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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

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

Again, how do you prove my binary that I put in your copyright escrow facility is a derivative work and not a handcrafted assembly program? Sorry, but you are just uttering nonsense.

Do you think the idea of binary analysis does not exist? Or that courts don't have a long history of deciding questions of judgement? The problem is also fundamentally quite similar to proving that a published binary is/isn't a derivative work of someone else's work.

Also handcrafted assembly isn't sufficient for your argument, but rather one would have to directly write a binary with a hex editor. Show me any binary larger than say 1 MB that was written with a hex editor. So really the burden of proof would be on anyone claiming that a large binary is direct creation.

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

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" ?

Hopefully it does enter the public domain, and I'd be happy if that happened much sooner than it does today. But public domain rights are certainly not needed for people to enjoy the arts. Basically all popular media is enjoyed without the right of people to republish them. Ask anyone to list famous American media, and they will mostly list copyrighted works.

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

#343
post #339
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is a great idea, it's generally illegal for IA to share that content. And it's looking increasingly unlikely IA will be in existence 90 years from now, so it's unclear there'd be a point in them simply archiving it. If copyright were 14 years, if give IA a lot more of a chance of still being around then. And apparently the videos are no longer available to download, so it's not an option, anyway. Barring s…

Aren't there some "data hoarder" fans who have them downloaded just in case, and could upload to IA or even torrent?

One can hope. I hoard my own interests (this wasn't one of them) but don't distribute it. Good luck seeing any of it ever. A lot of it would be out of copyright with a 24-year term.

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

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because they published it; they were free not to do so if they didn't want anybody to reproduce or distribute it Copyright protects works at the moment they are created, not when they are reproduced or distributed. Most of the works under copyright protection have never been distributed.

True, but not publishing also lets you keep them as trade secrets.

Not really, copyright and trade secrets have different subject matter. There are many things could qualify as trade secrets but not creative works (e.g. a recipe), and many things that qualify as creative works but not trade secrets (e.g. a song).

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

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Hopefully it does enter the public domain, and I'd be happy if that happened much sooner than it does today. But public domain rights are certainly not needed for people to enjoy the arts. Basically all popular media is enjoyed without the right of people to republish them. Ask anyone to list famous American media, and they will mostly list copyrighted works.

Sure. I think our disconnect is that I don't think it's appropriate to use the word "share" to describe this. Exchanging something for money is not "sharing", it's business. So when you said "the primary purpose of [imaginary property] law is to encourage sharing", I took that to be referencing when a work enters the public domain after the exclusive copyright term.

And my overall point is that a work that has been compiled/DRMed/etc will never enter (be shared with) the public domain even after the copyright term expires - rather it will still remain subject to the technical protections. And so I don't think it's at all appropriate to use the word "sharing" to describe such works.

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

#346

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…

Just like the legacy airlines before route deregulation

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

#347
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday was MTV News deleting their archive, right? But on your points: brace yourselves for AI-generated content, with increasing technical quality and probably also increasing entertainment quality. That will be The Flood and might wipe out the small human creators by their lack of discoverability, and replace the studios output because hey AI is cheaper than employing real humans. So what do we do then??? Also n…

> Yesterday was MTV News deleting their archive, right? Guess who owns MTV and Comedy Central.

[deleted]

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

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Netflix paid for the rights to everything and gave access to everybody for a reasonable monthly fee. Then the studios got greedy and thought "why should we let a middleman take a slice of our profits?" To be fair to the studios, sticking with Netflix would have been suicide. Put yourself at the mercy of someone else's distribution monopoly and you end up a powerless, penniless sharecropper - like people who develop…

A good strategy might have been to pool their resources and create a new global channel that they all part-owned and distribute their content there. Like a big new Global TV Channel.

This system is not stable though. Every participant would think "why should I be content with X/N divided revenue if my content is so hot that if I pull out I would get much better revenue because everybody watches my content anyway?" Of course, they miss the point that everybody watches their content as part of the "one subscription" deal but it would be much different when it "50 subscriptions, all alike" deal - but everybody thinks they would be the ones that everybody would subscribe to, and the others would be the ones who will be left out.

Also, such channel would likely attract attention of the regulators as a clear example of a cartel.

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

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully it does enter the public domain, and I'd be happy if that happened much sooner than it does today. But public domain rights are certainly not needed for people to enjoy the arts. Basically all popular media is enjoyed without the right of people to republish them. Ask anyone to list famous American media, and they will mostly list copyrighted works.

Sure. I think our disconnect is that I don't think it's appropriate to use the word "share" to describe this. Exchanging something for money is not "sharing", it's business. So when you said " the primary purpose of [imaginary property] law is to encourage sharing ", I took that to be referencing when a work enters the public domain after the exclusive copyright term. And my overall point is that a work that has been…

The type of "sharing" that copyright was intended to facilitate is "make it part of the corpus of cultural works enjoyed by the people" in contrast to "art is something that rich people commission and then hoard in a palace". You can disagree with my choice of word if you want, it's orthogonal to the point I was making above -- people can access more media today than ever, art and culture is flourishing. Copyright (in general) is observably fulfilling the purpose it was intended to serve. Kings do not sit in their palace and listen to Taylor Swift and watch Marvel movies, the people do.

> compiled/DRMed/etc will never enter (be shared with) the public domain even after the copyright term expires - rather it will still remain subject to the technical protections.

You could argue da Vinci did the same with his underdrawings. And many other artists have similarly not shared their sources. You're making more of an argument about a right of collaboration, which is not only a completely different argument, it is the opposite of what copyright attempts to do, which is to give rights to the original artist.

If you're making the suggestion that artists should be compelled to share sources, I disagree and think that is extremely shortsighted. Sharing should be done voluntarily by the artist, and if they don't want to share their sources and methods, they shouldn't be required to. In absence of that right, chilling effects on artistic freedom are an obvious outcome. I love FOSS licensing, but those types of arrangements should be voluntarily chosen by authors, not compelled by the force of law.

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

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, how do you prove my binary that I put in your copyright escrow facility is a derivative work and not a handcrafted assembly program? Sorry, but you are just uttering nonsense.

Do you think the idea of binary analysis does not exist? Or that courts don't have a long history of deciding questions of judgement? The problem is also fundamentally quite similar to proving that a published binary is/isn't a derivative work of someone else's work. Also handcrafted assembly isn't sufficient for your argument, but rather one would have to directly write a binary with a hex editor. Show me any binary…

> the burden of proof would be on anyone claiming that a large binary is direct creation

That's not how any of this works. Once I've submitted my binary to the escrow, then it's an original work worthy of copyright until challenged. If someone breaks my copyright, I simply assert my originality and get an injunction against it by default. If the adversary claims my work is a derivative, then the legal burden is on them to prove it - because they are the ones rising it as defense against infringement. So I've already quashed 90% of adversaries by this point just by legal intimidation.

Also, you are attacking a strawman version of this problem. In practice, what will be submitted to the repository are binary object files for the core proprietary sections that are unlikely to be changed, for example the file format definitions to preclude interoperability. Anything else can be source, the final linker step is automated etc. The market will also offer tools for binary randomization and compiler signature obfuscation.

So you are left with a technological arms race that needs to be settled in court, on a case by case basis, using expert testimony where the burden of proof belongs to the infringer. It's just absurd to think anything like this could ever work in practice to promote source availability, or there would be public benefits to put such a highly litigious system in place.

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