6 ms·

You seem to be confusing what is legal with what is reasonable. It's entirely justified to criticize a company for doing entirely legal things. Indeed it is i

You seem to be confusing what is legal with what is reasonable. It's entirely justified to criticize a company for doing entirely legal things. Indeed it is impossible to make illegal everything for which a company might deserve such criticism.

deogeo 7y ago
> It's entirely justified to criticize a company for doing entirely legal things. Especially a company that had such a large role in writing those laws as Disney did.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
dangus 7y ago
So then I’ll ask, what about this specific action is unreasonable?
- victoro0 7y ago
  It is unreasonable to deny the entire public of works of art that are culturally relevant.
  - dangus 7y ago
    Who determines what is culturally relevant? You’re saying that if I make my own movie with my own funding and time/effort, if enough people like it and the culturally relevant switch gets flipped on they get to take it from me while I’m still alive and I don’t have any say on whether my work is duplicated or screened? What if I run a SaaS product, people have been using it for 30 years, and they’ve determined it to be culturally relevant. Do they get to copy my source code and run it for themselves? These are 70s and 80s movies. Many of those who contributed to them are still alive. It’s entirely reasonable for those people to determine how/whether to distribute their own art. If you believe in that level of public ownership I can respect that you hold that opinion, but I don’t agree with it. At the same time, I do believe that copyrights expiring a lifetime after the creator dies are unreasonable. To me, the right balance of copyright law is somewhere in between the extremes of Mickey Mouse ownership in perpetuity and complete public ownership.
    - fourthark 7y ago
      I am pretty sure if you asked the creators of these films, they’d want them still shown. We’re talking about the actions of Disney, which wasn’t even the studio for the Fox films.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        The “creators” wouldn’t have been able to create anything without the financial backing of the studios. You have a few like Lucas and Spielberg who owned their own production companies.
        mthoms 7y ago
        You're right, those uppity "creators" should be thankful. Joking aside- This will become less true as technology makes film-making and distribution more accessible. Studios know this, so they've switched focus to tightly controlling distribution. Hurray for cultural gate-keepers.
        scarface74 7y ago
        How are they controlling the “distribution”? There are so many streaming services and cable channels hungry for exclusive content that if you make something halfway decent someone will buy it from you. On top of that, you can sell directly to consumers on iTunes, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Redbox VOD, etc.
        mthoms 7y ago
        > How are they controlling the “distribution”? What do you mean? The very article we've been discussing is about Disney's attempt to control distribution. I agree that for now there's a healthy ecosystem of distribution channels for newer, lower budget content - I said as much. What's happening is that the studios are countering that by tightly controlling valuable legacy content. The kind of stuff we see as part of the cultural zeitgeist of the last several decades (again, see the article for examples).
- jimnotgym 7y ago
  Using your dominant control over a resource in order to kill off a business in competition with you could be viewed as anti-competitive?
- deogeo 7y ago
  Using copyright for control and censorship, instead of remuneration.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    You mean like the GPL3 is using copyright to control which companies can use code?
    - catalogia 7y ago
      The GPLv3 doesn't do that. The GPLv3 allows any company to use the code, provided they're willing to abide by some reasonable terms (which they are free to view as unreasonable, just as I am free to view them as unreasonable.) The GPLv3 is not being used to create artificial scarcity of popular culture for corporate profit. That might be a difference you're keen on abstracting away, but I think it's a pretty big difference.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        Disney uses copyright to control distribution to commercial entities and those commercial entities - cinemas - think the demands are unreasonable for their business model. TiVo and I am sure other commercial entities think that the GPL has unreasonable demands.
        catalogia 7y ago
        This attempt to morally equivocate an international corporation denying people access to popular culture, and volunteer developers giving away source code for free on the condition that anybody who wants to sell it also distribute the source code, is absurd. Bordering on offensive.
        scarface74 7y ago
        They created the “popular culture” authors of GPL software didn’t whine about Microsoft not open sourcing Windows, they created their own software. Authors of GPL software have the right to distribute their software as they please...just as Disney does.

deogeo 7y ago

> It's entirely justified to criticize a company for doing entirely legal things. Especially a company that had such a large role in writing those laws as Disney did.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

dangus 7y ago

So then I’ll ask, what about this specific action is unreasonable?

victoro0 7y ago
It is unreasonable to deny the entire public of works of art that are culturally relevant.
- dangus 7y ago
  Who determines what is culturally relevant? You’re saying that if I make my own movie with my own funding and time/effort, if enough people like it and the culturally relevant switch gets flipped on they get to take it from me while I’m still alive and I don’t have any say on whether my work is duplicated or screened? What if I run a SaaS product, people have been using it for 30 years, and they’ve determined it to be culturally relevant. Do they get to copy my source code and run it for themselves? These are 70s and 80s movies. Many of those who contributed to them are still alive. It’s entirely reasonable for those people to determine how/whether to distribute their own art. If you believe in that level of public ownership I can respect that you hold that opinion, but I don’t agree with it. At the same time, I do believe that copyrights expiring a lifetime after the creator dies are unreasonable. To me, the right balance of copyright law is somewhere in between the extremes of Mickey Mouse ownership in perpetuity and complete public ownership.
  - fourthark 7y ago
    I am pretty sure if you asked the creators of these films, they’d want them still shown. We’re talking about the actions of Disney, which wasn’t even the studio for the Fox films.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      The “creators” wouldn’t have been able to create anything without the financial backing of the studios. You have a few like Lucas and Spielberg who owned their own production companies.
      - mthoms 7y ago
        You're right, those uppity "creators" should be thankful. Joking aside- This will become less true as technology makes film-making and distribution more accessible. Studios know this, so they've switched focus to tightly controlling distribution. Hurray for cultural gate-keepers.
        scarface74 7y ago
        How are they controlling the “distribution”? There are so many streaming services and cable channels hungry for exclusive content that if you make something halfway decent someone will buy it from you. On top of that, you can sell directly to consumers on iTunes, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Redbox VOD, etc.
        mthoms 7y ago
        > How are they controlling the “distribution”? What do you mean? The very article we've been discussing is about Disney's attempt to control distribution. I agree that for now there's a healthy ecosystem of distribution channels for newer, lower budget content - I said as much. What's happening is that the studios are countering that by tightly controlling valuable legacy content. The kind of stuff we see as part of the cultural zeitgeist of the last several decades (again, see the article for examples).
jimnotgym 7y ago
Using your dominant control over a resource in order to kill off a business in competition with you could be viewed as anti-competitive?
deogeo 7y ago
Using copyright for control and censorship, instead of remuneration.
- scarface74 7y ago
  You mean like the GPL3 is using copyright to control which companies can use code?
  - catalogia 7y ago
    The GPLv3 doesn't do that. The GPLv3 allows any company to use the code, provided they're willing to abide by some reasonable terms (which they are free to view as unreasonable, just as I am free to view them as unreasonable.) The GPLv3 is not being used to create artificial scarcity of popular culture for corporate profit. That might be a difference you're keen on abstracting away, but I think it's a pretty big difference.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Disney uses copyright to control distribution to commercial entities and those commercial entities - cinemas - think the demands are unreasonable for their business model. TiVo and I am sure other commercial entities think that the GPL has unreasonable demands.
      - catalogia 7y ago
        This attempt to morally equivocate an international corporation denying people access to popular culture, and volunteer developers giving away source code for free on the condition that anybody who wants to sell it also distribute the source code, is absurd. Bordering on offensive.
        scarface74 7y ago
        They created the “popular culture” authors of GPL software didn’t whine about Microsoft not open sourcing Windows, they created their own software. Authors of GPL software have the right to distribute their software as they please...just as Disney does.