Internet, we hardly knew ye.

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GasBandit

GasBandit

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I dare say my avatar is most likely violating copyright law. From what I learned in the 90s when mattel started shutting down little girls' websites they made to talk about how much they loved barbie, "fair use" is a teensy tiny hole that barely ever actually covers anything. I'm pretty sure our avatars, in the strictest interpretation, are not fair use. The argument could be made that we damage their respective brands by associating their products/likenesses with our own blah blah blah etc.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
I dare say my avatar is most likely violating copyright law. From what I learned in the 90s when mattel started shutting down little girls' websites they made to talk about how much they loved barbie, "fair use" is a teensy tiny hole that barely ever actually covers anything.
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To be fair, little girls probably don't have money for good lawyers, and fair use is an affirmative defence, meaning that you have to prove it yourself in court if the other side proves you're using their copyright.

And i wonder how my avatar would play out... i mean the guy that made it obviously didn't have the rights to Krang...
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
@Li3n said:
To be fair, little girls probably don't have money for good lawyers, and fair use is an affirmative defence, meaning that you have to prove it yourself in court if the other side proves you're using their copyright.

And i wonder how my avatar would play out... i mean the guy that made it obviously didn't have the rights to Krang...
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And even if he did, you didn't procure the rights to display it from either him or the original IP owner.
 
jwhouk

jwhouk

PatrThom said:
I've had a few points in my life where I've felt desperate. This relentless assault to try and get crappy legislation passed before impending industry flameout makes me wonder how many rotten eggs are going to get through that are going to take years to straighten out even after they lose relevance.

--Patrick
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Well, it took only one shoehorned act of my state legislature to make my life a living hell for (at the least) next two years.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Ha! I'd like to see them come after MY avatar!

...

......

What do you mean I don't own the right to beards? INJUSTICE!
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

Looks like Facebook has a more relevant to itself law to fight in Europe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16677370


A new law promising internet users the "right to be forgotten" will be proposed by the European Commission on Wednesday.
It says people will be able to ask for data about them to be deleted and firms will have to comply unless there are "legitimate" grounds to retain it.

Well that would certainly neuter a few of the more retarded laws the industry wants...

GasBandit said:
And even if he did, you didn't procure the rights to display it from either him or the original IP owner.
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Yeah, what i was wondering is what the status of someone that made a copy of a work that was already infringing copyright was...

Like i'm pretty sure i'm not going to jail if i steal a pair of Pumma's...
 
strawman

strawman

It's too bad they did it backwards.

1. Infringe copyright
2. Make money off #1 (the article said as much, "We've tried this model and it works!")
3. Discover that you're likely to get caught.
4. Think of ways to get industry approval ("Hey you want a piece of this pie?") while making money hand over fist.

Amazon is at least starting out by recognizing copyright and enforcing it.

Besides, the music industry already has Apple, Amazon, and others in the selling business, and youtube and others in the "pay for play" business.

They don't need a piece of megaupload's pie - it's much more profitable long term to shut them down, force customers into existing channels, and use them as an example for the other sharing sites.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

The idea is that artists outside the general industry could make money and get big off this through exposure. As someone earlier in the thread said, we consumers get to choose what we want to listen to, rather than the records industry deciding "this is popular now" and promoting whatever it is, blasting it over everything with artificially constructed success, or an image.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

It's true... things like "hit charts" are basically worthless these days because they don't take into account digital sales and can't take piracy into account. It's basically impossible to track how popular music is outside of things that involve direct fan involvement... which is why manufactured singers are all but the norm these days.
 
ScytheRexx

ScytheRexx

It does seem a bit more then a coincidence that the authorities jumped to action the minute Megabox.com was getting close to release. Does not stop the fact that the guys at Megaupload did some pretty illegal things, but simply shows that media companies only care enough to bring down a hammer when they know it will lead to powerful competition.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

And odds are by the time someone else could get a similar project going, the RIAA will have their own version happening, except the artists will get much, much less.

Fuckers.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
@Li3n said:
Yeah, what i was wondering is what the status of someone that made a copy of a work that was already infringing copyright was...

Like i'm pretty sure i'm not going to jail if i steal a pair of Pumma's...
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Piracy isn't theft, but violating copyright by making unauthorized copies (even if it's a copy of a copy) is still illegal. Otherwise, only the very first seeder of any given torrent would be liable... everybody else just made a copy of a copy.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
Piracy isn't theft, but violating copyright by making unauthorized copies (even if it's a copy of a copy) is still illegal. Otherwise, only the very first seeder of any given torrent would be liable... everybody else just made a copy of a copy.
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Yeah, but the image itself isn't a copy, it just uses a protected character... like if i copy Family Guy and they sue meanwhile at the same time the Simpson guys sue them and win... what happens to my case? And if the Simpson guys sue me can my defence say i thought i was copying another show?


And the theft thing was more about actually stealing a bootleg shoe, had little to do with copyright being theft.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
@Li3n said:
Yeah, but the image itself isn't a copy, it just uses a protected character... like if i copy Family Guy and they sue meanwhile at the same time the Simpson guys sue them and win... what happens to my case? And if the Simpson guys sue me can my defence say i thought i was copying another show?


And the theft thing was more about actually stealing a bootleg shoe, had little to do with copyright being theft.
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Oh, so you're saying, what if the Simpsons successfully sued Family Guy for ripping it off, what would happen to everybody who pirated family guy? Am I reading that right?
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
@li3n... said:
That's about right...
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Probably would still have to pay damages, some or all of which would go to the original copyright holder.

But your avatar is not like that at all. It's a direct likeness of a copyrighted character, Krang from TMNT. It doesn't matter that someone else drew it in the least. I doubt you would have to pay damages, you'd probably just get a Cease and Desist. If you ignored that, well, it goes downhill from there with fines and court costs. It'd be the same for me.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
Probably would still have to pay damages, some or all of which would go to the original copyright holder.

But your avatar is not like that at all. It's a direct likeness of a copyrighted character, Krang from TMNT. It doesn't matter that someone else drew it in the least. I doubt you would have to pay damages, you'd probably just get a Cease and Desist. If you ignored that, well, it goes downhill from there with fines and court costs. It'd be the same for me.
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Ah, the old C&D, forgot about it... i guess after it i couldn't claim in court that i thought it was someone else's art at the time...

But i was thinking more something like if during the Superman vs Captain Marvel trial the guy that wrote Gladiator sued DC and won...
 
evilmike

evilmike

A few news items:

Chris Dodd, voice of the MPAA, threatens to withdraw monetary support for politicians who don't support SOPA-like laws.
Chris Dodd said:
Candidly, those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake," Dodd told Fox News. "Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.
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This resulted in a petition to the White House to have Dodd investigated for bribery here. While it is unlikely this will actually cause an investigation into Dodd, they have already met the minimum requirement for the White House to issue a statement on the matter. An earlier petition resulted in the statement from the White House which stated grave concerns about the provisions in SOPA/PIPA.

Wil Wheaton posted an interesting response to Dodd here.
Wil Wheaton said:
Not that it matters, and not that I’m some kind of rich mogul, but I’ll say this again: I have lost more money to creative accounting, and American workers have lost more jobs to runaway production, than anything associated with what the MPAA calls piracy. Chris Dodd is lying about piracy costing us jobs. Hollywood’s refusal to adapt to changing times is what’s costing the studios money. That’s it.
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Jonathan Coulton also touches on SOPA/PIPA and the Megaupload shutdown in a journal entry here. (Also, in a pithy tweet here.)
Jonathan Coulton said:
Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There’s your anti-piracy plan. The big content companies are TERRIBLE at doing both of these things, so it’s no wonder they’re not doing so well in the current environment.
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@Li3n

@Li3n

ScytheRexx

ScytheRexx

How is that even possible? Once I own the "product", in this case the phone and the software on said phone, I should be able to do whatever the hell I want to it as long as I am not ripping the software to give to others. Whats next? Making it illegal to change an OS on a pre-fab computer, or modify game resources after purchasing the game?

What is wrong with the world these days...
 
strawman

strawman

ScytheRexx said:
How is that even possible? Once I own the "product", in this case the phone and the software on said phone, I should be able to do whatever the hell I want to it as long as I am not ripping the software to give to others. Whats next? Making it illegal to change an OS on a pre-fab computer, or modify game resources after purchasing the game?

What is wrong with the world these days...
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It's one of the fun aspects of the DMCA. It makes it illegal to break DRM measures, and the iPhone's protection counts as DRM. There was a big deal when the first iPhones were starting to be jailbroken and the legal ramifications of the DMCA become more interesting, so they gave specific exceptions that included the iPhone.

Those exceptions are due to expire soon.
 
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