New Video! About Copyright at 8:19 AM

That's right, I am mostly recovered from the  marasm of the Trump era and ready to get back at you on. I even made a thumbnail and stuff can you believe it?

Let's save Interplay! at 7:07 AM

Intersell

As soon as I heard that Interplay was selling off it's IPs, I got to wondering one thing: What's gonna happen to Wild 9?

Sure, I could see Earthworm Jim being sold for cashmoney to a middle or big sized publisher. Earth Worm Jim isn't gonna be lost forever But what about Wild 9? What about MDK? What about all those other games that didn't have multiple sequels and a cartoon show?

I assume just for his cameo in the PC version of Toshinden is worth half a million.

I don't WANT to wonder. I WONDER when WB is gonna do something with the Ready 2 RumbleThe Grid and  Mace The Dark Age franchises it owns every day. I wonder when Valis is gonna get a new game every night, for the last 9 years.

To be fair, I do can see how the owners of DC, Looney Tunes, Hanna Barbera, Filmation and holders of the license to Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings...would feel a bit incomplete without also owning Dr Muto.

The owners to these IPs bought them, but they don't really HAVE to do anything with them anyway.  And so it could be with the soon to be owners of these games Interplay is selling.

Games like Heart of Darkness.(But I am told this one in particular isn't for sale)

 

Games like like Boogerman.

Games  like Clayfighter.


Games like Carmageddon.

And yes, even friggin' Redneck Rampage.

So I say, instead of speculating about which  company is gonna own and MAAAAYBE use these games, I propose we use crowdfunding to MAKE SURE somebody gets to use this franchise. And that that somebody happens to be EVERYONE IN THE WORLD.

This is the plan: we pool together the money, buy one or more  of these  IP and then release it under a Creative Commons license.  That way, anyone can create a game based on said IP,in any way or shape or form.

But not only a game. You can make a Boogerman Comic, or a Carmageddon Film, should we acquire the rights for the franchise. You can use a song from Clayfighter in your thing. Make an anime from Redneck Rampage: I don't care.

"Shucks , ah shawr dew hope Sempai Itoko will neuteece meh!"

But that would take some money. I mean, I don't know how much some of these is going for, but I can't imagine anything going for less than 10000. So that's the goal I have in my Patreon: Ten thousand dollars to try and buy the rights to any Interplay IP possible.

And remember that it's a bid. Maybe someone REALLY wants to have the rights to Messiah more than us, and is willing to outbid us. So, maybe we'd need amounts of money closer to the millions. I've already got a Patreon set up, so if you wanna help with this, send it there. If you have no money, but want to help, you can always share the link and tell others. I'm gonna be frank: I haven't ever bid on anything and I don't know if you gotta go someplace or something, so any information on that front would be welcome.

If you like the idea, but don't trust me, you are free to get your own Crowdfunding going, maybe towards a specific franchise? I didn't do that, but you could, and I would openly support you. I'm only doing it myself cuz I seem to be the only one who's though of it.

We have to act now, because there may not be another chance. Whoever owns this stuff could very well own it for the rest of your life.

So let's stand together, let's make it happen, let's save Interplay! #SaveInterplay

WTFU Watch: Cyber Zombie Apocalypse at 12:22 PM

Fear the  Walking Copyright Reformists.

It looks like WTFU is  going places. Specifically to discuss copyright and what changes it needs to the copyright office itself. For the first time in basically 40 years, it looks like there are other voices in the copyright discussion table besides the copyright maximalists and entertainment industry lobbyists that  haven't made copyright last forever because they can't.

So obviously you expect some backlash. The backlash is that we're cheating, thieving cyber terrorist zombies.

According to an article on the Huffington Post, the last minute submission of thousands of requests to the copyright office to amend the DMCA cannot be described as anything but cyberterrorism.  After all, the amount of petitions going on at once DID crash the servers.  Probably because of how many people suddenly entered because we did not know about this until literally that day.

"There’s really no other way to describe these kind of actions than coordinated cyber bullying campaigns built on distorted information to incite an angry online mob. A mob that mobilizes and then disappears quickly back into the shadows." said William Buckley Jr, like a jackass.

Now, this is a romantic image. Mobs going in there and dissapearing , Fuente Ovejuna Style, so no individual can be identified.

But there are no secret mobs. This mob is quite public. It is what the entertainment industry has always really been afraid of: people, willingly becoming involved with a copyright that is supposed to, by design, supposed to benefit said people. Loss of control thrives fear.

 "Section 512 is where the battle line is being drawn between online businesses that use a loophole in the law to reap enormous profits from using copyrighted material without permission and the copyright holders who have seen their careers crater and their earnings evaporate. It is nothing less than a life and death struggle for the future of art in America. A battle whose outcome is yet undecided."

Oh, yeah? Which copyright holders have seen their careers crater and their earnings evaporate? Who are you talking about? Do you have any examples?

You see, for big entertainment it's important to draw that starving artist card every time their humongous earnings and complete control over all elements of production and distribution are threatened. Because if they said  that the same guys who don't want to pay their performing artists  for using their music in ads, and the same ones who tell David Prowse that Return of the Jedi didn't make any money so they can't pay him any, are the ones advocating for copyright laws with even more teeth, then well, that's not as appealing as saying "poor Jim Artist,  how's he supposed to make a living if he can't take down copies of his work forever and then nuke the site from orbit? {8(..."

It's like looking at this guy and saying he needs bodyguards

This is a fight for FAIR USE.  And as much as they'll tell you they  love themselves some fair use, the actual real life says other wise.

Lives ARE on the balance. That much is true. Freedom of Speech is being trampled. Up and coming businesses, the same ones copyright was supposed to protect, are being put in danger. Nobody loses their job because I uploaded an anime music video of Batman v Supermen, but whenever The Nostalgia Critic can't upload a video because there's no godamn  nuance in the system, it means Tamara Chambers, Malcolm Ray and Jim Jarosz might have to go hungry that day.


Fittingly, then, second article described the entire situation as a "Zombie Apocalypse".  You see, Keith Kupferschmi, of the Copyright Alliance, says that even though ove 900000 people expressed that, "yeah, the DMCA is broken", and that's certainly valuable insight..."These 90,000 comments are all identical submissions generated merely by clicking on the “I’m in” button at takedownabuse.org"

First of all, no it wasn't. It certainly had a prewritten  post and function, but individual people could edit it to their heart's content. Secondly, it was almost 100,000 individual responses FROM people. That they weren't all original, "from the heart" responses is unimportant, because these thousands of people agreed that the DMCA is broken.That's what the Copyright office was asking, and that's what we answered.

 It's funny, though, that the  article  does it's preface by drawing heavilly from The Walking Dead.

"My family knows not to bother me from 9 to 10 pm every Sunday night. That’s my The Walking Dead time.  While the show is about zombies and what happens after the zombie apocalypse, those who watch the show know the real danger to our protagonists, Rick, Michonne, Daryl and the rest of the crew, is not the zombies all all.  The real threats come from the living -- terrifying villains like the Governor, Gareth and now the charismatic Negan."

Funny. The Walking Dead only exists because the copyright on "Night of the Living Dead" fell through, thus allowing TV stations to run it for cheap, thus  lots of people seeing it and being inspired by it, thus creating the Zombie Horror genre that allowed Robert Kirkman to create a comic about it without having to pay George Romero for it. In turn this allowed the TV show to exist.


That a copyright maximalist, the kind that would unironically argue the "Forever less One Day"  mentality that caused 2 retroactive extensions to copyright and the complete lack of any works entering the public domain until 2019, to use The Walking Dead to argue FOR the continual enlenghtening, engirthening, and enwidening of copyright is perhaps delicious irony.

One more thing.


"If there are problems with the DMCA the best way to understand what those problems are, and to attempt to address them, is for those with concerns to voice them in detail and not file yet another zombie comment.  As we’ve learned from The Walking Dead, those zombies are rather easily disposed of."


A single zombie is no threat, just like a single Lawrence Lessig was no threat to the selfrighteous Sonny Bono act of 1998. But that's the thing about zombies. There rarely is just one of them. And their infectious. They don't just destroy those that oppose them. They make them join their ranks.


Things aren't ever going to go back to the way they were. You won't just be able to launch a sneak law attack and get away with screwing everyone  anymore.  You can't just tell everyone you know what's best for them. You're not the only game in town.

The infection is only begun.

Not an April Fools Joke: Fight against the DMCA #WTFU at 7:22 AM

Because we're all in this together

So apparently the copyright office has opened a 24 hour window to ask people what they thought about the DMCA.  That was yesterday.

 You know I'm very passionate about copyright issues and I'm   in favor of Where's the Fair Use. And the DMCA is bad, and a great part of the reason why  sites on Youtube have to be so hard on Copyright, because basically this law makes Youtube as guilty of copyright infringement as the uploader of full episodes of a show.


So, what, I have a blog that at least some folks watch, and besides participating on my own, I also invite you to.


Please,watch Doug Walker's video about the subject, and tell these bastards Best Geek Ever sent you.

#WTFU Watch: In the defense of Youtube at 7:55 AM

There is a saying in my country that goes: The rope always snaps at it's thinnest. It is meant to say that, those that are least empowered are always the most likely to feel the negative effects in any situation. I'll come back to that.

Doug "Nostalgia Critic" Walker has apparently set the online world on fire with his simple request that Youtube handle reinvent the system by which it judges copyrighted content  and fair use, which is to say it doesn't, and it's rife with abuse and completely lacking a human component.

And I agree with it. All of it. Youtube needs to reform it's system. They've got the money for it. But let's be fair to Youtube.

Copyright laws as they are, thanks to the Digital Millenium  Copyright Act, make Youtube responsible for it's user submitted content. It was designed to prod hosting websites to police copyrighted content on their sites, or face steep, steep fines.


Copyright is supposed to produce innovation, but lot's of elements of  current copyright are doing the opposite, trampling the innovations and formats of the internet to serve old models and those with a stake on them. That's not just ME saying that.

The American government commissioned a Task Force to investigate how to make copyright do more what it's supposed to. It took them 3 years and millions of dollars to make a series of recommendations that I could have told you for the meager ad revenue it would bring me: that steep fines encourage copyright trolling and chill innovation. That Remix culture need to be let breath.

However, that's not the recommendations they are planning to act on. They know their copyright system is broken, and the only way to fix it is FORCE EVERY NATION ON THE EARTH TO ADOPT THE SAME BROKEN SYSTEM. So we can all be even in our wrongness.

Youtube needs to revise the ways it handles  copyrighted material on it's site, yes. I completely agree with that. For one, the algorithm that detects the content should  take into consideration amount, and there should be penalties for fake and malicious claims, and Youtube should request that only the owner of the content, verified, can make a claim. It should definitively not be telling me a public domain movie belongs to someone else. But it is not a coincidence that Youtube's system is broken, when they are also under a very broken copyright law system.

I mean, let's face it, Youtube isn't the only  website with user submitted content out there. Practically all social networks work like that, and while it is entirely possible someone could upload illegal content, or just content they wouldn't have on their site at all, you don't see THEM going to this level.

Somebody once flagged me for pornography on Facebook. It was a drawing of Lady Deathstrike fighting Tiffany Lords.

It got looked at pretty fast, it was determined it was NOT pornography, and we all moved on.  Is it any harder for YT? I would think the user base of Facebook is even larger (1.19 billion) and much more likely to put unwanted content than in Youtube (1 billion ), were many users aren't even uploading anything, just watching.  But they don't sweat it. You don't see takedowns like in Youtube. There's people in there.



I'm not trying to let Youtube off the hook. But this bigger than  Doug Walker not getting payed, or me not being able to show my stupid video in Germany. This is bigger than that. This is the very reason we need to reform our copyright system in a way that makes sense for everyone in the now, not just  big entertainment companies in the mid 70's. I made Limited Times , this very blog, precisely to address this kind of issue and to bring it to light.

The rope always does break at the thinnest. Big Entertainment wants laws that make other people (I.E. Government and  Web Hosting sites)carry out a defense of IT'S copyrighted work, when that's clearly their own responsibility. Youtube isn't gonna take the exaggerated cost of carrying out a copyright defense of Doug Walker's video's on court. Rope's gotta break somewhere.

So yes, I support #WTFU . But I also support #Copyrightreform, which is something we desperately need, and we've needed for a long time. It's something I've been championing on a blog for a while.


I look forward to how this turns out. But regardless, remember that this didn't start now. This didn't start when Google bought Youtube. This is the results of years of wrongheaded  mishandling of the very idea of copyright. It needs to be dealt with at it's core, as a nation.

Adam Ruins Everything says it better than me at 6:22 AM

Sometimes you can't say it better than it's already been said. So in an effort to educate my readers regarding copyright, I'm delegating the task to Adam, of Ruining Everything fame, to put into voice what I've been trying to say in text for a while. Please, check him out at TruTv's channel, and  tell him BGE sent you.

6 Things we're missing out on thanks to Copyright at 11:42 AM



If you hate the idea of public domain, you hatin' on Cthulu

A new year! A chance to think about the future. Specifically, what might have been. You see, I'm a fan of alternate worlds in which things went different. But not just ones where, like, I'm a jerk wearing black. Or, well...MORE of a jerk wearing black a lot more often. But the ones that could have easily been ours. The one where Mr Freeze was played by Patrick Stewart and where Ryu had that fiery kick.

I think of copyright.  Of the  Game Jam I'm currently hosting and part of my impetus is I thought of the things that could have been, should copyright had not been extended to last longer than Stan Lee's actual lifespan. A lot of people where worried about their favorite characters and how they'd be besmirched if copyright  wasn't there to protect them (but I've been to Paheal, and Fanfiction.net and know that nothing is safe or sacred.). But I can only lament the possibilities that never occurred. This lost opportunities include...

6) Some more celebrity comebacks

You see, some celebrities have the one character or two they're good at. There's only one Charly Chaplin, only one Larry, Curly and Mo, only one Ace Ventura.

But what happens sometimes is, MGM owns Ace Ventura, the character. Jim Carrey totally has a great idea for a sequel. It's awesome. But the studio don't agree with it. They have a full schedule and a head full of farts


Who the hell is this for?

  If Ace could become public domain while Jim Carrey lived, He'd be able to work with another studio, or no studio, and bring back the character.  If the Ghost Busters had become public domain, Dan Akroid would just be able to do his own Ghost Busters spin off or whatever, without having to fight the studio or wait for Bill Murray.



5) Saving movie theaters



Well, I suppose now I'll have to laser pointer my big screen TV while people I know yell obscenities.

When I was a kid, going to the movie Theater to experience a movie was an epic thing that had few substitutes. Indeed, televisions had yet to catch on to theater quality,  bootlegs where not something you could grab off the street and put it in your pocket, or download, and cellphones that record had yet to be invented.

But we can't live in the past anymore. Theater attendance is apparently at an all time low, even though Hollywood has made sure no movies made this year weren't based on a comic, TV Show, cartoon, other movies, or toys. Cinemas  can't afford to fight these other mediums, and they especially can't fight the fact people know the movie will be legally available in a few months.

Really, theaters rent these movies hoping people will buy enough popcorn and candy bars to  offset the cost of the rental, employees, maintenance, and so on and so forth.

However, if   movies that weren't re-registered into the copyright office after 36 years went public domain, then we'd have movies that could be shown with no cost to the audience, we'd have films that could be shown to the audience, free of charge, from as early as the 70s and even the 80's! You could set up your own little theater and show them!


"I've got The Hobbit movie for 7 bucks and...Invasion of the Bee Women for 50 cents."

Mind you, most of the classics wouldn't be available. Mostly the rare movies that  didn't  get registered, usually because they weren't  profitable enough.  But since there is no cost to rent them, you could run low ass prices and get bored people, or retrophiles into it.

And further, the bigger chains could have some movies to run in the lower seasons. They could organize special viewing of this movies.

But as long as copyright owners have their copyright, huh?

4) It would discourage large companies from buying all the cool stuff

The Disneys, Viacoms, and WBs of the world have been busy. In a  few couple of years they've gobbled up most of the popular brands that they already didn't own. Disney bought Star Wars and Marvel. WB(that already owns DC, all the filmation cartoons, all the Hanna Barbera characters, and possibly your firstborn.) bought Mortal Kombat(along with other stuff you don't care about, and they don't, either) while Viacom locked down Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers.



You find the weirdest things when buying  a game company.

Clearly there is good money in owning a perennial hit, and where there is monies, giant corporations  will be. I don't resent them for it, but I don't like the implications of it.

I mean, clearly  WB has more characters than it can use or need. But who cares? The older ones probably still have a lifetime of copyright left.

Back in the day, though, you had to pay every 30 years to keep your work under protected status. Not a lot of money, mind you. But perhaps enough money that maybe they get to thinking if they REALLY need to hold on to the rights of Shmoo and Batfink.


You'd have to be a real dick to think otherwise.

Marvel has 7000+ characters*. I ran some costs and it would cost them 210000 to maintain the copyrights each of those, based on a 30 dollar fee. Some of these characters are simply not worth holding on to, and would go public domain.  Because, seriously, if you can't spend 30 bucks every 30 years in your ploy to put your dick in DC's face, maybe you shouldn't get to do it for free.



Would Disney see things differently about buying Marvel if they knew such copyright exclusivity had a limit? Well, don't make me bring up the Disney filmography again. Those guys love the Public Domain. Of course they'd rather get Spider-Man in the 2030s for free than pay  millions of dollars for him NOW.

3) Hundreds of books, movies, and songs

I join Duke in bringing up all the stuff we could  ALL use, now ( Now, Duke, I've made some assumptions about what you're gonna post several months into the future. Don't give me a dead link, now). A few highlights:


songs

I Put a Spell on You.

books

The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. Free Cat in the Motherfucking Hat for Everybody!

movies

The Blob, The Fly, and Attack of the 50 Foot woman. The Hidden Fortress, a movie that directly inspired Star Wars, is also from this year.

3)Saving a bunch of your taxpayer money


Nobody likes it the way it is, anyway

"But Batzarro, how is my tax money being spent on copyright?" You may ask. It's simple. For a work to be fully protected, it needs to be registered at the Copyright office. Most of the mainstream shows, movies and songs that got made,  scores of ones that didn't, and even  those sketches of Ninja Turtle clones people registered so no one would steal their "ideas" are all literally, physically registered in actual buildings. How else are we supposed to know whether our sexy, steampunk remake of Narnia will get us a Cease and Desist?


I know. I have a problem.

More recently, of course. You can look up part of these records yourself online. But for certain hard to find ones you'll have to have employees look it up for you. For 200 dollars.

You see, it  used to be copyright did not last as much, and payments where made to ensure those works remain protected. The copyright office had a little more cash to operate, and works actually lapsed into the public domain.

But  now, your initial payment of 40 something dollars gets you twice as many years of protection. It costs money to keep all those bad ideas protected, so it gotta come out of YOUR pockets.

It costs the government as of 2002  13 million a year to maintain a copyright record. Or rather, it costs YOU that much. The Copyright Office is not a private entity. It's a subsidiary of the United States Government. This why permanent copyright is impossible: We don't have enough money to keep those kinds of records in, say 1000 years. Even with user fees, no way the cost of keeping those unmade Batman movies protected won't keep adding up.

2) Adam Strange's appearance in Smash Bros

That's right. Adam Strange, the Superhero who lives on another planet until a thunder forces him back on Earth(or does he live on earth until a thunder forces him back to another planet), could have been in Smash Bros in 2015 as DLC. Sure,in that scenario Batman and Superman are both long into the Public Domain, But Adam's practically made for it!


Sure, why not.

Nintendo wouldn't put Sherlock Holmes in Smash Bros. Really, most of the characters on public domain now are from  before color movies.  Back then we didn' have concepts like "Superheroes" or "Other Planets" or "Time Travel". That means that, most time travelers, extraterrestrials, and Superheroes are copyrighted.

You might think it's cheesy to want to use the characters made by  someone else. After all, why can't I come up with own character? What  am I, a hack?

Haha, you wouldn't tell Alan Moore, that. Really, when he's not using public domain characters to do artsy perversion he's nudge-winkingly trying to use James Bond and Harry Potter in his stories. Why, if he could use the genuine article, I bet you it'd be mother buggering fantastic, and none of you at the peanut gallery peasants would be calling him lazy.


But seriously, this is borderline fan ficky, Alan.

Why can't Chris Sims, self declared Batmanologist, have a stab at Batman? Bob Kane and Bill Finger is dead, and WB is in no risk of going chapter 11, over a webcomic. Why must we wait so many years for a Wonder Woman movie? Because the creative possibilities are chained  to profit margins.


1) Not as many remakes



"Whooooot? How can making very popular works public domain make there be less remakes?" That's a good question. I mean, it SOUNDS counter intuitive. If Batman where public domain, if feels like he'd be in every movie this year.

But actually, no. You see, studios like this thing where they are the sole owners of a franchise that's worth millions of dollars. They get to make exactly as many Superman movies as they want, and you get to do exactly as many Superman movies as they'll allow(zero). And then they get to do it again next decade.

But if they only had 30 years, it's put pressure on them to create/buy/own a NEW thing for 30 years.  Once anyone can make their own Superman movie,  WB will probably move on to buying the next thing they feel will last those 30 years, and not "whatever, it's forever"

What's more, new, obscure stuff is essentially new works to you if you don't know them. Have you seen Star Oddyssey? No? Then maybe my book based on it will be new to you! I mean, the problem is not that it's a remake. Didn't you like The Fly? Well maybe my book is Cronenberg's Fly to the original movie's The Fly.



Brundelfly would approve of my book.

My point is why won't you fuckers buy my fucking book obviously there's a lot more stories to tell out there than how Peter Parker got his powers. If more studios had more legal access to a wider variety of popular stories, those studios would be less likely to keep pumping the same stories they already pumped. I mean, let's look at the 1958 box office: and compare it to the 2013 box office. Which has more remakes, reboots or adaptations? So really, we should be fighting for more stuff to lapse into the public domain, not less.



Ignore the fact all but one of 1958's movies are based on books. Books don't count.

We're undercutting the creativity of the entire country because what? Because "I might just make a great work, and I don't want to eventually have people enjoy it without their joy profiting me directly?" Let's fight for shorter copyright durations today, before we have to fight for less long copyright durations tomorrow.

*In my zealousness, though, I completely forgot that you don't exactly register A CHARACTER in  copyright, but a work. A character's first appearance being PD makes THAT first appearance of the character Public Domain(because you can't make derivatives of a public domain second issue, which would be based on the first issue). Which means, that Marvel would probably have to copyright and re-register EACH COMIC IT MAKES to make sure no elements in it ever lapse. Now, being that Marvel has made approximately (we're not gonna discount licensed material, variant covers and crossover shit. Math is bad enough, and I won't be surprised when I turn out to have completely bungled up this, anyway.)32,000 comics, we're talking roughly  $960000 every 30 years.  The original math still works if Marvel was  just  registering first appearances to keep the first appearance from lapsing, discounting joint first appearances, obviously. It's still a lot of money to keep the rights to The Hypno-Hustler and Venom's Ex-Wife, though.

CPG talks copyright at 6:17 AM

Sometimes you can't say it better than it's already been said. That's Why I'm putting up this video from the wonderful CPGgrey talking about copyright. His channel has a lot of information on a lot of topics and he's way smarter than me, so go check it out. People really, REALLY need to know about this topic, and well, they don't.

Son of a Pitch: Mechanical Fan Licenses at 8:21 AM

I don't know. I wanted a robot clerk. C'est la vie.

I just got done reading this fantastical book called "Freedom of Expression (R): Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity" by Kembrew McLeod.

And it's a wonderful read on the world of copyright, albeit, focusing a little too much on music stuff for my tastes.

However, the book did have some enlightening information on the nature of copyright. For example, I learnt, I could cover any song I like and pay basically a penny. Legally.

How so? Well, what happens is there exists something called a "compulsory mechanical license."

While it sounds like something those Squids from the Matrix would hand you, it's something much better. There is a system in place where you check with the government if a song's songwriter registered it to the copyright office. If it IS registered, you pay a laughable fee, and get to making those covers.

Awwww...

The government rounds up all that money and in the end pays the songwriter, should he or she be alive and findable.

You see, when you ask the record company that probably bought a second record company that owns the SONG( the actual recording) copyright to make a cover of that song, they can pretty much set their price. Their Price can get pretty high.  It seems that there is a system to reward the song writer and keep more songs pumping through. Everybody can win.

That cent can really make this guy's grandchildren's lives better.

Now, I know for a fact people want to remake, remix and re-edit more than just songs. I've been to Deviatnart, Fanfiction.net, and Paheal/Rule34xxx/Booru. We want to work with movies, games, and cartoons. Sadly, it doesn't seem likely DIC entertainment will let me  take on  Dinosaucers, that Sunsoft will let me make a sequel to Valis, and I'll be able to do much with my gritty origin to Mona Lisa. Working with the companies that own this IPs is unfeasable for mere mortals, and especially for profit(which is how you'd get any damn funding to begin with. Lucasarts likes Star Wars Uncut, but there are no ads in that stuff.)

So perhaps we should institute a mechanical license for fanworks. You pay a fee, (and it doesn't even have to be pathetic like the song license one. Paying a 1000 dollars to make your own legal, sellable Star wars movie seems like a reasonable amount compared to the actual "No, DON'T" perspective most companies have.)

Now, things might be going that way. Amazon is starting to allow fanmade derivative works under some kind of deal. Eidos, home of the Tomb Raider, is also making a new deal to allow fan takes on some of it's less used Franchises.

Now THIS is what the fanbase REALLY wants.

However, this are A) under the particular control of the company that owns the IP, and B) franchises that don't exactly arouse a lot of imagination. Sure, I guess somebody really wants Gex, and Fear Effect to return, and some people probably like Valiant Comics and Pretty Little Liars. But that's not what it is.

And besides, the worry of these programs, is that, by tying the profits of the work to the owner, it incentivizes the squashing of the native for love fanworks we all love. I mean, If Disney has a racket charging every chump who wants to film himself and his goons pretending to use lightsabers, that won't make MORE Star Wars movies, but LESS, because unlicenced Star Wars fan films now ARE competition.

But if Mechanical licenses where in place, derivative but unofficial works  would flourish.

You see, I think, for example, that it would be a mighty fine thing if there was a Wonder Woman open world game, where you explore, beat bad guys, talk to people and fly in an invisible jet. And I think I´m not the only one.I think it could be great and a lot of people would buy something like that. But WB owns WOnder Woman, and they don´t agree. They don´t think that people are willing to pay money to play as the world's most popular superheroine. For them "Wonder Woman: The Game" is an unnecessary risk." Just like Wonder Woman, the movie was, for over 30 years.

But they can't let YOU do it either, under a legal doctrine that basically says they MIGHT do it, so doing it yourself kind of robs them of the chance. It's the same reason Hasbro took down MLP: Fighting is Magic. Sure, they weren't gonna do a Pony fighting game themselves anyway. But if they do, it could lead to Mane 6 suing  Hasbro for ripping THEM of.

With a mechanical license, you could do it, and both works would become recognized as being related to each other, and nobody has to sue anyone. In the term of videogames, it would probably work out best, since  the mechanics of a game are legally safe to duplicate. Capcom couldn't sue Midway for emulating their gameplay mechanics, and Blizzard can't sue  Netherrealm Studios for doing a fighting game set within the DC Universe.

You see, I would GLADLY pay 1000 dollars to make my own version of Wonder Woman, and we'd be both supporting the company that bought  the company that owns the character after pressuring congress not to let it lapse into the public domain the artists, and I get to show off on Youtube or whatever. But guess what? I can't. It's not like with piracy, where the object of your affection usually can be acquired legally.

There is no way I can go to WB and convince them that I should have the license to Wonder Woman at all, even with money. If there was a mechanical license system, we could have had more than 1 Wonder Woman movie, more than zero Wonder Woman videogames,  while WB was twiddling it's thumbs and "trying to get it right".

We could have had good, passionate developers making quality remakes and upgrades to classic games and then SELLING them. Imagine  someone taking Sonic 2, and then upgrading it with  fully remade visuals, online competitive and cooperative, gameplay new characters, new modes voice acting...and then just putting all that into XBLA and Steam and PSN.

Now, there are downsides to my idea, and I don't want to look like a wide eyed idiot, so I will be addressing them.

Technically this sort of totally undermines copyrights original  intent, to protect the initial years of a work so that a creator or owner can recoup his or her invention and not have to compete with literal xeroxed copies. Besides the fact our current CR laws already do that pretty well on it's own (If I make a book, it doesn't really hurt my book sales if someone makes a fanfiction where my books characters are all m-preg nagas.) I do have a solution.

A non competition clause can kindly request that the work is actually canibalizing an the existing work. For example, If Sega already has a Sonic 2 in PSN, and Batzarro Presents: Sonic 2 is in danger of eating into Sega's shares they can put a stop to me in that particular system. However, if Sega doesn't have Sonic 2 in PSN, it wouldn't be able to stop someone else on the grounds that it MIGHT do it. It might incentivize them to actually do it. And if they  do do it, then that gives them the right to supercede the derivative work.

This is for derivative works. You can't  just dub over Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. You have to get your own actors, and film your own movie. You have to code your own Sonic 2. You have to draw and ink your own panels. You can use the John Williams Score, if you happen to make the music yourself.

You aquire a licence to adapt from individual works, not collected works. For example, Sonic 2 gives you Sonic 2. You want to add something from Sonic 3? Pay more. You want to add something from Sonic SAM?  Pay more. You want to add Mario, too? Pay more.

Law can insist that these type of works must have a clear lable or something, that indicates that they are NOT directly related to the makers of the original. Like "Based on the works of Alan Moore". Something like that.

And finally, maybe give it 5 years from the original's creation till you can do it. Most works don't make money beyond the 5.

But of course, if we could wrap our head around that kind of research, our copyright wouldn't last over 100 years, and cover a doodle a baby just made in his own poop.

Public Domain '16 Damage Report includes Supergirl, Ironman, Groot. at 11:00 PM

Happy Public Domain Day! I join Duke University in celebrating all the works that our current copyright has stolen out of the public domain.
But no offense, Dukey, nobody  gets angry they can't remake Gone with the Wind and shit. I don't know about you, but they didn't show that on TV when I was growing up. People need to know which pop culture artifacts of the today would have been everyone's soon.

This first year's list includes some of the more popular sidekicks and villains in the world, including some who are just now getting on TV and Movies!

I'm dividing this list into two parts.

After the first extension:



Copyright has been lengthened  for 40 years. First they gave it 20 in the 70s, then 20 more the 90s. The following are what would have happened if the second extension had not come to pass.

Lex Luthor

Luthor and Superman go together like nail and flesh.  While there's not a lot about him that's trademarkable (bald, mad scientist, villain) it'd be pretty neat to just up and use him without going all Superman 3 on him.

Cat Woman

Cat puns ahoy! While we're not short on cat themed femme fatales, this would be a total boon on those presumably working on Batman since last year.Catwoman is one of those characters who's just a part of modern Batman. She won't be alone, though since we'd also see...

The Joker

Batman's worst enemy for 75 years straight, the Joker would be a welcome addition to ANY  heroes universe. Or anything, really. Carebears vs Joker? Why nawt?

Green Lantern

 

While not covering the current space cop Green Lanterns, I doubt the opportunity to reinvent Alan Scott, who fought crime with a literal Green Lantern, would be considered a great loss.

Hugo Strange

 

Batman is all  the rage on this list, huh? Hugo Strange is a psychologist, but is also somewhat of a supervillain that wants to kill Batman or maybe fuck him, I don't know.

Flash

 

The original Flash, Jay Garick, could be racing with Quicksilver today.

Hawkman

 

Okay, I don't really know who loves Hawkman. He's just all...well you could use him, anyway.

Robin

Robin is..we all know about Robin. You could go to remote islands  with no electricity and find people who know about Robin. What I'm saying is, it's a bit bullshit that he's not public domain.



But hold on! When those works were created, copyright lasted 56 years.   The above all should have lapsed years ago, and we should be already be getting works from 1959, according to those Commie Pinkos THE FOUNDING FATHERS.

So what stuff from 1959 would lapse today?

Hal Jordan Green Lantern

Hey, unlike the other list, this one includes most of the core elements of today's GL. Carrol Ferris. Guardians.

Supergirl

In this timeline, Superman has lapsed years ago. But until this year, Supergirl remains  locked up.

Gorilla Grodd

With our current fascination with hig concepts, I imagine the villainous, talkig gorilla would be a welcome addition.

Batmite

 

Okay, this one's a bit stupid. Okay, a lot stupid. Batmite is a magic being from another dimension that was around during Batman's "stupid as fuck" phase. Hey, Batman's public domain now, you can do whatever you want with him.

Bizarro

Bizarro am not....Bizarro is one of Superman's most celebrated characters. An endearingly backward version of Superman, Bizarro's just one of those characters you can always find an angle to.

Ironman

Ironman! The guy from the movies! We're not quite talking gold and red demon in a bottle Iron Man yet.

Groot

Groot wasn't always Groot. Well not the Groot he is today. He was once a megalomaniacal tree man from space. I'm guessing that could have it's own uses.

Black Widow

Okay,like Luthor, there's not a lot that Natasha Romanov  has that's  visually important. But  hey,  she's bound to have fans.

Mr Freeze

If you liked chilling with the villains, Mr Freeze would be right up your street. While his mega tragic backstory would remain offlimits for 3 decades more, you'd need fear no lawsuis for including the bubbleheaded icemaster.




I want to make it perfectly clear that when these works were copyrighted, the makers and owners of these characters knew full well that their work was supposed to lapse in 56 years, okay? It was supposed to be an incentive for them to create, and it worked, and now it's not fair to back down and say WE'RE wrong for wanting them to uphold their part of the deal. There's no serious reason why making a Supergirl movie should be  a crime at this point. But it IS.



 That's just my opinion, though. What do you think?

What did Youtube think this says? at 5:29 AM

I urge you to actually watch the video this time.

They're killing all fan art and I'm helping them! at 8:05 PM

Hey, guys, look...I may have used the term "Fanficky" as a pejorative in the past, but...I would never turn you up guys. I just don't have that kind of spite. Just because I don't LIKE your stuff doesn't mean I would volunateer to take it away from you.

What do I mean, by that? Well, there's a new international treaty  called the Trans Pacific Partnership moving along. One that would basically force the participating countries to make laws allowing anyone, not just the copyright holder, to make laws that enable not just the owner of a copyright to sue for copyright infringement.

I mean, if they passed a law like that (And they'd have to if they sign a treaty.) I could legally sue you for creating a fanfiction where Wordgirl is losing a fight to the Crystal Gems, even if PBS and Warner probably don't give a shit about it.



It's kind of brilliant, actually. Morally corrupt and not at all related to what copyright is about, but brilliant. You conscript the people to snitch on themselves and  sue themselves. They don't spend money on it and they don't get any bad press. It's a very Castro Cuba thing to do. I don't even know if I should go into detail of why doing that is litterally the opposite of what copyright should do, or how bad it would be for creativity if anyone who so wanted could put you in a legal lock without really having to have a real reason. Maybe you can imagine it.  Imagine if you anyone could just start getting Pewdiepie, Nostalgia Critic, and Fan- Fiction.com erased from the map just because they didn't like it.  Imagine. Do you think they would?

There's only one problem: How are people gonna know they can screw each other? There needs to be a campaign to get them in the spirit of ruining each other's abilities as a prosumer, so that poor old Megacorps may thrive. And who better to provide it than me? That's why I'm offering them this posters, to get things rolling. No charge, Big Media. We love you!

Of course, this laws would be a tragedy for the internet, if mean spirited people get your video AND channel taken down with uncontested claims of copyright all over the place. But look at the bright side.

You could Sue Johnny Test's makers  on the name of Marvel comics and Sony, who own the copyright to The Malibu Comics and movie Men in Black, to get them to stop using Agent Black and Agent White. You could Sue Marvel because the relation between Deadpool and Deathstroke is totally breaking copyright. You could use DC for putting Superman's leg hidden on a cover.  You could Sue Disney over Atlantis. You could sue Metallica for ripping people off.

And in fact, we should. I mean, it's only fair. It's what they want, right? A world where people sue to defend copyright without asking. If you know of anytime a company has plagiarized another, you should probably write them a letter like this:

Dear _________

I am thankfull for the laws that are being put in place by the  Trans-Pacific Partnership, that will allow me to sue over copyright infringement even if the copyright holder will not. I will use them to sue you over _____________ the very day the laws are put in place, because it breaches the copyright of _______________.  It's kind of out of my hands. I can't stop an International Treaty, after all. If someone would, though, I would not be able to sue.

Sincerely _________________

You could probably contact Disney over here, and Warner over Here,if you wanted to.


I mean, I want to believe we can do more than sit and watch them do this. I'm just a small blog, run by a poor guy. But maybe if this message gets around we can stop everywhere on the Internet becoming like Youtube.

Frequently Stupid Questions: Public Domain Edition at 1:15 PM

Because public domain doesn't engender a lot of sympathy, I have decided to compile some answers to a lot of doubts people often have. I don't know if people actually feel like this, or if it's industry shills going around, but I think it's high time I addressed them.

I mean we're four years away from 2019. Copyrights have been extended for 40 years. Let's talk about this without emotionalisms.

Do you think you have a right to other people's rightful properties?

I don't think so, I know so. But so do YOU!

"Entitled" is a term that is often used to describe those  that want shorter copyright. After all, why should we have access to something we didn't create?

 But the thing is, we DO have a right. The American Constitution, not me, says that copyright exists for a limited time. Limited does not factor in if the guy made money in his lifetime, or if he doesn't want his works turned into a proto punk furry porn opera or if the guys made money from his work afterward aren't his kin. Limited means it should end at some point.

But Big Entertainment doesn't think it should end at "some point", therefore they got congress to unconstitutionally stretch the duration of works.  Look, here's some graphics explaining it.

I thought of showing the ref getting his payola far too late.

But what if an author doesn't make any money in the first x amount of years?

The idea here is basically we're supposed to to feel empathy for the poor struggling author. "Don't you want authors to get payed" is supposed to be followed by "yes, goddamn it, and the only way to make sure is to extend copyright 200 years more, woohoo!"

But here's the thing: this art/creation/invention thing is NEVER gonna be a sure thing. For every Batman that makes billions in comics, movies, cartoons, videogames and halloween costumes, there's thousands of Moongirls, whose owners just kind of forget, to ever bring out.

For this works(the majority), being wrapped up in red tape  for almost 100 years or more is a lose lose situation.  The work just sits there  unused, it doesn't  make anybody any money, but nobody can use it, unless the author released the work themselves.

Intellectual property is just as much property  as physical property, and a work  going to public domain is like the government stealing your house from you. What you own can't be taken away, right?

Intellectual property is not physical property, at least not like a house. It's more like...air.

Air is something that, except for  scuba divers and birthday balloons, is available enough that there is little need to hoard it. On the surface of the planet there is enough oxygen for us humans as well as cockroaches and giraffes and dung beetles. Only a truly spiteful god would insist that air should belong only to the plants that produce oxygen for 90 years so they can charge for it as they will. Most plants don't live that long.

But we want there to be more plants, because we just can't get enough of that wonderful Oxygen. So we give plants a break: we won't eat all their fruits, and rip out all their flowers, and chew on all their roots for a  time, so we can have more plants.

As we have more plants, we can start eating the older plant's fruits. We can pick their flowers and chew their roots. They have fulfilled  their purpose.

Well copyright is just that. We want more artists creating, inventors inventing, philosophers philosophizing and song writers twerking, so we say "for a time, we will subdue our urge and, indeed, our RIGHT to take something as intangible as the works of a mind, and duplicate it, remake it, remix it, retell it, to give you creators a break, so that ALL of us can eventually  see the benefits. We just want the air. That's why we held off."

The differences between a house and a song should be obvious. A house that you no longer have rights to cannot be inhabited freely by you. You can no longer do in the house as you see fit. But obviously, it has a limited amount of  people it can fit.

A song you have no rights to is a song anyone can sing, play, be reproduced by anyone. That includes you. It doesn't fit any normal definition of stealing.

Also, If you truly believed Public domain works are a form of theft, ethically you'd need to not participate in any of them. Hands up if you've ever said "I'm not watching if Bram Stoker's heirs aren't making money." "I'd be stealing to watch Les Miserables!" "I can't  watch Pride and Prejudice, the original author didn't authorize."

What a mighty fine thing, to rebuke the thief while spending  his loot! If you don't consider enjoying the spoils of the public domain tree stealing, then don't treat if falling into pd as theft.

Why can't you come up with your own stuff, you lazy assholes?

This is a fairly common one. After all, original works are highly valued, while derivative works are the devil's clogged, overflowing toilet.

Okay, first of all, originality isn't just in making brand new characters and stories. I thought the Avengers was pretty original, even though every one of it's characters is older than me.

Statistically, you hadn't been born when this happened.

So when characters are copyrighted we beg Marvel and DC to make them into movies and TV shows and games. We swallow up adaptations of A Song of Fire and Ice, The Walking Dead and many more. We get excited for the third remake of the adaptation of a comic from the 80's, and a new version of a toy commercial from our youths, in movie form.

But when somebody says it'd be nice if they went public domain eventually, the same people turn around and ask everyone else if can't make something new.

So let's not do that. Let's not say only lazy people want to work off of Tolkien's books, then rush off to pay for a LOTR MMORPG. Let's not say "just  make a NEW Superhero" only to bemoan how Wonder Woman isn't getting a proper movie, or her costume sucks, or is a Thin Israeli instead of a Muscly Greek( or a Thick Turk? I'm not sure what Amazons actually were). That's the result of "WB can make with Wonder Woman as it see fit."

Obviously there is financial value in owning a recognizable character, because otherwise there wouldn't be talks of remaking Highlander and Short  Circuit. But here's my beef: the handful of companies that  own your favorite shit have nothing to fear from Johnny Fanfiction and Suzie Kickstarter. They own tv channels, Radio Stations, Game Develpment houses. Copyright is supposed to keep you from giving up the creative world because everyone is copying you as soon as your work is done. Are you really gonna tell me Best Geek Ever's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a serious concern for Viacom when they have a whole  arm of channels and all I have is a fuckin' blog that we have to award them "only game in town" status FOREVER, too?

But what if they turn my(or my favorite) work into porn?

This could be fit under the wider banner of "what if they turn an author's work into something they hate?"  Like when WB did Alan Moore all wrong, or like when Hitchcock was locked out the editing room. Something like that  but now that it's public domain, it's somehow badder.

Or like when Alan Moore turned public domain characters into porn, My head hurts.

But I guess we hate porn now, huh? Ok fine. What would happen if you make a well known work, it becomes public domain, and you  get to see your work become porni-sized?

I'll answer the question with a question: what work currently in the public domain is more known for the porn version than the real? Which anything that has a porn version the porn version is more known than the real?

None. Porn is fairly forgettable and underground.  Axel Braun's superhero porn parodies aren't getting  on SuperheroHype's news page, that's for sure.

If you're a fan of a work and don't want there to be porns of it, bad news, kimosabe. If it's big enough, there's probably porn of it. From E.T. to  to the Room. From Mickey  to Dangermouse. From Robocop to The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo. Porn, bitch. Porn, motherfucker. That is our current world, where long copyrights reign, and  we charge kids who download mp3s thousands in fines. The world where we travel halfway across the world to arrest Kim Dotcom.

It's besides the point that your drawings of Jason fucking Freddy aren't competing with any official ones.

You, see, for the companies that own these works, "the dignity of the work" and "the artists original intentions and vision" are not the matters that keep them up at night.


And finally the answer would be, get over it. American copyright laws aren't  there to protect you from hurt feelings. Why talk such big game about freedom of speech  and so on, if we're gonna wimp out as soon as other people express themselves in ways we find objectionable?

It'll just lead to everyone making Batman works and nobody doing nothing else, you know?

The thinking, here is that a work being superpopular  and public domain would wind creating a great super-saturation of said work's derivatives. I use Batman as an  example because he's pretty popular and at 75 years, frankly should have lapsed years ago. But you can substitute him for Mickey, Superman, Harry Potter or the Ninja Turtles.

First of all, that's kinda the point. While copyright exists on a work, it removes competition from the originator. Like this.

No, really, that's pretty much it.

But we all know competition is the spice of quality, and if we had everyone be able to work on the same work...

Asylum WOULD Present Batman, like ALL  the time.

...the market would determine which is best. The market probably can't handle INFINITE Batman, thought, and I'm sure eventually it'd subside.

 How bad could it get? Well, zombies are a good example. They went public domain decades ago. While since there's hardly been a LACK of zombie happy works, there also wasn't a year where we only had zombie movies, games, and cartoons and songs.

And what would WB do in the face of such competition? Well, coming up with new stuff seems like  a solid plan. After having worked on Batman for so many years, they should have a reasonable advantage by 1995, and the new competition should force them to up their game.

And further, works further enriching the public domain would provide greater and greater possibilities. You guys are all excited for Batman v Superman and Avengers: Age of Ultron. In a world of reasonable copyright, both could have been a single movie, and be released in 2005.

In  a world of reasonable copyright, we could totally have  a Wonder Woman movie written by Gail Simone and Directed by Lauren Faust. And Capcom can continue to use Spider-Man in fighting games, even if Marvel would rather make it's own fighting games.

Sure, we might see some uninspired shit based on these works. But having Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies is a small price to pay for playing Resident Evil.

Oh, my childhood!

You just want free/cheaper stuff, you cheap bastards!

Maybe. I can't talk for everyone, but who doesn't like free shit? I wished I had millions  of dollars to buy pop culture icons wholesale , but until then I'm left with in the dishonorable position of making new stuff... or waiting until stuff falls into the public domain so I can take a stab at it. I've already done it and plan to, in the future, do it again. So maybe.

But why is that greedy, though? It's not like I want Batman all for myself. How come wanting works to be widely available in libraries and online, legitimately for anyone is greed, but fucking hording copyrighted works for 100 years is ok?

And this is about more than me wanting pop culture. Books on nature, technology, philosophy and history are being kept from being looked at, while American education languishes. These works could be made available to our young underprivileged that need it.

There are works withering away, that nobody can save from disappearing forever because they're copyrighted. Are we really gonna stand here and say those are acceptable losses, and that making money off of the long dead takes priority over keeping the long dead's words and art alive for future generations?

It's not a debate about whether   the public domain should exist at all, but you'd be forgiven for believing it so, as the current length and the last two extensions have blasted the public domain into basically not including anything from the 19th century.

What IS under debate is...

How long should Copyright be?

This is one that's been going on for literally hundreds of years(but not too many hundreds. 300 at most). Amongst people that do think over 75 is too long, there isn't a consensus. I've seen some say 30, 20, 15. Some even shoot for single digits or say that there should be no copyrights at all.


Personally, I feel the old 56 maximum  duration was fine, and I'd go for that. But instead of having to re-register every 23 years, you have to reregister  every 10 or so, with an accompanying fee.

Why? Well, if you really want the US Government to spend the people's tax dollars on going after the Megauploads and Napsters and Shareazas of life, you have to pay SOMETHING. What, do you think copyrights just protect themselves?

Also, it would prevent media from just becoming a game of "who can buy more." It would force companies to consider if they really want to own that IP, instead of forcing them to own the IP.

But what if an artist makes something something and it doesn't become profitable in that amount of time?

Ok, are there any examples like that? Author gives up on work, reaps rewards 50 years later? Is that a thing that happens that often, that the whole law must  be geared toward that?

Because if we're  gonna make the law based on what actually happens, then most works make most of their profit within a 5 year margin. and the most sensible copyright durations would be 14 years.

In either case, copyright is supposed to protect you enough that you keep creating, not maintain your shitty ass half a century spanning business model. What, if the creator can't create without getting blown, are we suppose to get them a girl, too?

It wasn't supposed to be Shakes. It just happened.

Why so much whining about stuff that never belonged to you?

Here's my beef with long copyright: If it was JUST that it's 95 years, and that we don't get stuff our own grandfathers enjoyed, I'd be okay. I'm not particularly interested in doing  my own Mickey Mouse shit.

But when I realised that they had gamed the system to actively deny us of any work lapsing, I snapped.

"Also, I suggest staying away from the tobaco."

It's like we were supposed to receive an inheritance, but then the bank  earning interests on the money decided to delay the reading of the will for 40 years. If you won't call it robbing you of the money, you can probably call it things like "unethical", "fucking underhanded", "extremely greedy", "unjust". And we're supposed to just sit here like stupid idiots and say "well, that's the law, and the bank is big and we're little"

Not so. An I'm certainly not just gonna wait until they do it again!

I was not born before the 76 extension. There was nothing I could do.  I was a boy during the Sonny Bono act of 98. I didn't even know what copyright was. There was nothing I could do. But if I can do something now, I will. I won't let my children go through the same thing.