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25 years of video clips gone as Paramount axes Comedy Central wesbite

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Re: 25 years of video clips gone as Paramount axes Comedy Central wesbite

#321

Post by cornholio »

mindslight wrote: post #287
mkl wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public domain does not mean public. The source code could remain a trade secret. More of an obstacle is competition from free past versions - a lot of people would be happy with a 10 year old version of Photoshop or MS Office. That's why I think it should be extendable to 20 years with a hefty fee (but not further, or only with a much heftier fee).

If you do not publish source code, your binaries should be ineligible for copyright protection. There is very little creative work in the binaries themselves. Keeping your actual creative work hidden (especially from things like eventually being part of the public domain) but yet still expecting to receive the privilege of copyright is inequitable. Same thing with only publishing under digital restrictions management…

That's impossible for a great number of reasons, at the very least the fact that the distinction between the source and the binary is irrelevant for copyright and impossible to define in the general case.

The GPL defines the source as the preferable working format to make changes and updates to the program, but you can see how that definition blows up in your face when there is no published source to begin with. "Your honor, that 50MB binary file that has a signature of a GCC compiled program IS the preferred working format for our company; indeed, it was created from temporary text files, but they were deleted as they were deemed unnecessary for a technically advanced company such ourselves. All further updates will be made in assembly language via binary patching, for maximum efficiency".

Re: 25 years of video clips gone as Paramount axes Comedy Central wesbite

#322

Post by tiltowait »

bandrami wrote: post #229
rendaw wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I do think there's something like a "right to ideas". Like you can't tell someone to just forget about something, things people experience become a part of them and I think it's reasonable to expect they should be able to share that with others. I mean, after life + 70 years you already are entitled to other people's work. And a purpose of patents was to get people to r…

Remember that guy who had made a giant website with the word counts of a whole ton of books and authors lost their collective minds over it? I think a lot of writers sincerely believe he needed their "permission" to count the words in their books.

Which incident was this?

Re: 25 years of video clips gone as Paramount axes Comedy Central wesbite

#323

Post by deanishe »

varunnrao wrote: post #104

What I find really interesting is that all these studios who ran TV channels for so many years fumbled the bag when it came to streaming.. It's like all these people who basically were in content distribution didn't really wise up to the next, new thing in their business even as it happened in front of their eyes. It's pretty wild that Paramount+/Disney+/Peacock or whatever really struggle to get going, especially gi…

> It's like all these people who basically were in content distribution didn't really wise up to the next, new thing in their business even as it happened in front of their eyes.

I think you ought to give them a bit more credit than that.

I think the problem is that launching a streaming service is basically going into competition with their cable partners. It wasn't worth jeopardising their cable revenue at that time.

Re: 25 years of video clips gone as Paramount axes Comedy Central wesbite

#324

Post by whoknowsidont »

robertlagrant wrote: post #289
bdavisx wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should that be the goal of the economy?

I wasn't say it's the goal of the economy. I was refuting this: > The system is orchestrated to existing money-people making money simply for having it in the first place.

It's not even a refutation though.

Re: 25 years of video clips gone as Paramount axes Comedy Central wesbite

#325

Post by rolandog »

sytelus wrote: post #138
varunnrao wrote: post #104

What I find really interesting is that all these studios who ran TV channels for so many years fumbled the bag when it came to streaming.. It's like all these people who basically were in content distribution didn't really wise up to the next, new thing in their business even as it happened in front of their eyes. It's pretty wild that Paramount+/Disney+/Peacock or whatever really struggle to get going, especially gi…

These studios used to make ton of money because only a few are in town. Now, every teenager is his/her own studio and content pool is so vast that their revues must shrink. They have nowhere to run. I think their end state is to publish on YouTube/Netflix and continue living at fraction of revenue that they are used to. That's what they should prepare for and plan for. Their existence and importance was supported by…

> But instead they live in fantasy of becoming next Netflix and burn in billions of dollars in debt.

Hell, even ~15+ years ago I knew not to fall for cargo-culting arguments of "come work for us; when we're as valuable as Facebook the stock we'll pay you with will make you a billionaire". Yeah, ... sorry, not moving to Silicon Valley and try to haggle for coffee with imaginary invaluable stocks.

So, I can't believe that ... for all their money's worth, these companies can only come up with "when we have as much users as Netflix, we'll be billionaires".

Re: 25 years of video clips gone as Paramount axes Comedy Central wesbite

#326

Post by mindslight »

cornholio wrote: post #321
mindslight wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do not publish source code, your binaries should be ineligible for copyright protection. There is very little creative work in the binaries themselves. Keeping your actual creative work hidden (especially from things like eventually being part of the public domain) but yet still expecting to receive the privilege of copyright is inequitable. Same thing with only publishing under digital restrictions management…

That's impossible for a great number of reasons, at the very least the fact that the distinction between the source and the binary is irrelevant for copyright and impossible to define in the general case. The GPL defines the source as the preferable working format to make changes and updates to the program, but you can see how that definition blows up in your face when there is no published source to begin with. "You…

The distinction is that the binary is a derivative work with no added creativity. I'm not saying this is how things are today, but rather I'm saying this is how things should be. In order to qualify for copyright protection, one should have to put the created work in escrow so it can actually enter the public domain when the copyright expires. If one wishes to control access to their work with other mechanisms that prevent fulfillment of even the very lopsided bargain that was struck with copyright, then one shouldn't get the privilege of copyright.

Also if the best of your "great number of reasons" is fallacious legal reasoning of the type software engineers tend to be drawn to, then I don't think that's much of an argument.

Re: 25 years of video clips gone as Paramount axes Comedy Central wesbite

#327

Post by mindslight »

kube-system wrote: post #310
mindslight wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do not publish source code, your binaries should be ineligible for copyright protection. There is very little creative work in the binaries themselves. Keeping your actual creative work hidden (especially from things like eventually being part of the public domain) but yet still expecting to receive the privilege of copyright is inequitable. Same thing with only publishing under digital restrictions management…

Then those who wish profit without sharing will just offer SaaS instead of binaries. Exactly as they do with a significant amount of copyleft-licensed software today. Pulling back copyright doesn't necessarily force people to share -- people can also keep secrets. A primary purpose of IP law is to encourage sharing.

The point is that if it is not actually working to encourage sharing, as is the case with DRM, compilation, or SaaS, then there is no longer a justification.

Re: 25 years of video clips gone as Paramount axes Comedy Central wesbite

#328

Post by kube-system »

mindslight wrote: post #327
kube-system wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then those who wish profit without sharing will just offer SaaS instead of binaries. Exactly as they do with a significant amount of copyleft-licensed software today. Pulling back copyright doesn't necessarily force people to share -- people can also keep secrets. A primary purpose of IP law is to encourage sharing.

The point is that if it is not actually working to encourage sharing, as is the case with DRM, compilation, or SaaS, then there is no longer a justification.

Is it not? The amount of media created and circulated every day today is far greater than at any time in the past.

Re: 25 years of video clips gone as Paramount axes Comedy Central wesbite

#329

Post by mindslight »

kube-system wrote: post #328
mindslight wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that if it is not actually working to encourage sharing, as is the case with DRM, compilation, or SaaS, then there is no longer a justification.

Is it not? The amount of media created and circulated every day today is far greater than at any time in the past.

Sure, but the media that will never enter the public domain is not being "shared" ?

Re: 25 years of video clips gone as Paramount axes Comedy Central wesbite

#330

Post by eru »

nasmorn wrote: post #263
eru wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the copyright system were changed so that rightsholders were guaranteed to get paid, [...] How much would they get paid? What if they wanted to hold out for more? Would every piece of copyrighted material be paid the same? Or would you normalise it per sentence or per letter? Or per frame in a movie?

There is some system like this for music in Austria. I may record a new version of your song but it entitles you to a writers credit and some guaranteed amount of all revenue.

> [...] some guaranteed amount of all revenue.

Is that a proportion of revenue, or an absolute amount? For the former, what if I give away the music for free?

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