Dr. Matthew Rimmer Takes A Closer Look At Fair Use
from the fair-use-of-the-week dept
For this week’s Favorites of the Week, Dr. Matthew Rimmer wanted to focus in on some of the specific points that came up in the Congressional hearing on fair use earlier this week. While a bit different than our usual “favorites of the week” post, it’s a really fantastic in-depth look at some of the issues, which I’m sure many of you will enjoy.
It is twenty years since the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its landmark decision on copyright law and the defence of fair use in the “Pretty Woman” case, Campbell v. Acuff Rose Music. Inspired by the jurisprudence of Justice Story and Justice Leval, Justice Souter developed a doctrine of transformative use. His Honour stressed that “the goal of copyright, to promote science and the arts, is generally furthered by the creation of transformative works.” Justice Souter observed: “Such works thus lie at the heart of the fair use doctrine’s guarantee of breathing space within the confines of copyright, and the more transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of other factors, like commercialism, that may weigh against a finding of fair use.”
In January 2014, the United States Congress held a hearing about copyright law and the scope of the defense of fair use. The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee – through its Subcommittee on the Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet – heard a number of pieces of evidence and testimony. Mike Masnick provided an astute summary of the issues raised in the hearing on Techdirt. Brandon Butler said that the hearing put “transformativeness on trial.”
Professor Peter Jaszi is a leading public scholar and intellectual on matters of copyright law. He was instrumental in co-editing landmark collections of copyright law and authorship, such as The Construction of Authorship. Jaszi was quick to argue against the introduction of a copyright term extension in the United States. He has written extensively about the operation of the copyright defense of fair use – writing works such as Reclaiming Fair Use with Patricia Aufderheide.
In his written evidence, Jaszi emphasized four themes to the United States Congress about the defense of fair use. First, he observed that a “citizen’s ability to make some socially and economically positive uses of copyrighted material without permission is a right, and now widely recognized as such – including acknowledgements by both the Congress and the Supreme Court, which has stressed the connection between fair use and the freedom of expression secured by the First Amendment.”
Second, Jaszi commented that “fair use is working.” He emphasized: “Everyone who makes culture or participates in the innovation economy relies on fair use routinely – whether they recognize it or not.” He commented: “What’s notable about the current situation is that more and more business and practice communities are actively acknowledging the ways in which their contributions to our collective cultural and economic life depend on the ability to exercise the right of fair use in appropriate circumstances.” Jaszi has been a part of a recent study considering how artistic communities grapple with questions of copyright law, permissions, and fair use.
Third, Jaszi stressed that the defense of fair use is patterned, reliable, and predictable. He scoffed at the complaints of critics that the defense was vague, uncertain, and unpredictable: “The current state of the law is proving those critics wrong.”
Finally, Jaszi maintained that there was no pressing need to revise or reform the defense of fair use in the United States. He observed that “the last decade has seen a proliferation of decisions applying this flexible, purpose-based doctrine to uses in the digital domain, from the development of interoperable software products and Internet search technology, to the practice of remix culture, though mass digitization in the promotion of access to knowledge.” Jaszi stressed: “In effect, in only a few short decades, the courts have developed a robust ‘unified field theory’ of fair use which is fully capable of meeting the digital challenge and should be allowed to do so.”
In conclusion, Jaszi held that “the fair use doctrine adds materially to our cultural choices, our learning opportunities, and our access to innovation.” He commented: “We can only wonder (with some bemusement) why some of our most important foreign competitors, like the European Union, haven’t figured out that fair use is, to a great extent, the ‘secret sauce’ of U.S. cultural competitiveness.” Countries like Australia are at a competitive disadvantage, because their defense of fair dealing is much more limited and restricted than the United States doctrine of fair use.
In his testimony, Peter Jaszi deftly responded to questions from members of the United States Congress. Congressman Thomas Marino asked whether fair use encouraged piracy. This conflation of fair use and piracy is misleading and meretricious. The copyright industries have increasingly sought to slander fair use, by demonizing the defense, and scapegoating the doctrine for industry concerns about copyright infringement. Jaszi commented that internet piracy is not fair use because it would not meet the four factors under fair use and does not constitute transformative use.
Parker Higgins and Mitch Stoltz noted: “One area that got significant attention was the topic of mass digitization, which has been repeatedly determined by courts to be a fair and transformative use.” Jaszi defended the legitimacy of fair use precedents relating to Google Books and Hathi Trust. He maintained that such decisions were success stories, rather than problems. Jaszi made the strong point that the decisions promoted the fundamental principles of copyright law – the progress of science and the useful arts, access to knowledge and education. The Hathi Trust decision is particularly socially useful because it addresses the pernicious problem of disability discrimination.
Moreover, Jaszi also discussed the new fair use ruling involving the financial information company, Bloomberg. The debate in the United States Congress was further heightened by a new United States decision on copyright law and fair use. In the case of Swatch v. Bloomberg, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that Bloomberg’s recording and distribution of an earnings call by Swatch was protected by the defense of fair use. The court commented:
In the context of news reporting and analogous activities, moreover, the need to convey information to the public accurately may in some instances make it desirable and consonant with copyright law for a defendant to faithfully reproduce an original work rather than transform it. In such cases, courts often find transformation by emphasizing the altered purpose or context of the work, as evidenced by surrounding commentary or criticism.
Mike Masnick commented upon the ruling: “All in all, a nice clear win for fair use even when the full work is used for commercial reasons.”
Edward Black from the Computer and Communications Industry Association lamented that technology developers were not well-represented in the debate over copyright law and the defense of fair use in the United States Congress. He maintained that the defense of fair use was particularly important in facilitating a range of emerging technologies:
The same fair use principle that saved home video has also served MP3 players, DVRs, smartphones and a considerable portion of modern Internet functionality, like cloud computing, that we depend upon today. In recent years, we’ve seen courts invoke fair use to validate a variety of transformative, socially valuable services, including online search engines, including image and book search; commercial-skipping and time-shifting with DVRs; and a service that compares students’ papers against a database for plagiarism (who, understandably, might not want to authorize use of their papers to prevent cheating).
Black concluded:”Not only does fair use serve extensive societal interests, it has been a commercial boon to the U.S. economy — something policymakers should be interested in protecting.”
Mike Masnick makes the strong point that “fair use is the public’s right” and not only provides protection for “free speech” but enables “great and powerful innovation as well.” The emergence of new technologies such as 3D printing and cloud computing will pose new challenges for copyright law, and the flexibility of the defense of fair use, and the doctrine of transformative use.
Remix Culture, Fan Fiction, and Transformative Works
Also for the same hearing, Naomi Novik, provided an eloquent submission presentation to the United States Congress on copyright law, fair use, and remix culture.
One of the founding members of the Organization of Transformative Works, Novik is an American writer who is best known for her Temeraire series, which tell an alternative fantasy history of the Napoleonic Wars, featuring dragons.
This was a timely submission given the copyright litigation of late over remix culture. There has been much copyright litigation over literary mash-ups such as The Wind Done Gone and 60 Years Later; appropriation art by Shepard Fairy and Richard Prince; and digital sampling and musical quotations; and television advertisements such as GoldieBlox’s parody of the Beastie Boys.
Novik discussed the role of the defense of fair use with respect to remix culture, fan fiction, and mash-ups. She noted: “I am not a lawyer, but as one of the creators and artists whose work is deeply affected by copyright law, I hope to explain how vital fair use is to preserving our freedom and enabling us to create new and more innovative work.” Novik maintained: “I urge Congress to not only preserve but strengthen fair use, to encourage still more innovation and creative work by more new artists. I would ask in particular that Congress consider improving protections for fair users, especially individual artists, who are threatened with lawsuits or DMCA takedowns.”
Nostalgically, Novik recalled her early experiences, experimenting with fan fiction in an online remix community:
In 1994, while I was still in college, I first came across the online remix community. Over the next decade, before I wrote one word of my first novel, I wrote fanfiction, built online computer games, wrote opensource archiving software, and created remix videos. I met hundreds of other artists creating their own work, and found an enthusiastic audience who gave feedback and advice and help. I had no money for licenses or lawyers. Neither did my fellow artists. No one would have sold us one anyway. We weren’t trying to make money off our work. We were gathering around a campfire to sing and tell stories with our friends. The campfire was just a bigger one, and instead of telling new stories about Robin Hood, we told new stories about Captain Picard, because that was who we saw on television every week. Fair use gave us the right to do that.
Novik emphasized: “Our work was transformative in every sense of the word.” She stressed: “We weren’t simply retelling the old stories — we were creating new stories, and ones that weren’t being told.” Novik commented: “We transformed the original work, and we transformed ourselves by doing so.” She discussed how the creative community facilitated creativity: “We learned to think of ourselves as writers, artists, programmers, as creators.” She observed: “We took our craft seriously and so did our audience, and that audience was invaluable.”
Novik reflected that the history of art, literature, and drama has been one of borrowing:
Vincent van Gogh deliberately copied Japanese woodcuts so that he could find his own style. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from earlier sources. No one could deny that he transformed them. But imagine if the laws of his time had barred him from doing so. We wouldn’t have Hamlet, we wouldn’t have King Lear, we wouldn’t have Romeo and Juliet. And if Leonard Bernstein hadn’t borrowed from Romeo and Juliet, we wouldn’t have West Side Story. Now if we prevent the next generation from borrowing from West Side Story, we cap the flow of creativity, we dam the river of innovation.
Novick indicted that “Original work, work that stands alone, doesn’t just pop up out of nowhere.” She stressed that “It is at the end of a natural spectrum of transformation.” Novik emphasized that “Fair use protects this spectrum, this incubator if you will.” She noted: “It’s a space where artists can play with ideas and develop our skills, and share our work within a community and learn.”
Novik was skeptical of arguments by copyright owners about the utility of copyright licensing as a solution instead of fair use. She noted: “Licensing is not a realistic option for most artists and communities who rely on fair use.” Novik observed: “On the purely practical level, the vast majority of remix artists doing non-commercial work simply don’t have any of the resources to get a license — not money, not time, not access.” She stressed: “And speaking as a copyright holder, licensing is not a realistic option for most of us on the other side of the problem either.” Novik commented: “I very much don’t want the difficulty and legal risk and expense involved in coming up with a license and issuing one to everyone who would like to write their own story about becoming a dragon captain in the Temeraire universe.” She emphasized: “And more importantly, licensing still doesn’t work even if the practical considerations are removed, because licensing invariably stifles transformative work.”
Naomi Novik was concerned about the impact of copyright lawsuits on remix artists. She pleaded:
I would ask Congress to make it easier for developing artists, who are often at a significant disadvantage currently, to exercise their fair use right. I have never received a ceaseanddesist letter. But some of my fellow remix artists have, despite the fact that their work was completely noncommercial and highly transformative. It drove several of them completely out of the community and caused them to stop sharing their work, or it stopped them creating it at all. Virtually every remix video artist I know (including myself) has had their videos taken down from multiple platforms by automated systems that look for even minute fragments of copyrighted work. In order to restore them, if that’s even possible, they have had to file countercomplaints in the face of terrifying automated warnings telling them that they could be fined enormous amounts of money, and making them feel like criminals.
She lamented the destruction of remix culture: “I have gone hunting for stories and art and videos that were so good they stuck in my mind even years later, only to find out that they had been yanked down and were effectively destroyed.” In this context, there is a need for Fair Use Projects to ensure that creative artists have legal support, so that they can exercise their fair use rights.
In conclusion, Novik emphasized the importance of the defense of fair use to remix culture, amateur production, and fan fiction:
Our country is the world leader in innovation because here we ask those what if questions, and we are free to imagine what the answers look like. We’re encouraged to look around us at the things that exist and imagine how we could make them better, how we could take them to the next level, how we could transform them.
That is the spirit behind fair use. Fair use invites us to tinker and transform, and it frees us to explore ideas and share them with one another. It gives new artists and creators more tools to play with early in their careers and facilitates the evolution of genres and new forms. Any narrowing of fair use is inimical to this spirit.
The eloquent submission of Novik was an important reminder that the defense of fair use plays a critical role in encouraging artistic expression, creative freedom, and cultural sharing.
Unfortunately, creative artists in other jurisdictions do not necessarily have the flexibilities of the defense of fair use under copyright law. In Australia, there has been much policy debate about the inadequacies of the current defense of fair dealing, which is limited to specific purposes. Notably, in the “Kookaburra” case, Men at Work’s classic Australian anthem, “Down Under”, was found to have infringed the copyright in a Girl Guide campfire song about kookaburras. This has led to much debate as to whether there should be a modernization of Australian copyright law, and the introduction of a defense of fair use.
The IT Pricing Inquiry, and the Australian Law Reform Commission heard a range of evidence, supporting the introduction of such a defense into Australian law. The new Conservative Government, though, seems antagonistic to law reform in respect of copyright exceptions. The new Attorney-General, George Brandis, has been sympathetic to the demands of copyright owners for stronger measures with respect to copyright enforcement.
Furthermore, there is a need to ensure that remix culture, fan fiction, and mash-ups are not penalized under the proposed Intellectual Property Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Filed Under: copyright, fair use, naomi novik, peter jaszi
Comments on “Dr. Matthew Rimmer Takes A Closer Look At Fair Use”
wait and see, people. as there are things discussed and making sense here, all those things eventually turn full circle. those who want to eliminate fair use and increase copyright, both in forms and terms, rely a lot on people saying what they want eliminated or excused from copyright. those things are then put forward as the next parts to remove from the public being allowed to have and use.
so sad when you consider that those who are so adamant that copyright must be as severe as possible, last as long as possible with as severe penalties as possible were the very ones who relied on ‘no copyright’ to produce their first works, the works that perhaps gave them fame and fortune!
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They never start without money and most of them aren’t even creators. The few creators who are in the know and support more extreme copyright know people who know people who are willing to invest in their creative works given they sell their copyright to these investors.
By supporting increasing the powers in copyright they want to strenghten these exclusively subjective criteria for entering the market to avoid having to cost jobs for their friends or to keep competition manageable to avoid pressure on wages (many/most creators/artists do work on commission at times). Most people who support endless and unconditional copyrights are publishers and large image-relying companies with no money-woes and no lack of workers/lawyers to take care of Noviks dilemma.
They live in another world where endless and unconditional copyright increase their “investment opportunities” and their chances of getting a bigger share of license money.
When stronger copyrights increase the economic threshold for entering their market, it is an invaluable tool…
and
The only thing to do is rewrite copyright laws and only make businesses that use content of others to create wealth eg youtube/google/itunes/netflix. If an individual can make more money than the original song using the same music but singing the song in a different way or even the same way as the original then the original was obviously not that good and the new song and singer deserves compensation from their sales, full compensation.
It is stupid in my opinion to any money is given to the original artist from someone who does nothing more than play your song better than you. and if the original is good enough people will be buying that not a remix or re-recording.
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You are completely forgetting about marketing here. If anonymous creator makes a song and it is perfect, but is unable to spread it to a large audience, he is boned.
Now, if Madonna, Justin Bieber or president Obama sung the same song in a squeeling voice they would get far more money out of it, exclusively because they are who they are.
Being creative is not the same as being a marketeer.
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I can’t remember its name, but it reminds me of one smartphone game app that is continuously ripped off, yet people still go for the original because all the knockoffs spur the original’s creators to make their game even more awesome and so much better than the fakes that consumers naturally keep going for the better (their) product.
“In recent years, we’ve seen courts invoke fair use to validate a variety of transformative, socially valuable services, including online search engines, including image and book search; commercial-skipping and time-shifting with DVRs; and a service that compares students’ papers against a database for plagiarism “
“Black concluded:”Not only does fair use serve extensive societal interests, it has been a commercial boon to the U.S. economy — something policymakers should be interested in protecting.” “
image and book search, commercial-skipping, time shifting, and students papers cheating!!
leads to:
“COMMERCIAL BOON TO THE U.S. ECONOMY” !!!!!
nice words, but where is the substance, tell us how commercial-skipping DVR’s represents a COMMERCIAL BOON??
“to the practice of remix culture”
where is this amazing thing, why is there not “remixers” EVERYWHERE? changing out ‘culture’???
These sound a lot like a shopping list of “excuses’, its simply not true that all original works are “transformative” works stolen (with fair use) from someone else.
is this the ‘creationists’ argument for fair use? seems like it, stating all ‘useful arts’ were created by “some creator” originally, and everything we see today is therefore simply ‘fair use’ from this ‘great creation’.
so list some famous songs or artists creations, and explain how they were “transformative” (creationism) as opposed to evolutionary ?
Then show us some examples of how “remixer” have contributed to “the culture”..
I can only assume the lack of examples provided for in this long post is because they are very hard to find.
Do you honestly allowing a market call as “fair use” is somehow ‘promoting the fine arts’ or how a market call could be considered culture, transformative, or anything like art (let along ‘useful art’).
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These sound a lot like a shopping list of “excuses’, its simply not true that all original works are “transformative” works stolen (with fair use) from someone else.
citation needed
Seriously, try to prove it.
Every story of every Hero in myths ever? You wanna know something? All of them borrow from the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Anime? There are very, VERY few anime that don’t borrow from Dragon Ball, which in turn was inspired by Journey to the West.
Slapstick comedy originated from Jesters from mideval days.
Then show us some examples of how “remixer” have contributed to “the culture”..
I can only assume the lack of examples provided for in this long post is because they are very hard to find.
I just did.
Look at all of Disney’s movies.
ALL of them take from the Public Domain and then Disney edited them because the original was violent (the mermaid in the original story turned to sea foam, the Lion King was a mix of Shakespeare and Kimba the White Lion, Hercules, well, do I NEED to go into that one?)
The colored “Wizard of Oz” movie was a remake of the book after all.
Transformers, G.I. Joe and other Hasbro cartoons are based off of toys.
The Gummi Bears cartoon was invented simply because someone looked at the candy and thought “there should be a cartoon on this”.
Do you not know about the phrase “Standing on the shoulders of Giants?”
If not, here’s the meaning…
Using the understanding gained by major thinkers who have gone before in order to make intellectual progress.
Issac Newton said that in 1676, however, the phrase was said 400 years earlier by John of Salisbury.
John of Salisbury – “We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours.”
Issac Newton – “What Descartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colors of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
You, sir, are not only trying to troll everyone, but you aren’t very good at it.
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Much of it is a shopping list of excuses, because in application they are used as excuses for bad behavior, and not because of any great noble goal to “advance culture”. Much of the modern remix society is just out and out laziness, the desire for people with less talent than the original artists to sponge off of the work done before.
What is interesting is the author starts off citing Camptell C Acuff Rose, which in itself states something that Techdirt denies every day (and I quote) “Since fair use is an affirmative defense”. Also, as one other source notes, “The Supreme Court held that 2 Live Crew’s commercial parody may be a fair use within the meaning of ? 107”. It did not in fact rule that is was a parody at that, point, only that the lower courts had failed to consider that possibility fairly.
Moreover, while the case is cited often for it’s fair use ruling, the end of the case was different – as was the desires of both parties. In the end (wording from Wikipedia) ” According to press reports, under terms of the settlement, Acuff-Rose dismissed its lawsuit, and 2 Live Crew agreed to license the sale of its parody of the song. Although Acuff-Rose stated that it was paid under the settlement, the terms were not otherwise disclosed.”. Basically, it was a case with much more to do with forcing licensing than free speech. Even 2 Live Crew knew they were sitting on the shoulders of a giant and were more than happy to license the work. Most rap artists just don’t have that sort of respect for those who came before them.
Now, as for you own reference to Newton, there is a significant difference between knowledge (which very specifically advances mankind) and a rap artist wanting to yell obscene lyrics over a classic song. It’s the very reason you cannot copyright natural facts. Also, his goal was noble, that to move the concept ahead further, and not to make a quick buck and call it even.
So in reality, rap artists (who rely on full song samples) don’t stand on the shoulder of giants, they more or less take a squat on the talented people who came before them. Without those talented people, they wouldn’t have a soap box to stand on, they wouldn’t have a musical background for their work, a popular melody and sound to play off of.
Now, before anyone goes off, please note that I think some artists have done very impressive renditions and variations on others works, but most of those were “official” and approved, and not just plain rips. Some are even very good at samples and re-assembly, but the work is still very derivative and it is well founded legally that even small samples should be licensed.
Finally, let’s consider the case that the original author points at, the 2 Live Crew deal. They were in a rare position in that their song had some of the elements of potential fair use, but even then, even they didn’t want to press the point in a second go around in court and agreed to license, as they had requested to do up front. They knew what they were doing was derivative and that they should license, and should stand as an example for others to follow.
Remember “fair use is an affirmative defense”. If everyone reading Techdirt could understand that basic point and stop arguing about it, then this long post would be worth it.
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Except that you’ve been found to be a complete lunatic when it comes to anything that might threaten copyright length, and a liar claiming that you’ve been blocked.
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horse with no name just hates it when due process is enforced.
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There are plenty of anime that don’t draw from Dragon Ball! Mind you, I could probably tell you what they do draw from with just a little research. And I’d be hard-pressed to find one whose lineage I couldn’t eventually trace to somewhere in the oeuvre of Osamu Tezuka, who was inspired by Disney and Betty Boop.
Literature studies and film and media studies do not exist because everything is unique and must be studied independently but, in part, because we want to see how they’re connected.
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There are plenty, however, they’re in the minority that didn’t draw from Dragon Ball/DBZ. But, yeah, you are right, anime in its current form can be traced back to WW2 with Betty Boop and Disney. nod
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It’s certainly influenced a swath of shōnen. I’ll even grant you some sideways art influence on some magical girl anime with costume power-ups and transforming hair (e.g., the PreCure meta-series, especially Splash Star).* Akira Toriyama’s art style in general has been somewhat influential, but even so, some of that has to do with the award-winning Dr. Slump and culture-shaping Dragon Quest series; it’s not all because of Dragon Ball.
On the other hand, I’d suggest that appreciable influence from Dragon Ball is rare or virtually absent in shōjo, shows set in the real world or the harder side of SF, romances, &c. I simply don’t see it having much effect outside its genre and core tropes any more than I would credit Star Trek with noticeably influencing sitcoms.
Of course, it hasn’t even been 70 years since most of these anime genres and tropes were invented; if derivative works were policed with no allowance for the usual mechanisms of culture, we wouldn’t have any of these genres because early pioneers like Mitsuteru Yokoyama or their heirs would be able to claim anything sharing enough traits to be identifiable as sharing a genre as derivative works.
*The magical girl genre is actually quite good as an example of culture building on culture, because you can easily subdivide it by what it stole from other genres. For example, transformations all date back to appropriation from Cutie Honey, Super Sentai elements were first appropriated by Sailor Moon, PreCure dares mix elements of Super Sentai and Kamen Rider (both of which air in the same programming block as it), and Nanoha is functionally a shōnen mecha show (with, yes, influence from Dragon Ball).
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Actually, I’d say that other than romance, which not all Shojo is, mind you, and stuff like Death Note (which draws from Evangelion), every anime has influences from DBZ.
Idiot hero
wacky hair shapes
training from hell
defeat means friendship
being forgiving to past enemies if they aren’t 100% evil
Enemies continually getting stronger and stronger, forcing new power-ups at least once a season
Over-shadowed by awesome and can’t catch up tropes may not have originated from DB/DBZ, but they sure were codified there
The current big bad can only be defeated by the main character, again, not started by DB/Z, but codified by it, how many times was it Goku or Gohan that had to beat the big bad and everyone else could only stand around and watch despite being close to them in power and ability?
And others, but I can’t think of them all off the top of my head.
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You have a surprisingly narrow view of anime.
Gundam predates Dragonball by several years. Pretty much the entire giant robot genre descends from either it, or the super-robot series that preceded it.
In addition to romance basically ignoring slice of life series, and sports series where the cliches/tropes you cite seldom apply. Even the ones that do likely don’t come from Dragonball, but from earlier things.
Basically your definitely of anime seems to be entirely “battle shounen series”.
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Well, that was rather blunter than I was trying to be, but the point is the same.
Silverscarcat, I suspect that some of the tropes you list have parallel constructions in other genres such that the most likely inspirations for any given series is an exemplar in the same genre, which isn’t necessarily Dragon Ball or related to it. For example, Training From Hell goes back to at least Aim for the Ace!, which has more than a decade on Dragon Ball, was wildly popular and influential, and inspired a little parody called Aim for the Top!?better known as Gunbuster?which was a major part of the ’80s revolution in mecha anime. (And Training from Hell was a major part of the parody aspect, so there’s definitely a line of transmission there.) There’s no reason to think that any sports show ever has looked to Dragon Ball for inspiration, and indeed no reason a mecha show would have to, either.
I can’t do the other tropes off of the top of my head, but while you may be right that some of them are codified in Dragon Ball, most of them are specific to fighting anime. And even then you could argue over the degree to which, e.g., Ranma?which started a few years later but ran in parallel with Dragon Ball?was influenced by Dragon Ball vs. representing an independent transmission or creation of the tropes. And let’s not forget live-action; anime has long been heavily influenced by tokusatsu series, especially the Godzilla movies and the big four TV franchises,* all of which have power creep over the course of the series and a variety of other such action tropes dating back to long before Dragon Ball.
*Ultraman, Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, and Metal Heroes.
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And yet, anime has gone far beyond Disney so much, it’s scary.
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Scary if you’re Disney, maybe.
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Yeah, because everybody knows anime makes WAY more money at the box office than Disney movies…
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If anime steers clear of hollywood accounting, then they most certainly do.
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Or did you mean to say Disney’s gross?
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If you study literature solely from an independent perspective you will never truely understand its context. Culture is forming reality for people without history. As soon as you can see the context, inspirations and ideas, the interpretation of reality and thus a more informed platform for interpreting becomes apparent.
Without context, culture doesn’t move anything. It is still culture, but not in the cumulative way. When talking “transformative”, the inspirations and contexts are overtly visible and the interpretations will therefore be easier to make. Since the interpretation is the value of a work for the interpreter, transformative holds quite an advantage in terms of maxing number of ideas.
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I would go even as far to say that aspects of Sonic The Hedgehog derive from Dragonball and Dragonball Z.
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Never mind Sonic also deriving from Michael Jackson and Star Wars.
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I’m intrigued…Sonic from Michael and Star Wars? Do explain please.
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Well, from Sonic 2 all the way to Sonic and Knuckles, Dr Robotnik’s main flying fortress was something that resembled the Death Star and had his glasses and huge moustache built onto it to scale, and it was called the “Death Egg”.
And particularly in Sonic 3, Michael Jackson’s music and beats can be heard in derived tracks in some zones, most notably in the Ice Cap zone where a track that sounds quite parallel to Smooth Criminal is played.
And Super Sonic’s “transformation” is obviously very similar to Goku’s Super Saiyan transformation, and the 7 Chaos Emeralds can very well be a liking to the 7 Dragonballs.
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Michael Jackson composed the music for Sonic 3.
“Everyone who makes culture or participates in the innovation economy relies on fair use routinely…”
Never met anyone who makes “culture”, and the meaning of the term “innovation economy” is not readily apparent.
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Really? I have. I grew up a few blocks from an author, and I’m friends with others. (Actually, now that I think about it, quite a few of my friends have been published, even if only one makes a living at it.) My wife is an artist. I’d say all of them make things that would fit any definition of “culture” involving “the arts,” which is a common part of the primary, non-technical definition of the word in any reference source I’ve checked. (See, e.g., Merriam-Webster, Wiktionary, The Free Dictionary, Dictionary.com, &c. &c. &c.) I’m sorry that you’ve not been as fortunate.
If you want to go with a more Classical or anthropological definition, I’ve meet some spiritual leaders as well. But then, nobody involved in this debate is an anthropologist, and you don’t get to pick and choose your definitions just so you win. (If it was, you could just say you’ve never met a cheesemaker or brewer or baker or biologist, but what would that have to do with copyright?)
Now, I do have to admit that I’m no economic expert. But I suspect that “innovation economy” has something to do with an economy that derives a significant portion of its gains from innovation as opposed to copying or routine. In any case, it only comes up once in the article, and while you could reasonably make the case that it’s more relevant to patent than copyright, you can’t argue against the overall point on the grounds that you couldn’t precisely define one term in a conjunction. Not even if your personal ignorance of the definition was a valid argument, which it isn’t.
Re: Re:
Never met anyone who makes “culture”, and the meaning of the term “innovation economy” is not readily apparent.
You must lead a rather sad life, because nearly everyone I know makes culture, and is involved in the innovation economy.
Get out a bit. See the world.
Re: Re: Re:
I just got back from shopping and found nary a store that sells “culture kits”. People do not make culture, no matter how many times you and others may say it. They create music, movies, photos, paintings, books, etc., each of which are a discrete “object”, otherwise know in the parlance of copyright law a “work of authorship”, which if “original” may be subject to copyright law. I can accept that such works may contribute to the wealth of works that help define our culture, but to say that someone makes culture is inapt.
As for “innovation economy”, it remains undefined. Is the purchase and use of a car a part of this new “economy”? What about growing soybeans using Monsanto seeds? I find it curious that I never heard or read this term until recently, and even then in the limited context of people railing against bodies of law such as patents and copyrights.
Your final comment is nothing more than a sleight of hand, hoping that it will make people think “Wow, Mike is cool and sure put that troll in his place.” Why not simply traverse with substantive comments?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
“I can accept that such works may contribute to the wealth of works that help define our culture, but to say that someone makes culture is inapt.”
Where else do you think culture comes from?
Look, my reason for banging on about the unresolvable “overlapping of property” that copyright creates, in particular how original art forces derivative artists to give up their rights and ability to bring about new expressions, is because no copyright supporter CAN resolve the paradox of this overlapping. If fools are content with saying that even one second samples of music cannot qualify as fair-use because the musician may have invested the vast majority of his money into that one second, it must then follow that any and all fair-use, and hence free expression, is unjustified. No critic would be able to quote from a movie on the grounds that a penny stolen from a safe is still theft nonetheless, which is an absurd way of thinking about property in this context.
And the reason why I keep banging on about treating intellectual property as a service and not a product is that you don’t get the overlap with this lens. Originals and derivatives can then both invest in their works without having to hold each other prisoner.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I went to the grocery store the day before yesterday but could not find any “food.” There was milk, bread, eggs, breaded eggs . . . but no “food.” I can accept that those individual objects may contribute to the national food supply, but to say that farmers grow food is inapt.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Culture :-
and
From Wiktionary.
Culture is a gestalt, and results from the active participation of people. Obscure works of art, hidden in basements and safes, are not really part of culture. A widely photographed picture know to many is. I cannot give you any examples of the first category, because they are not part of culture. The Mona Lisa on the other hand, is a cultural icon because it has been talked about, copied, photographed and parodied more that any other painting in the world. People reacting to it, and using it many ways, have spread knowledge about it across most of the world, so yes people do make culture. Without this reaction it would be just another painting sitting in a basement in some museum, and of little or no significance to culture.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Sorry, but people do make culture.
Music, movies, books, TV, video games, all of it contributes to culture.
How old are you? Five?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
People make books, art, etc. Not all books, art, etc. contribute to culture. And the only thing a person can do to make his work a part of a culture is be lucky. Therefore, a person can’t create culture.
I can name plenty of books that I’ve read and enjoyed that I’ve never heard anyone else so much as mention. Those books exist, and someone made them, but they aren’t a part of culture.
Re: Re: Re:3
i think you mean ‘not a part of POPULAR culture’
because it’s all a part of culture, just very very little of it ever actually becomes popular
but not being popular does not mean it isn’t culture
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
“i think you mean ‘not a part of POPULAR culture'”
or he meant not a part of YOUR (or his) culture, culture is what you do, you cant buy it, or sell it, you just live it.
what about (for example) Gangbanger culture, how are you going to ‘buy’ ‘sell’ share that culture? if it is not what you do, it is not your culture.
culture is what you are and what you do, a cultural group is a number of people who do similar things to you, and are similar to you in what you are.
such as the literary culture, if you like to write books, and because there are others who like to write group it is your culture to be literary, but its just stupid to think you have the right to take aspects of others culture because you consider it ‘culture’ and therefore should be ‘free to all’.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
so you write a book about a man who goes to sea and kills a whale, explain how that contributes to ‘culture’? and who’s culture and what culture?
or is ‘culture’ homogenous and ubiquitous, and something like ‘air’ ?
yes people do create cultures, like TD creates a culture of Government hatred, hatred for NSA and Snowden hero worship. That is a culture, that is your culture. Clearly ‘culture’ itself is neither necessarily good or bad, slave trade culture might be consider bad and not worthy of promotion but worthy of suppression.
You simply cannot just hold “CULTURE” up as a great concept. Just saying you ‘contribute to ‘culture'” as a sweeping statement means nothing, because there is no ONE culture, and but many (infinite) cultures, some very bad, some destructive, some good, some you agree with, many you don’t.
nor do you make a culture, or ‘contribute’ to it, you live it, it is you! culture is you, you are not culture.
If you write a book it is in your culture to write a book, you might contribute to THE COLTURE of writing books, in that sense, but you contribute because YOU are part of that culture, but you are NOT CULTURE itself.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
You’re doing the same silly thing some Creationists do – you’re conflating multiple meanings of a word; rather intellectually dishonest of you.
To “contribute to culture” is to communicate to others some bit of creativity produced by your mind acting upon the body of ‘existing’ culture.
Stories build upon the existing literature/oral tradition for meaning (I suggest listening to some of Joseph Campbell’s interviews on mythology – seriously); paintings re-interpret what older works did in mood, setting and arrangement. Music inherits its tempo and embellishments from what came before. All of these add to culture because (1) they’re communicated and (2) they’ve transformed in at least a small way what they built on. It could be telling a classic fairy tale from the view of the villain, for example, turning a classic story of righteous rebellion against evil authority into a tragedy of misunderstandings (or any other theme). It could be changing the setting of an existing story from ancient Greece to colonies on Mars. It could be taking an existing melody and combining it with another scribed decades or centuries later to form something previously unrealized.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Culture is also about the influence it has on you. A person given a new idea is never the same as they once were before, so even an unpublished work contributes to culture because that person was changed culturally when they created it.
Culture is the norms, mores, symbols, beliefs, and customs of a group of people. They don’t have to be communicated directly to influence culture so long as one person is influenced by it, namely, the author. If even one person is influenced, it propagates throughout a society and culture is changed.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
“A person given a new idea is never the same as they once were before”
but the TD trolls will tell you that you cant steal idea’s, and if you cant steal them, you most certainly cannot give them away!
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
I just stole all the copyright laws, now what are you going to do?
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
You can’t give them away, that’s true – but that doesn’t mean you can’t give them at all.
For a partial analogy, consider diseases. If you have the flu, you can give it to someone else, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have it anymore.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“How old are you? Five?”
I also see you have the culture of simple, stupid ad hom comments,
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
And your culture is one that adds nothing to the conversation, it seems.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I just got back from shopping and found nary a store that sells “culture kits”.
Really? Because almost every store that I visit sells “culture kits.” Pencils and paper, cameras, musical instruments, art supplies – all of these things are nothing but “culture kits.” They may not be marketed as such, but that’s what they are.
They create music, movies, photos, paintings, books, etc., each of which are a discrete “object”
No, actually, they are not discrete “objects.” They are fixed in a discrete “object” (an “embodiment in a copy or phonorecord” in the parlance of copyright law). And copyright law only covers other objects in which that music, movie, etc. is fixed. It’s a subtle distinction, but it must be made, because it reveals that copyright is a restriction on the “objects” of others.
This is especially significant when it comes to fair use. Without fair use, copyright holders would have absolute veto power over other works of art. This would go against the very purpose of copyright, which is to promote the production of artworks for the public. And the public may gain just as much from an artwork that makes fair use of another, as it does from the original artwork. To grant copyright holders veto power over these works would be detrimental to the very thing that justifies copyright’s existence in the first place.
I can accept that such works may contribute to the wealth of works that help define our culture, but to say that someone makes culture is inapt.
The only way it would be “inapt” is if such works were never published. Sure, not every work is a part of culture; I write short stories in my spare time, none of which make it out of my typewriter (or hard drive, as the case may be). These works are not part of culture, because nobody else sees them.
But the moment I publish them, the moment I make them available to the public, is the very moment that they are part of our culture. They may not be a very large part, but they are a part of culture nonetheless.
And this also reveals something about artworks. If they are not part of culture, they have no value whatsoever. I may write a book or make a movie, but until the public values them, they are useless as works of art – and certainly useless as commercial products. It is culture that creates value in art – not the other way around.
As for “innovation economy”, it remains undefined.
Your Google-fu is weak:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation_economics
Notice that nowhere in that article is anyone “railing against bodies of law such as patents and copyrights.”
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
tell me something you do that contributes too, or derives from your (or a) culture?
Re: Re: Re:3
Um. Everything i like or do just about?
I’m probably one of the 5 people who does not, has never, and will never identify with or consider myself apart of ANY of the ‘main’ cultures on this earth.. you’re all fucking aliens to me.
I spend most days just looking for shit to add to my goulash, or refining what I already have. Or ass-pulling new stuff for it. I’m CONSTANTLY contributing to it and CONSTANTLY deriving from it (Hell even me just writing derives from it.. to date I never met anyone who says or does stuff like I do, everyone just thinks I’m crazy or weird, well the feeling is mutual!)
Even the ‘main’/’normal’/’established’ or whatever cultures do this all the time. Cultures are like species they are constantly changing and evolving.
Re: Re: Re:4
And ironically I do derive from other cultures sometimes, but not much really.. the pickings are pretty slim. There’s just so much BS in the world, really the entire reason I branched off like this in the first place.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
“I’m probably one of the 5 people who does not, has never, and will never identify with or consider myself apart of ANY of the ‘main’ cultures on this earth.. you’re all fucking aliens to me.
“
well for starters your on the internet, so one could assume you have a culture of being on the internet, I guess a few other people on the planet might have that same culture.
” I’m CONSTANTLY contributing to it and CONSTANTLY deriving from it (Hell even me just writing derives from it”
if culture is YOU, (what you are, and what you do, believe and know), I would say that is why you are constantly contributing to it and deriving from it, doesn’t everyone?
Culture is WHAT YOU ARE, and what you are apart of by fait or by choice, Culture is what you do, and what you choose to do.
If it is in your culture to write books (you are part of the literary culture) that is what you do, if it is in your culture to surf the web and comment on TD, then that is what YOU do, culture is what you do, if others do it as well you share that culture, but you cannot take the culture from someone else and call it your own.. and culture itself is neither good or bad.
You might have a literary culture (you write books) and be part of a group that shares that culture, but that says nothing about the books you write being good or bad, your contributing to the literary culture by writing books, even very bad ones, so your contribution is only in the fact you do it, not that ‘it’ is good, or that “it” also contributes, because it may not.
lets say, you have a drug culture, (its what you do) you buy drugs and you take them, others also have a drug culture, you contribute to that culture when you buy or use drugs, “it” is neither good or bad (but can be bad) but it is what you do.
The only way to share the drug culture is have other people do what you are doing, what is your culture to do.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
tell me something you do that contributes too, or derives from your (or a) culture?
I write and perform music. (Not popular music, of course, but it still contributes to the culture of a minority.)
I am, right now, writing a comment in a public forum. For better or worse, I am contributing to the culture of everyone who reads this post.
I listen to music, watch TV and movies, and go to art galleries. These things affect me in some way: the words I use to express myself, how I think about myself or the world, and so on. Those effects may be (and usually are) fairly trivial, but they are still internalized, and become part of me to some degree. They all become part of my culture.
I also talk about music, TV, movies, and art with my friends and acquaintances (online and offline). We use words, phrases, or jokes that we’ve seen in these works. We share likes and dislikes, criticism or praise, or (if we’re lucky) how those things changed our world views. These things are now part of our shared culture.
Fundamentally, there is no difference at all between “culture” and “communication.”
And until a work of art does that, the work has absolutely no value at all. In fact, that value – and that value alone – is why the special privilege of copyright is granted in the first place.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
that’s right Karl, you have your personal culture that YOU contribute too, for your own benefit, and cultural advancement.
As you correctly point out, many (if not most or all) of your culture(s) are shared by others, you are not the only one with a culture of writing and playing music, but that is YOUR culture, not “THE CULTURE”, you contribute to you OWN culture, and as such contribute to the wide culture.
it is in your personal belief and behaviour system to make and play music, as it is with others, it is also in your belief and behaviour system (culture) that aligns with the belief and behaviours of TD, you have a SHARED culture, but you either have it or not..
I can come to TD and read TD’s cultural attitudes, I can share in that culture, but I do not have to LIVE that culture, or accept it as part of my own culture.
And like you, I can listen to music written by someone else and played by someone else (from their culture) and share in that, but that does not mean I am part of that culture.
So yes, you contribute to your own culture, because its how you are, (and what people do), but its your own, even if shared by a wider group, and not shared by an even wider group.
you think there is no difference between culture and communication ? Really !!!! Did you even think about that statement before you wrote it?
Why don’t you explain the similarities between culture and communications please. For someone to make that statement you should be able to give many examples showing how culture and communications are the same thing!
“And until a work of art does that, the work has absolutely no value at all. In fact, that value – and that value alone – is why the special privilege of copyright is granted in the first place.”
what the hell does that mean? are you saying now somehow culture is tied to value? “and until a work of art does that” DOES WHAT ??? does culture??? does communication ?? speaks ??
and until art does “SOMETHING WE DONT KNOW” ‘is why the special privilege of copyright is granted in the first place’..
Culture and communication !!!! Makes me wonder what you are trying to communicate here, if you work it out, let me know.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
You know, you seem to be very good at being dismissive (and very good at typing multiple question marks), but you are very bad at reading and comprehension. I thought I was pretty clear, but just in case:
that’s right Karl, you have your personal culture that YOU contribute too, for your own benefit, and cultural advancement.
It is not just my personal culture, because there isn’t such a thing. And it is not just me because I communicate things to other people. Just as an artwork is not simply the artist’s “personal culture,” because when they communicate their art to me, it becomes part of my culture too.
that is YOUR culture, not “THE CULTURE”
There is no such thing as “THE CULTURE.” Certain expressions may be more widely communicated than others, but that is all.
And like you, I can listen to music written by someone else and played by someone else (from their culture) and share in that, but that does not mean I am part of that culture.
Yes, that is exactly what it means. If you listen to music written by someone else and played by someone else and share in that, then you absolutely are part of that music’s culture.
You are also a part of “the Techdirt culture,” even if you don’t agree with Techdirt’s views here are not. You are part of this culture simply by posting here, whether you (or I) like it or not.
Your expression may or may not be valuable here, but that is a slightly different question. For example, I dislike Nickleback. I do not voluntarily listen to that band, and nobody in my little sub-culture of friends does either. But that does not mean that Nickleback is not part of my culture. It is part of my culture simply because I have heard them (voluntarily or not); simply because I’ve heard people talk about them; simply because I formed an opinion of them. They hold no value to me, but that doesn’t mean they are not part of my culture. Just as a critic who writes a negative review of a piece of music is still part of that music’s culture.
you think there is no difference between culture and communication ? Really !!!! Did you even think about that statement before you wrote it?
Yes, but you apparently did not think about that statement before you made fun of it.
In order to communicate, something must be communicated. That “something” is culture, or a part of culture. It becomes a part of culture precisely because it is communicated. Without culture, communication is impossible; without communication, expressions cannot become culture at all.
what the hell does that mean? are you saying now somehow culture is tied to value? “and until a work of art does that” DOES WHAT ??? does culture??? does communication ?? speaks ??
When it comes to expression, yes, culture is tied to value. More than that: for expressive works, its cultural value just is its artistic value.
This becomes readily apparent when you consider monetary value (and not value in the wider sense). Would you pay for a CD, without having any clue what the music sounds like, or who performed it? Would you buy a DVD that you’ve never heard of, then store it in the basement, sight unseen, without ever watching it, or even knowing what’s on it?
No, of course not. An artwork is valuable because it communicates something with you. It becomes more desirable because you talk about it with others, share ideas about it, critique it. Its entire value is its value as an instance of cultural communication. It is valuable because it communicates, because it “speaks” to us. And the more people it “speaks” to, the more valuable it becomes.
and until art does “SOMETHING WE DONT KNOW” ‘is why the special privilege of copyright is granted in the first place’..
We all know what it does, even if you want to deny it. And, yes, that’s why the special privilege of copyright is granted in the first place.
The purpose of copyright is to promote the progress of “science” (here, meaning “learning” or “culture”). In the words of Fox Film v. Doyal, “The sole interest of the United States and the primary object in conferring the monopoly lie in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors.” The copyright laws are designed to benefit the public by “promoting broad public availability of literature, music, and the other arts.” (Twentieth Century Music v. Aiken.)
It is this “broad public availability” which is what makes works valuable, benefits the general public, and promotes the progress of learning and culture. It is the only way that art can possibly entertain, enlighten, or inspire others. And it is what copyright is designed to achieve.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
“And like you, I can listen to music written by someone else and played by someone else (from their culture) and share in that, but that does not mean I am part of that culture.”
so you listen to Reggae music, you get curly hear, change your skin color, and call your friend “mon”?
So when you need another culture you become part of that culture?
When you see a gangster movie on TV you adopt the gangster culture?
Or when you hear early Christian music, you get the urge to go to church and yell halleluiah?
No you do not become part of the culture just because you experience a part of that culture, just as I am not of the culture of US Government hatred, even though I read about your culture of such hatred.
you may be influenced by other cultures, but that does not make you are part of it.
you personal culture is who you are and what you believe and what you do, sure, it is influenced by other culture and other people (and their cultures) and your culture may influence others, but it DOES NOT BECOME the culture of others.
You could look at Australian Aboriginal ‘DOT’ art continuously for the rest of your life, and it will not put you in the culture of the Australian Aboriginals.
You can buy a million bows and arrows, wear feather head dresses, built and live in a tepee, and share in and experience the native American culture, but its just not your culture, and never will be. You will probably just always be a WASP..
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
Karl’s not kidding; your level of reading and comprehension is thoroughly and completely fucked up beyond all belief.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
so you listen to Reggae music, you get curly hear, change your skin color, and call your friend “mon”?
If you think that’s the extent of the influence of Bob Marley (or of reggae music in general), then you have absolutely no idea about music or culture.
You might have well have said, “you get straight WASP-y hair, take no showers, and smoke lots of weed.” Or: “You dress yourself in polo shirts, join a college fraterniy, and spend the next few years doing keg stands.” Bob Marley’s music is now at least as much a part of these peoples’ culture as it is a part of Jamaican culture. And that’s the point. Simply because Marley communicated his expression, he has become part of their culture. And, make no mistake, it’s because of this spreading of his culture that his music is valuable; his music would be worthless (in all senses of the word) if he had never peformed his reggae songs at all.
Plus, let’s not forget that he didn’t invent reggae. There were many, many people who did before him. And he did not start out doing reggae; he originally wrote ska music. Any historian of ska music will tell you that it started in Jamaica, but was adopted by 70’s British working-class youths. They adopted it so completely, that any person on Earth now associates ska music with 70’s Brithish working-class culture, and not with the Jamaican culture that spawned it. No matter who your fictional listener with “curly hear, [darker] skin color, and call[s] your friend ‘mon'”, I’m betting that they enjoy The English Beat.
Your stupid little “rebuttal” just proves my point. The entire Western world listens to Bob Marley, and so the entire western world is part of the culture that Marley’s music has spawned. And it is not a one-direcional communication. I don’t know much about Marley himself, but I know for a fact that he was himself influenced by the American musicians that he encountered. That’s how culture works.
you personal culture is who you are and what you believe and what you do, sure, it is influenced by other culture and other people (and their cultures) and your culture may influence others, but it DOES NOT BECOME the culture of others.
If you actually believe that – which I’m certain you don’t – then it means that it is impossible for culture to be transmitted at all. If a Japanese person dedicates his or her live to performing Beethoven, then by your argument, they are nonetheless not any kind of any part of any culture that Beethoven is a part of. That is utterly ridiculous, and any person who is a fan of classical music would agree.
The truth is that the only way any culture can become the culture of others, is exactly through being influenced by other cultures and other people, and is exactly through your culture influencing others. That is the only thing that culture is. Being influenced by other peoples’ ideas, and influencing the ideas of others, is the entirety of culture. Without it, culture can not exist.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
ska, reggae, just more nigger shit
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
See? You’re contributing to a culture of hate. Isn’t culture grand?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“Really? Because almost every store that I visit sells “culture kits.” Pencils and paper, cameras, musical instruments, art supplies – all of these things are nothing but “culture kits.” “
So I give you a pen and paper, start creating a culture! start NOW !!!!
ok what did you do, what is this culture you created? explain a few of the aspects of this ‘culture’ you now have?
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
A man called Anonymous Coward,
Upon many comments just glowered.
For a troll such as he,
Ne’er an answer there be;
By any post he is empowered.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Step 1: Draw art
Step 2: Post it
You have contributed to culture. Perhaps not a meaningful major earthshattering one, but you contributed.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
not very bright are you
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Culture = enduring memories, constant recycling of ideas, those that endure are called cultural assets.
Everyone is always creating culture and the copying it by others is what will make it relevant or not, resilient or not, lasting or not.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I just got back from shopping and found nary a store that sells “culture kits”. People do not make culture, no matter how many times you and others may say it. They create music, movies, photos, paintings, books, etc., each of which are a discrete “object”, otherwise know in the parlance of copyright law a “work of authorship”, which if “original” may be subject to copyright law. I can accept that such works may contribute to the wealth of works that help define our culture, but to say that someone makes culture is inapt.
I still suggest you need to get out a lot more. I know lots of people who create culture. I don’t know anyone who creates “a work of authorship for the sake of getting a copyright.” Lots of people make culture. I know no one who makes “works to copyright.”
As for “innovation economy”, it remains undefined.
No. It doesn’t. Not only are these two rather easy to understand words, but others here in this thread have defined it for you.
Look, I recognize that you’re a lawyer, and a lawyer who loves to slobber over copyright and patent maximalists, while trolling Techdirt, but you honestly look incredibly stupid here. You have to be either incredibly stupid or simply trolling to be an asshole. Given our usual interactions here, we’ll take it as confirmed that you’re the latter.
Not sure why you do that, though I do understand why you no longer sign your name.
Once again: I know, I know, you think because you once had a high profile job, that you know things that no one else could possibly know. However, now you’re just an internet troll. You must be so proud of yourself.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
the two words have their own separate definition, but the TERM “innovation economy” has no definition, and not ‘defined in reality’, you can make up definitions of it if you like, you can make up definition for everything, that does not make them correct, or real.
list some examples of a economy (we know what that is) based on ‘innovation’ (the correct definition of innovation please).
I am already expecting you to trot out Google, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix as your examples of an ‘innovation economy’, but then you look at the economics of these ‘industries’ you find the economics are not derived from ‘innovation’, but from other things.
Simply because ‘technology’ is involved does not make traditional economies into ‘innovation economies’ Google still makes its money off adds (no innovation in advertising there), Facebook off adds (if they ever turn a profit), Netflix of subscribers, not innovation, but LEGACY industries.
Yes, the tern “innovation economies” exists, no it does not have a clear definition, it also have no known real world applications.
But it is a part of your culture and the culture fostered here at TD that is does exist, no one said your personal beliefs has to agree with reality. Or your cultural beliefs. Nor is there a requirement for them to be right or righteous.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
A Coward could do naught but tremble;
He knew a troll he would resemble.
This fact he could not bear,
Nor anything that’s fair;
That would his ego disassemble.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“As for “innovation economy”, it remains undefined.
No. It doesn’t. Not only are these two rather easy to understand words, but others here in this thread have defined it for you.”
we were hoping you would provide your own definition, and not rely on others to do it for you. If you are going to post in support of a term, that’s great, at least then write in support of the term, not just in defence of you fan posters.
So there is a definition, but you are not going to offer one, but you would rather spend your time attacking the person posting and his career choice ! spent a lot of time doing that, and one line defending ‘the term’, by stating your ‘people’ have already provided definitions.
instead you call him a slobbering, stupid, lawyer who ‘once’ had a high profile job, then you call him a trolling asshole!, tell him, and be critical of him for who he is and not signing his name.
But just one sentence about ‘innovation economy’ that was basically ‘fuck off’. oh yea, you also tell him to ‘get out more’ and that you know more people then he does.
A really very nasty and reactionary outburst from you, with personal insults, just because he said something you seem to not agree with.
Makes me wonder who is the real trolling asshole here?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“I know lots of people who create culture.”
name one and explain the nature of the culture THEY created? please.
“I still suggest you need to get out a lot more.(insult)
“I know lots of people who create culture.”
name one and detail ‘the culture’ they created.
You don’t create culture, you live it, its what you are, and what you do and what you believe, if what you believe and what you do are shared by other you have a shared culture.
If you have a culture of hating the US Government for example, you can promote and foster that culture, but you do not create it, you with TD promote your personal culture, you make great efforts to convince others of the righteousness of your culture, but you did not create this culture, you do not create who you are and what you believe. but you can try to convince others you way with the right path. Many cultures do this. You have NO rights to culture, nor can it be bought, sold or otherwise traded.
I don’t know anyone who creates “a work of authorship for the sake of getting a copyright.” Lots of people make culture. I know no one who makes “works to copyright.”
You Mr Masnick also appear to have a strong culture of responding to reasonable comments with abuse, insults and rhetoric, deferring comment on the issues to ‘other posters’!
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Masnick defers to other posters because they answered in a way he feels is adequate to your question.
Anti-government culture is still culture, there is nothing wrong with it, in fact, it’s necessary to have a functional society. Blind trust creates problems. He creates by presenting his views, writing articles, and contributing his opinion. That adds to culture. He did not create it, but he is part of it and adds to it.
You have a strong habit of ignoring posts that explain your points to you. And if Masnick does respond in full, you move goalposts. Such has it been, such will it always be.
Just because he finds you a dumb slobbering asshole, take note, he is not using his insults as an attempt to discredit your opinion, he is using it to insult you as a person. Ad hominem is the attempt to discredit an argument through the discrediting of the person. “This persons argument is invalid because he’s ANTI-GOVERNMENT and an IVY LEAGUER with a dumb degree” is ad hom. “You’re a moron.” is not ad hom.
You’re a moron.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“However, now you’re just an internet troll.”
That is rather harsh Mike. How about we substitute “internet troll” with “has been” or “whinybee?”
Re: Re: Re: Re:
reply to 810am:
pedantic pedant is pedantic…
not only splits hairs, but splits the splits, too ! ! !
its infinitely recursive, you can never win…
hhh
oh, and THANKS to the guy who put you in your place in using the grocery store analogy, spot on…
darryl just hates it when due process is enforced.
and, now, for something completely different...
…re: video of guardian destroying harddrives, etc
as we sprech, there is an article on boingboing which discusses a UK bill which will give police a sekret hearing to unilaterally determine to ‘legally’ seize reporters notebooks, ‘puters, harddrives, USB drives, etc, etc, etc…
gee, if only someone could have foreseen that…
to everything dick dick dick
there is a season cock cock cock
and a time to every penis under johnson
Re: Re:
It appears that even Internet insults are transformative. This one from the Bible by way of Pete Seeger (may he rest in peace).
Fair use
Let’s get past an anachronistic, polarised debate of big media vs. the creator/user community. To do that, we need to get a few things straight. First, Copyright does not protect the underlying ideas embodied in a work. The ‘idea/expression’ dichotomy which is present in all copyright laws means that the underlying ideas of a book are not protected. I can take them and write my own work based on them. Sure, there is case law around where the boundary lies but copyright doesn’t mean that ideas contained in existing works can’t be borrowed and re-mixed in a new work.
Second, I agree that licensing needs to be improved. It has to move out of filing cabinets, email requests, paper documents and onto the network. Machine readable identifiers, rights expressions and licences are the future of copyright licences. Creative Commons has shown the way. And licences can be ‘fair use +’ i.e. the machine can be coded to ensure that they encompass uses enabled under fair use as well as those which need the rights owners’s consent.
And this is not just in the interest of ‘big media’. The individual author, photographer, games designer, illustrator, animator all stand to gain if we can put the infrastructure in place so that they can get a fair return, quickly, easily and efficiently, for the use of their material.
I do have to admit that I’m no economic expert. But I suspect that “innovation economy” has something to do with an economy that derives a significant portion of its gains from innovation as opposed to copying or routine. In any case, it only comes up once in the article, and while you could reasonably make the case that it’s more relevant to patent than copyright, you can’t argue against the overall point on the grounds that you couldn’t precisely define one term in a conjunction. Not even if your personal ignorance of the definition was a valid argument, which it isn’t.
Re: Re:
“I do have to admit that I’m no economic expert. But I suspect that “innovation economy” has something to do with an economy that derives a significant portion of its gains from innovation as opposed to copying or routine.”
then describe an example of such a thing as “innovation economy”, where it exists, how it exists, when it started, why, and then explain the economics of it.
just because “innovation economy” only comes up once, does not mean it should not be defined, and discussed. Otherwise its just “weasel words”. Or a redefinition of something else to try to support a weak argument.
So yes, it is very important to define what this “innovation economy” is, how it works, where it is and how it relates in terms of a persons culture.
Innovation is a means to an end, but not the end itself.
No economy sells “innovation” many economies use innovation to create “an end” (result) (means to an end), but show me an economy that has innovation as the end in itself, and explain how an economy is built upon that.
otherwise your just doing what most here do, that is to play weasel words and redefinitions of words to suck your particular argument.
both terms “innovation” and “culture” are common weasel words used here, without even a thought of a definition or explanation (or context) as to the meaning of these words in this context.
if culture is the behaviours and beliefs characteristic of social (and individual), ethnic, or age group(s), how is it possible for you to embrace say “ancient roman culture”, or “drug culture” or “bike gang culture”, or the founding fathers culture, or the slave trade culture, or the Inuit culture ?
sure you can probably contribute (or be part of) to the ‘internet pirate culture’ or the ‘anti-free trade’ culture.
do you honestly believe you can buy your way into other people cultures? and where does that leave your own culture?
what if your ‘culture’ (behaviours and belief characteristics) is one of producing movies earning your money from showing those movies at the pictures ? like a movie producer or an actor, (or sound/camera man and so on).
That is their culture, but is that a culture you don’t agree with so you seek to destroy that culture and replace it with your own (internet pirate culture)?
Re: Re: Re:
“then describe an example of such a thing as “innovation economy”, where it exists, how it exists, when it started, why, and then explain the economics of it.”
In case you missed it above, here’s everything you asked for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation_economics
Re: Re: Re: Re:
thanks for letting someone else think for you, if you cant think of something yourself, don’t worry just Google it, the net will tell you everything you need to know, or will ever need to know !
no need to think anymore, you have Google !!!
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
It’s wikipedia you goddamn nimrod. If you’re going to troll at least be correct about it.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Somebody sounds very pissy about being made look a bit silly. Next time you make a smart-ass request thinking nobody will be able to answer you, check Wikipedia first…
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
I have come to the realization that you are nothing more than a nimrod.
Re: Re: Re:
An “innovation economy”
Can be said, just like astronomy,
To be simple to see,
For those who would not flee;
Logic upsets one’s gastronomy.
we are the sum of our memories and experiences, even if the memory could be removed after watching reading a particular novel or film. our next idea would be new to us even if it was already under copyright. there would be no progress if every idea got locked up and stored away in a vault.
Re: Re:
“there would be no progress if every idea got locked up and stored away in a vault.”
what !! just as there would be no progress if there weren’t ANY idea’s.
you could have a lifetime of idea’s NONE of with contributes one molecule to progress, and you can equally have a million idea’s that detract from human progress.
Its not idea’s that drives progress, and its certainly not the fact you can steal idea’s that promote progress, (or advances culture).
Re: Re:
you can’t ‘steal’ ideas, troll elsewhere
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Course you can, why, I once had this awesome idea, and then I told someone else about it, and then suddenly BAM I no longer had it, it was completely missing from my mind, as though it had never been there.
Thankfully it wasn’t all bad news, as the person who I’d been talking to apparently had this amazing idea pop into their mind right at that moment, though for some reason they didn’t want to tell me what it was…
Re: Re: Re: Re:
you can steal the application of an idea, but by that time it is no longer an idea, it is a physical reality, and something you can then steal.
but then again, you can steal an idea, and make it into a reality, and you have then stolen the idea.
if someone explains an idea, it becomes a reality to the person who it was explained too, if that person actions that idea, he has stolen the idea.
but it is not the idea being stolen it is the realisation of the idea by its explanation, in other words its not the idea you steal, but the description of the idea.
You have the idea, to make a pen with a ball at the end, (ball point pen), but before you make one, you explain your idea for a pen to someone else, at that time when you explain your idea, you make it real, it is your real explanation of you idea that is stolen, when the person you tell your idea too makes it ‘steals’ the realization of your idea.
The REALIZATION of the idea, not the idea itself.
Re: Re: Re:
Confusion of progress and culture
Leads one to think any a vulture,
Who would mix and would blend
New culture to be penned,
Missing the point of the adventure.
its a nice long article Dr, but it appear you do not even include the 4 points that are the test of fair use, or elaborate on them in terms of how they relate to ‘transformative works’ and so on.. why is that ?
1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for non-profit educational use.
Swatch v. Bloomberg,
“Mike Masnick commented upon the ruling: “All in all, a nice clear win for fair use even when the full work is used for commercial reasons.”
Well really its not at all clear, its a really poor example of fair use.
Was the work really used for commercial reasons ?
is it a commercial reason to accurately report the news ?
“In the context of news reporting and analogous activities, moreover, the need to convey information to the public accurately may in some instances make it desirable and consonant with copyright law for a defendant to faithfully reproduce an original work rather than transform it.”
IN THE CONTEXT OF NEWS REPORTING AND ANALOGOUS ACTIVITIES.
From that statement, you are able to derive:
“ALL IN ALL, A NICE CLEAR WIN FOR FAIR USE EVEN WHEN THE FULL WORK IS USED FOR COMMERCIAL REASONS”
THE OWNER OF THE COPYRIGHTED WORK USED IT FOR COMMERCIAL REASONS, NOT THE NEWS COMPANY!
You argument suggest, that if Lady GaGa created a song and sold that song for commercial reasons, based on this ruling everyone else would be able to use here entire work without transformation for their own commercial reasons?
nor is the exact wording of a profit/loss statement a “commercial purpose”, its a description of their financial status, but it serves no commercial purpose, their profit/loss statement does not change because they say it.
If it had of been a sales and marketing analysis/strat then I can accept ‘commercial purpose’ but a financial statement not so much.
Fair use test 1)
1.the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
Character of the use:
in Swatch v. Bloomberg character of the use is the main issue here, looking at the character of the use in this case does not indicate:
“All in all, a nice clear win for fair use even when the full work is used for commercial reasons.”
Nor does the courts comments support that argument:
News reporting and analogous activates ARE NON-PROFIT, news is NON-PROFIT educational purposes.
point 2 of the 4 point test (12 U.S.C 107)
2. THE NATURE OF THE COPYRIGHTED WORK;
Again with Swatch v. Bloomberg, looking at the nature of the copyrighted work, raises questions about the copyright, if it is a financial statement (statement of fact) the number in that statement cannot be made up, and belong to the company (and created by the company) say the final number is $10,000, who created that number? the person who wrote the speech, the person who read the speech or the company itself? who owns the copyright on that number (that the company itself created, and no person).
The nature of the Bloomberg statement were facts and figures based on the performance of Bloomberg. It certainly does not have a strong copyright providence.
Do you think the could would have made the same ruling and comments in the copyrighted material was the latest Harry Potter novel?
Some people might consider this a “clear win for fair use EVEN when the FULL work is used for commercial reasons”.
But its not used for commercial reasons, education and news (and analogous activities) ARE NOT COMMERCIAL REASONS.
You’ve reported what the Court said, but your analysis of it is unfortunately completely wrong, as are the conclusions drawn from this analysis.
Now watch all the people who are going to try to say news and analogous activities are FOR PROFIT !!!..
Sorry they are not.. convince yourself they are all you like.
The TD 'Culture'
everyone know TD has a strong culture, that is promoted and supported by the creators and writers of this web site.
This culture is (as you know) deeply against the US Government, and ‘establishment’, and the NSA and the TSA, it also have a strong culture against “legacy industries”, and patents, and copyright, TD also has a culture of strongly supporting parts of the US Constitution but at the same time ignoring and rejecting other parts.
None of this is anything like a secret for regulars to TD, its there for all to see.
This web site is essentially a mirror to Mr Masnick, who created this site and who is displaying his personal culture and asking you to buy into his culture.
Some here readily buy into Mr Masnicks culture, some don’t, some to varying degrees.
What you are buying into are what Masnicks feelings and beliefs are, if he has strong feeling of hatred for the NSA he expresses those feelings here to promote his culture of that hatred. Mr Masnick lives it, he makes a living from the expression of his culture.
He spends his time searching the internet for snippets of comments that might support his cultural beliefs, he then posts those snippets along with his ‘analysis’ of what he has found, always to backup and support his personal beliefs.
There is nothing essentially wrong with this BTW, he believes what he believes, and if he can get more people to follow his beliefs, good for him. That DOES NOT MAKE him right!, or good, it is his culture and he feels strongly enough about it that he wants others to feel the same as he does, again that is not necessarily good or right, it is what it is. It’s his culture, but its not your culture, you have your own, even if there is overlap with others cultures.
so now do you see how meaningless it is to talk about ‘contributing to “culture”, and that there is NO “THE CULTURE”.
So if you buy and smoke some pot, are you ‘contributing’ to the drug culture, or do you just want to get stoned?
it would really pay to understand terms such as “culture” and “innovation” before you start to use them as buzz words and trying to convey their meaning to be something totally different to what they are.
Re: The TD 'Culture'
Culture is not “opinion”.
An anti-government culture is also not a bad thing, despite your attempts to portray it as such.
I don’t know what parts of the US constitution this site has promoted “ignoring” or “rejecting”, that seems to be primarily the policies of the government NSA and TSA, because dealing with basic rights impedes efficient security. As it should.
It’s Mike Masnick’s site, he puts out his opinions on issues… so… what? A mirror? Okay.
There’s no “buying into”, this isn’t parlor tricks, this is well thought out and reasoned arguments. Some agree, some disagree. You can find several posts with this. Being contrarian does not make you intelligent.
A spy agency ignoring the law SPECIFICALLY denying something it’s doing? MUST BE HATRED. No further elaboration needed on why this is wrong.
Sorry, backing up your personal beliefs? What should your personal beliefs be based on? Air? The bible? The voices in your head? Of course you back it up.
Conflating multiple issues in an effort to discredit. You have no credibility yourself however so the point is moot. Culture is culture, his opinions are not our opinions, but the anti NSA, anti-governmental culture is non-specific to an individual person. Many feel it to varying degrees.
You are trying to narrowly define culture by trying to say “MASNICKS CULTURE” because you seem to think someone “creats A culture”, which is different from “creates culture”, which is added to the giant amorphous blob of culture.
Wanting to be stoned isn’t drug culture. Participating in events, or believing the drugs bring meaning to your life (whether good or bad) is sinking into the culture.
Too long post is long. No more.
Swatch v. Bloomberg,
“Mike Masnick commented upon the ruling: “All in all, a nice clear win for fair use even when the full work is used for commercial reasons.”
how can you derive “nice clear win for fair use… full
work is used for COMMERCIAL REASONS”… and
this statement:
“moreover, the need to convey information to the public accurately may in some instances make it desirable and consonant with copyright law for a defendant to faithfully reproduce an original work rather than transform it.”
and that is a “nice clear win for fair use”???
MAY, IN SOME INSTANCES, CONSONANT WITH COPYRIGHT LAW (and yes IN SOME INSTANCES DESIRABLE).
as clearly defined in point 1 of the 4 point test (and also point 2).
There once was an asshole named darryl
Who enjoyed to fuck a solar panel
He hated fair use
And process of dues
Because his limp dick was in peril
darryl just hates, hates, hates it when due process is enforced.