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Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

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Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#161

Post by falcor84 »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #155
jimbokun wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What? Car leasing is a massive market, and a large percentage of people and companies are very happy to pay to access cars and trucks without owning the title. Same goes for companies happily building on top of leasehold properties whenever it makes financial sense for them.

And as for IP, with the time limits, patents and copyrights are inherently defined to expire, but are definitely not worthless.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#162

Post by wrsh07 »

echelon wrote: post #157
wrsh07 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Ama…

It feels like you're not responding to my actual point, so let me repeat my first sentence:

> And what alternatives existed for Wolf in the 80s?

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#163

Post by Asmod4n »

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 can't sign away your copyright in germany, you can only hand over the rights of distribution of your work.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#164

Post by falcor84 »

philipallstar wrote: post #70
latexr wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Exploitation" isn't an objective term. It means “the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work”. If you’re having someone reject their rights in a contract because that benefits you, that’s a form of exploitation. You’re making someone worse explicitly so you benefit. > It often just means "I don't like what I signed up for freely". From my first post: > If you can sign them a…

> If you’re swindled, you’re not given them away freely. How do you define "swindle"?

That's what we have courts and juries for. If a jury unanimously agrees that a typical person in a reasonable situation and with full understanding of the conditions would not be willing to sign such a contract because it would strongly go against their interest, then the person who did sign it has likely been swindled.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#165

Post by xhkkffbf »

cholantesh wrote: post #129
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…

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

It's true that the alternatives may not be good, but if so it suggests that maybe publishing is a business that requires certain behavior.

I think the best thing that Doctorow could do is set up his own publishing business and show the big companies the right way to do it. If he's right, he'll get the best new talent and quickly succeed.

But I'm guessing he'll discover what the major companies know: the consumer is fickle, developing a new book/movie/song is expensive, and only a few hits pay for the rest.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#166

Post by chipotle_coyote »

mayoff wrote: post #33

I don’t know if Cory Doctorow has read the “fantastic 1981 novel”, but I have (decades ago) and as I recall the plot of the book and the plot of the movie are very different from each other. The author of the book didn’t write the screenplay and I doubt he had much (if anything) to do the character designs in the movie. So even if he has the rights to his novel back, it’s not at all clear to me that he could just mak…

I read the "fantastic 1981 novel", too, and you know what? It wasn't very good. It had a lot of really interesting world-building and some cool ideas, but the characters were flat and the central mystery was terrible. Despite common wisdom, the book is not always better than the movie.

I mean, given that Disney wasn't doing anything new with Roger Rabbit, I'm glad he got the rights back. But I think part of the reason that very little new material got produced is that the first movie was kind of lightning in a bottle. It's possible other production companies would have had to be involved to get something new done, depending on how the rights were parceled out. (We're all talking about Disney here because that's who Doctorow focused on, but it was a co-production with Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment.) And I think you're right that he's unlikely to have the rights to do a sequel that's too close to the original.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#167

Post by thayne »

> The original US copyright lasted for 14 years, and could be renewed for another 14 years, but only by the creator (not by the publisher).

I wish we would go back to that.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#168

Post by chipotle_coyote »

jajuuka wrote: post #127
mayoff wrote: post #33

I don’t know if Cory Doctorow has read the “fantastic 1981 novel”, but I have (decades ago) and as I recall the plot of the book and the plot of the movie are very different from each other. The author of the book didn’t write the screenplay and I doubt he had much (if anything) to do the character designs in the movie. So even if he has the rights to his novel back, it’s not at all clear to me that he could just mak…

Yeah the Roger Rabbit is a miracle where multiple major studios came together and allowed their IP to be in the same work. Disney, Warner Bros, Fleischer Studios, Harvey Comics, King Features Syndicate, Felix the Cat Productions, Turner Entertainment, and Universal Pictures/Walter Lantz Productions all agreed to share their characters. One of Steven Spielbergs great accomplishments was negotiating this. With how prot…

Roger Rabbit was voiced by Charles Fleischer. (Paul Reubens was under consideration in an earlier version, and you can find his voice tests out on YouTube, which might be what you're remembering.)

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#169

Post by xhkkffbf »

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…

No. You don't need to wait half a lifetime. You only need to wait that long if you sign a contract and sell all of the rights. If you don't want to wait, just insist upon another time period. And it should be noted that the contracts only transfer ownership rights to a piece of property. It's like selling a car or a house. Would you buy a car with a legal backdoor that lets the builder take it back after a few years.

My guess is that you won't find any publishers interested. Why? Because developing a work requires quite an investment and only the hits make any profit. The backlist is what keeps everyone in business.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#170

Post by raldi »

scotty79 wrote: post #150
raldi wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the problem with basic income if you don’t also increase the housing supply: landlords will just raise rents and soak it all up.

Or you could have progressive real estate tax so you don't let the bully keep the stolen lunch money and you can give it to your kid again.

That would be amazing, but places like California prohibit that as well.
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