8 ms·

WTF is wrong with Apple TV - It's Charlie Brown for christ sakes....

• iaw 6y ago
  American culture has been redefined as 'Intellectual Property' with the intent of controlling it in perpetuity.
  • tptacek 6y ago
    I think it goes rather the other way, that intellectual property is distinctively morally defensible --- it wouldn't exist at all without its creators and investors, unlike the land we stole from indigenous people --- and the idea that you can declare something "American culture" and thereby expropriate it from its rightful owners is alarming.
    • iaw 6y ago
      > rightful owners When it's the original author or within a reasonable time frame of their publication the concept of rightful owners makes sense. The idea of an essentially immortal non-living entity or a 5th generation niece/nephew being a rightful owner to a work is not a view I agree with. Society is the background that allows works to be created, at some point control over those expressions is ceded back to society.
      • tptacek 6y ago
        A company funds the creation of a piece of content, taking the risk that it will be worth enough to recoup both that content and all the rest of their portfolio of titles, most of which are worth approximately nothing. I see the moral claim they have on that, even 100 years later. I do not see what moral claim we have, at all. Markets don't always work, but here's a place where they've worked exceptionally well. We are in a wonderland of available content. It has never been easier to find something great to watch or listen to. If Disney wants to charge me $100 to watch Steamboat Willie, what do I care? I'll just watch something better, and probably not pay anything for it.
        • dmm 6y ago
          > I do not see what moral claim we have, at all. All art is based upon the past. Think of how many times the plays of Shakespeare have been remade and reinterpreted. His works represent a share heritage that generations of artists have freely borrowed from. And Shakespeare did the same thing! Hamlet is based on a 13th century legend of Amleth. Should a high school production of Hamlet in 2022 be required to pay royalties to the 13th-century chronicler Saxo Grammaticus? > Markets don't always work, but here's a place where they've worked exceptionally well. I agree but I don't see why a reasonable fixed term, such as 25 years, wouldn't work as well and allow the cultural well to refill. Think of how liberating it would be to be able to, for example, freely sample music from 1993 or earlier. And every year we all get more!
          • tptacek 6y ago
            Even the term we had in 1909, over a hundred years ago, long before Disney existed, the content we're talking about wouldn't be available today.
            • iaw 6y ago
              Under the 1909 act, works before 1963 with extension and works before 1991 without extension of their copyright term would now be coming under public domain. Could you elaborate your point? I fail to see how a difference of 3 years invalidates the previous posters point.
              • tptacek 6y ago
                The Charlie Brown Halloween Special would not be public domain under the 1909 Copyright Act, the point being that copyright extensions are not the reason network TV isn't broadcasting it.
                • iaw 6y ago
                  It would be in two years at which point any network could broadcast it, AppleTV has likely bought the rights for many years to come making copyright extension a cogent component of this discussion in my opinion.