies of a 2 hour movie at once in perpetuity for near zero marginal cost. The only reason rentals worked was becau…

Sorry. Each 10 second clip is a derivative work of the whole. So you can't sub-license portions of the work without permission. Just like you can't lend out individual chapters of a book....

> you can't lend out individual chapters of a book

You can't? If I buy a physical book, I can't rip a page out of it and sell that to you? That's certainly the first I've heard of any such law.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#512

Post by vlunkr »

coryfklein wrote: post #277
wrs wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a home version of this called ClearPlay that auto-redacts movies and TV. It actually started with DVD players (!) but now does streaming. Ref: https://amazon.clearplay.com/

My Mormon neighbors tend to use VidAngel, which got in huge trouble with an absolutely hilarious payment model. 1. VidAngel purchases a bunch of Blu-ray discs and stores them in a warehouse 2. Tag all the content of a film and create filters so the user can, for example, filter out all sex and violence but leave in vulgarity 3. User "purchases" a Blu-ray for $20 (!!) and VidAngel says, "since we now know you're the o…

Vidangel is a pretty absurd company. I read recently that they are still around and trying to come up with their next strategy.

It does raise an interesting question for me though: is Hollywood losing out on profits by not offering censored versions of their content? Clearly there’s some demand. People like to make arguments about artistic integrity, but they have no problem censoring content to air on network tv.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#513

Post by zajio1am »

ThePadawan wrote: post #95
inglor_cz wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The political left is supposed to be very sex-positive" That is not my impression at all. See all the attempts to formalize consent in a way that does not really square with human sexuality. Consent apps ? Wtf. Not to mention all the attempts to criminalize buying of sex, which is basically an ultraconservative position multiplied by -1.

> Not to mention all the attempts to criminalize buying of sex, which is basically an ultraconservative position multiplied by -1. What country/party has this position? As a naive European, that sounds like you might be talking about the left in the USA that is still far to the right of the European idea of "left". (Posting from Switzerland, where not only is sex work legal, it's regulated and taxed)

> What country/party has this position?

Northern Europe. In Iceland even porn is illegal.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#514

Post by Ajedi32 »

lozenge wrote: post #445
Ajedi32 wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taken to it's logical extreme though, such a service could easily render copyright effectively useless. Break the movie into 10 second clips, "rent out" each of those clips during the 10 seconds they're being viewed and automatically return them after. There, you can now "legally" stream 720 concurrent copies of a 2 hour movie at once in perpetuity for near zero marginal cost. The only reason rentals worked was becau…

A 10 second clip of a movie that is designed to be stitched with 710 other 10 second clips isn't fair use, it's just copyright infringement. "In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:[8] the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; the nature of t…

We're talking about first sale doctrine here, not fair use. If I did the exact same thing with a VHS tape, cutting out 10 second strips of tape and renting them out to people, that'd be totally legal under first sale doctrine. Doing that with VHS would be totally impractical but legal. Doing it with a digital file would be totally practical but illegal, since currently first sale doctrine doesn't apply to digital distribution of copyrighted materials.

My point is just that if you think it's a good idea to extend first sale doctrine to digital files without any restrictions you may first want to consider the logical consequences of that.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#515

Post by thrown_22 »

shusaku wrote: post #467
neither_color wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's interesting is in the US that kind of censorship is attributed to the most mainstream religion but China is officially atheist and does the same. Whenever people tell me that it's only one religion standing in the way of equal rights for disadvantaged groups I remind them that there's an atheist superpower that's even less permissive except for on reproductive issues(although, in their case they do regulate it…

A lot of people in the west (especially the US) are raised with the Sunday school idea that religion is something you choose after an objective weighing of ideas. The reality is that both China and the US have engrained cultural values which lead to these regulations. Those cultural values sometimes manifest as religious practice, but there is no hard distinction.

The current discussion around 'harm' from AI generated images is the most hilarious example of a cultural more trying to find a justification for its existence after it is no longer applicable.

Will no one think of the pixels being exploited?

The older I get the more I realize that culture is what keeps us back. The Romans didn't invent steam engines not because they didn't want them but because they couldn't imagine a world where you wouldn't need slaves. The Catholic Church didn't survive the printing press.

Currently there is no society which is friendly to digital information. The first one which is will overtake everyone else in the same way that industrialization let the west overtake everyone else.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#516

Post by nkurz »

mbreese wrote: post #466
MichaelCollins wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving aside the matter of Mormons and their weird puritan sensibilities, what this company essentially did was reinvent movie rental, but because they did it on the internet instead of a brick and mortar shop we're all expected to think it obvious and self evidence that what they did was horrible. In other contexts on sites like this, "do [common thing] but on a computer" patents get mocked and derided because "but…

This reminds me of how Aereo worked. They effectively built small little antennas that they could put in a data center. You’d then rent the antenna and stream data to your home instead of using your own antenna. This was found (Supreme Court) to be unauthorized as it was a “public performance”. This DVD streaming service would likely have fallen under the same category. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aereo

While Aereo is certainly relevant, the 2011 "Warner Bros. Entertainment v. WTV Systems" is even more similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros._Entertainment_Inc....

WTV ran service called "Zediva" that streamed video from physical DVD players to customers. The District Court of Central California (the same court that ruled against VidAngel) decided that this violated the performance rights of the copyright holders.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#517

Post by Nursie »

drfuchs wrote: post #222
jrochkind1 wrote: post #6

> This added up to over one hour of deleted scenes, or nearly three full episodes of purely censored content I would like to watch the edit of only deleted scenes strung together.

In the charming 1988 Best Foreign Film "Cinema Paradiso," set in a small pre-war Italian town, the projectionist has to preview every imported American film for the local priest, who sits and rings a bell at each scene containing a kiss so they can be spliced out before the paying audience arrives. Spoiler: In the heartwarming ending, the young boy who had befriended him comes back to town after the death of the proj…

I remember some years ago reading a reply, from a film critic to a newspaper reader, about a letter he had received from her. He had reviewed Cinema Paradiso in glowing terms, and was then surprised to receive a letter that was incandescent with rage.

The cinemagoer was disgusted by what she had seen, and didn't understand how such an epic display of toilet humour, slapstick violence and general crude behaviour had attracted any sort of positive response, let alone the recommendations he had given.

The critic pointed out that it sounded like she had probably been to see "Guest House Paradiso", a very different movie...

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#518

Post by IX-103 »

lettergram wrote: post #428
andruby wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We (the HN crowd, often living in less-censored societies) would be very curious. I’d like to know how curious this would make non-HN people, and those living in more censored places. My assumption is that they take it for granted and just continue to watch the show. It might be hard for them to even find the uncensored clips.

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Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#519

Post by MontyCarloHall »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #511
IX-103 wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry. Each 10 second clip is a derivative work of the whole. So you can't sub-license portions of the work without permission. Just like you can't lend out individual chapters of a book....

> you can't lend out individual chapters of a book You can't? If I buy a physical book, I can't rip a page out of it and sell that to you? That's certainly the first I've heard of any such law.

You can certainly rip a page out and sell it, by doctrine of first sale. Only one person can have the page at a time.

What you can’t (legally) do is copy a page of your book and sell it/give it away (though maybe one could argue that a mere page would be a small enough excerpt to fall under fair use).

VidAngel (and the hypothetical 10 second streamer) fall under the latter, since streaming inherently makes a copy. As you pointed out elsewhere in the thread, it would be perfectly legal (but completely impractical) to cut up a VHS tape into individual scenes and resell those pieces of tape, since no copy was made.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#520

Post by kasey_junk »

handsclean wrote: post #506
kasey_junk wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peep Show was not edited due to laws, it was a private streaming service that made that decision. At the same time a rival streaming service was showing the unedited version. I think there is an important conversation to be had about censorship by large corporations but equating them to widespread, governmental censorship is not helpful.

On the contrary, censorship is effective even if it only makes something less common. No censorship is absolute: Chinese people absolutely know homosexuality exists, what its censorship accomplishes is keeping it the province of the “weirdos”. Towards the same end, the USG regularly uses financial incentives to make one side of an issue 100x more prevalent than the other. It’s actually a more insidious form of censor…

In the OPs example 1 provider censored and another didn’t. It made global news. It wasn’t subtle. Therefore it wasn’t insidious and was clearly not equivalent to systematic governmental intervention.

Again, I’d be happy to discuss how western governments use soft power and financial incentives to accomplish their censorship goals. It’s an important topic. But I’m not going to do it from the basis that it’s equivalent to governmental action at the barrel of the gun.

I also won’t accept a boxing match where you can kick and eye gouge and I’ve got a hand tied up. If you think either of those things is equivalent, great, it’s your right in the west. It’s not in the regimes you are tacitly defending and I won’t explicitly condone it by engaging.

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