Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

pluralistic.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 260 posts

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#151

Post by scotty79 »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #79
latexr wrote: post #50

> "Termination of Transfer" was introduced via the 1976 Copyright Act. It allows creators to unilaterally cancel the copyright licenses they have signed over to others, by waiting 35 years and then filing some paperwork with the US Copyright Office. You have to wait half a lifetime?! Talk about a performative (pun unintended) law. > when Congress gives creators new copyrights to bargain with, the Big Five (or Four, o…

> should never be possible for someone to sign away their rights. If you can sign them away, you can be swindled of them. So, if I sell you my house or car I can't sign away my rights on it? - Sure, there is a difference between material and intellectual property ... Against swindling there needs to be protection from fraud, but that exists in most legislative systems.

"you wouldn't steal a car" again?

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#152

Post by redwall_hp »

brainwad wrote: post #89
danaris wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of money for any given copyrighted work comes within the first few years of its existence. (This is extra true for things like video games.) Furthermore, current copyright terms are decades past the death of the creator . You seem to be thinking of copyright purely in terms of vast media conglomerates, but it affects literally every work created by every human in the country. That includes these HN…

I am generally anti-copyright; but it's not really a pro-creator policy to curtail copyright; it's pro-consumer. > If everything older than, say, 35 years were suddenly in the public domain, available to be distributed by any of the distribution companies, and Hypothetical Media Corp had half the back catalogue that they used to, then surely that would make big conglomerates less interested in buying up Hypothetical…

It's pro-creator as well. Creators are artificially restricted from drawing upon the commons to create new things due to copyright.

In the 1800s, musicians would freely write new lyrics to existing tunes, which is why folk music has various songs that share the same music. (There is the satire loophole, but that's creatively limiting.)

In the 1980s, musicians would record short slices of chords from records (or breakbeats) onto sampling devices and make new music from them, giving rise to an incredible number of musical genres.

Copyright came for all of them and created a new status quo where exercising that sort of creativity is legally cumbersome.

And now the paperclip maximizers are trying to chip away at fundamental music theory, with lawsuits over chord progressions (of which there are very finite possibilities) and other attempts to grab slices of other pies. (See: the recent suits against Dua Lipa, Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran.)

We wouldn't have Wicked, one of the most beloved twenty-first century musicals and now a high-grossing film, if Oz were still legally encumbered.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#153

Post by TitaRusell »

skybrian wrote: post #121
neves wrote: post #101

The phrase below is worth the read: > giving creative workers more rights without addressing their market power is like giving your bullied kid more lunch money. There isn't an amount of lunch money you can give that kid that will buy them lunch – you're just enriching the bullies

Misleading phrases like this are why I dislike Doctorow. Just before that he tries to sell us on the idea that there are no alternatives when actually there are. For example, you don’t have to publish a book through the Big Five. There are many large and small independent publishers, and some authors have had good luck with self-publishing. I do think copyright law needs reform, but don’t trust Doctorow to explain it…

Artists can put their big boy pants on and negotiate better deals instead of crying about them retroactively.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#154

Post by pbhjpbhj »

oniony wrote: post #82
7bit wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why it's called copyright. You can perfectly sign it away. In Germany the right is called "Urheberrecht" which literally translates to "author's right". And while you can license your work and sign away the usage, you cannot by definition sign away the fact that you are the author of a work.

So how does ghostwriting work then? Lots of books have unaccredited ghostwriters.

The author never had the rights, as they worked under contract, so they don't need to sign them away.

But we also the right to be named as author is not a requirement to be named as author.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#155

Post by CamperBob2 »

jimbokun wrote: post #142
johannes1234321 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> should never be possible for someone to sign away their rights. If you can sign them away, you can be swindled of them. So, if I sell you my house or car I can't sign away my rights on it? - Sure, there is a difference between material and intellectual property ... Against swindling there needs to be protection from fraud, but that exists in most legislative systems.

You answer your own question. Yes, intellectual property rights should be different than physical property rights.

No, they're not different. If I can't sign away the title to my car, it's literally worthless. Exactly the same is true of my IP rights.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#156

Post by falcor84 »

raldi wrote: post #149
benmanns wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does, however, make providing housing more profitable, which, on the margins, will drive more landlords and home builders into the market, decreasing long term costs (relative to a straight 100% increase relative to the basic income). So you might send everyone $100 per month and costs go up $100 per month, until supply chains shift towards supplying lower income humans with more goods and services than they used…

Not if desirable places restrict zoning in a way that prevents more housing from being legal to build.

A major factor in what makes places more desirable is access to jobs. In the case of full UBI, it will be easier to: stay unemployed, negotiate a remote work contract or launch a new venture from anywhere, so I expect that we'll see people spread out a lot more.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#157

Post by echelon »

wrsh07 wrote: post #137
skybrian wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Misleading phrases like this are why I dislike Doctorow. Just before that he tries to sell us on the idea that there are no alternatives when actually there are. For example, you don’t have to publish a book through the Big Five. There are many large and small independent publishers, and some authors have had good luck with self-publishing. I do think copyright law needs reform, but don’t trust Doctorow to explain it…

And what alternatives existed for Wolf in the 80s? What value were publishers providing? Like many industries, book publishers integrated: editing, production, marketing, and distribution. They may have also helped with licensing. Would _Who Censored Roger Rabbit_ have been the success it was with a different publisher? These counterfactuals are hard to prove! (Look at the discussions this year around k pop demon hun…

You don't need to tie yourself to distributor control if you catch fire and maintain your rights. It's never been easier to build your audience and personal brand.

VivziePop with Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss was able to do this on YouTube and then ink deals with Amazon and merch retailers (where the real money is). Her shows alone rake in over $100m and the merch significantly more.

Glitch with Murder Drones and Amazing Digital Circus did the same. And they've stolen a lot of high profile folks from Disney for Knights of Guinevere and upcoming shows.

Psychic Pebbles did it and how has an Adult Swim show. Joel Haver, lots of others...

This is basically what George Lucas was able to engineer with his 20th Century Fox deal to maintain merch rights. But it's even better for creators today.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#158

Post by Taek »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #138
cholantesh wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it misleading? The fact that alternatives exist doesn't mean that they're any good .

There are plenty of fine, even higher quality and credibility, publishers out there. In fact even a mediocre university press likely has higher standards, in just about every conceivable quality aspect, than even the best imprints of the big 5.

Yes but do the books make more money and get more distribution? Quality is not the critical factor here

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#159

Post by NetMageSCW »

protocolture wrote: post #43
axiolite wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the point of buying something if the other person is allowed to steal it back. If you can't make a profit off of a licensed property after 35 years of exclusive control, you've done something horribly wrong. If you sit on a licensed property and do nothing with it for decades, it should be allowed to revert to someone else, or better yet go into public domain.

3 months is too long. 35 years is crazy.

Why would anyone invest millions in something that they can’t make money with after three months?

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#160

Post by triceratops »

raldi wrote: post #149
benmanns wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does, however, make providing housing more profitable, which, on the margins, will drive more landlords and home builders into the market, decreasing long term costs (relative to a straight 100% increase relative to the basic income). So you might send everyone $100 per month and costs go up $100 per month, until supply chains shift towards supplying lower income humans with more goods and services than they used…

Not if desirable places restrict zoning in a way that prevents more housing from being legal to build.

No need to stay in a "desirable place" (read: place with jobs) if you have UBI.
Post reply on HN