12 ms·
On Tyson's Face, It's Art. On Film, a Legal Issue
- itg 15y agoIt says I'm logged in as david.lee@gmail.com? Anyone else get this?
- corin_ 15y agoYep, "jsessionid" is set in the URL. I don't know if that is David trying to help people get around the paywall, or an accidental inclusion.
- timerickson 15y agoI just attempted to revisit the page, and hit the paywall login. I'm not sure if NYTimes clued in to the number of IPs being associated with said account or if they give users a one time preview reading of the article.
- kylec 15y agoOdd, on mine it says I'm logged in as dapurpura@gmail.com
- nextparadigms 15y agoThe music and movie studios have been so quick to push censorship laws lately and they don't even realize those same laws might turn back against them later. "That's the real question: the copyright act balances the copyright owners' rights and not stifling the creativity of the owners - it would stifle creativity to not be able to make a parody," Mr. Harkins said." Such a shame you're not allowed to use someone else' songs on Youtube anymore for your own personalized videos. The same thing should apply here, too.
- jrwoodruff 15y agoIANL, but fair use would apply on your You Tube video. The problem is you'd have to have the bankroll to go to court against the music label. And you'd also want to be damn sure that your use of the song falls under parody or one of the other definitions of fair use.
- chopsueyar 15y agoAlso, who says you have to host it on You Tube? Those are the policies of You Tube/Google, not necessarily US copyright law.
- tzs 15y agoParody can be fair use. It isn't automatically fair use. There is a lot of misunderstanding of this on the net, largely due to the press doing their usual crappy job of reporting Supreme Court decisions when they covered the Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music case (the "Pretty Woman" case).
- hugh3 15y agoThere is a lot of misunderstanding of this on the net, largely due to the press doing their usual crappy job of reporting Supreme Court decisions when they covered the Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music case (the "Pretty Woman" case). And largely because people believe the law is either (a) whatever they think it should be or (b) whatever some other random jerk on the internet told 'em it was.
- tzs 15y agoYeah, but if the press didn't screw up it would be easier to combat that. There are two main errors the press makes repeatedly when reporting on the Supreme Court: 1. Not distinguishing between the Supreme Court taking a case and making a decision on the merits, and the Supreme Court not taking the case. There are only a few things the Supreme Court is required to hear. Most of their cases fall into categories that they are allowed to decide if they want to take them are not. There are many more cases vying for their attention than they can handle, so they tend to only take cases that raise important issues and that have been sufficiently explored in the lower courts. When they do not take a case, it (1) does not set any precedent, and (2) does not indicate what they think of the merits. Yet the press often reports these rejections as if the Supreme Court decided on the merits that the appealing party was wrong. 2. Not understanding the history of the case and what the Supreme Court's decision means in the context of that history. In Campbell, for instance, one the issue of whether the parody of Roy Orbison's song was fair use, the district court said that since it was parody it was automatically fair use and granted summary judgement for the defendant. The appeals court said the fact that it was commercial and copied the whole song meant it could not be fair use. The Supreme Court basically said they were both wrong. Parody isn't automatically fair use, but being commercial and using all of the song doesn't automatically make it not fair use. The case was sent back down for the lower courts to analyze using the guidelines the Supreme Court set out. However, the parties settled, so we never got to see how the lower courts would apply those guidelines.
- chopsueyar 15y agoThe double-edged sword has been helpful in educating judges. The tactics of the MAFIAAs against P2P 'infringers' is also being used by attorneys of adult pornography content producers. As the type of content needing protection against infringers changes to pr0n, we are seeing more support on the part of the judicial system in balancing the rights of the accused against the MAFIAAs and pr0n IP defenders. Now that you mention it, fair-use as parody will probably be a valid defense.
- tzs 15y agoDown voted for MAFIAA. It's as stupid as M$ in adult discussions.
- chopsueyar 15y agoGive me the proper regex and I will edit my above commment. But, thanks for calling my use of an acronym 'stupid'. Very articulate.
- jemfinch 15y agoIt's RIAA/MPAA and "porn". The GP is right: you're communicating childishly.
- burgerbrain 15y agoYou know what's even more childish? Finding yourself unable to brush it off.
- jerf 15y agoCommunity standards do not enforce themselves. You're seeing community standards enforced here. (It should be pointed out that it is actually an attempt to do chopsueyar a favor; as it happens around here that sort of thing is generally likely to make their writing less persuasive, not more.)
- tzs 15y ago> Such a shame you're not allowed to use someone else' songs on Youtube anymore for your own personalized videos. If you could freely use anyone's music on your YouTube videos, wouldn't the net effect be that all music would be available for free to anyone? People would just get new songs as they are released, slap then on videos of their cats, and make them available on YouTube, where anyone could easily grab them, strip off the video, and have the song.
- chopsueyar 15y agoThat does not sound like an easy process to me.
- tzs 15y agoOne the receiving side it is trivial once you download the video: ffmpeg -i source_video.avi -vn -ar 44100 -ac 2 -ab 192 -f mp3 sound.mp3 Or, for those who don't want to deal with the command line, a Google for "how to download music from youtube" will turn up numerous friendly programs to accomplish the task. Amusingly, there are a ton of YouTube videos explaining the process. :-) On the producing side, it would also be easy to automate. Ffmpeg can add audio to a video, and it can trim a video. You could easily have a long video of your cat, say 30 minutes, and write a shell script to take a directory of MP3 files, and for each find the length, pick a random section from your long cat video of the appropriate length, extract a section of that length, and add the audio. The script could then upload the video to YouTube, putting the artist and song name in the description, so that on the receiving side naming and basic tagging of the MP3 could be automated.
- chopsueyar 15y agoWhich version of ffmpeg?
- tzs 15y agoCould you down-voters explain yourselves, please?
- greiskul 15y agoBut shouldn't a tattoo be considered a "work for hire", with Tyson owning the copyright on his own tattoo?
- joshu 15y agoThat wa my assumption.
- sunchild 15y agoTyson definitely owns an instance of the tattoo. He doesn't own the design, unless the artist signed a contract transferring ownership of the design to Tyson.
- Devilboy 15y agoThat's not what the law says. If Tyson paid the artist to design him a tattoo then it belongs to Tyson.
- chopsueyar 15y ago"work for hire" would mean the tattoo artist is an employee of Tyson. I do not believe Tyson paid the artist as a W-2 wage employee. If anything, he (the artist) would be acting as a contractor (1099), performing an agreed upon service to Mr. Tyson. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire#Law_of_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire#Law_of_the_United...
- sunchild 15y agoYou're confused about what the "work" is here. Tyson paid to have a tattoo put onto his face. He owns that tattoo (i.e., the ink and, of course, the skin). Paying to have that tattoo placed on him does not mean he owns the design. You might be able to dig up some evidence that Tyson paid to have the tattoo specially designed for him, in which case, it would need to meet the following test: A "work made for hire" is— (1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. (17 U.S.C. § 101) That last part about an express agreement pretty much sinks the possibility that it's a work for hire, unless you know of such an agreement in this case. NOTE: IAAL, but not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
- brianstorms 15y agoThis is nuts. It's not even a copy. Look closely at the movie tattoo then at Tyson's. Similar, not the same. Not a copy. The whole thing smells of publicity stunt by Warner Bros, and a money grab by the tattooist.
- hugh3 15y agoA better picture: http://s-ak.buzzfed.com/static/imagebuzz/terminal01/2011/4/29/16/mike-tysons-tattoo-artist-sues-over-the-hangover--9026-1304107834-24.jpg http://s-ak.buzzfed.com/static/imagebuzz/terminal01/2011/4/2... They are actually pretty darn similar, though Helms' tattoo is a bit different -- a little squarer. My gut feeling is that the lawsuit doesn't have merit, though I have difficulty putting together a legal justification of why that is. My general feeling is that the actual tattoo design is too generic a combination of random Maori design elements to be copyrightable. But no, I don't think this is a publicity stunt by Warner Bros. But yes, clearly it is a money grab by the tattooist.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- chopsueyar 15y agoIt is a parody.
- hugh3 15y agoI thought about the parody defence, that might also work.
- kmfrk 15y agoIt's an interesting, principle case. On another note, what would happen, if a tattoo artist used another artist's work on a customer? How will said customer have to comply, if the work tattooed is deemed to be an infringement on the original artist's copyright?
- chopsueyar 15y agoThe infringer is the artist duplicating the other artist's work. The IP crime is not being committed by the customer.
- p0ckets 15y agoThat's fine if the copyright owner wants financial compensation, but what if he/she demands that the infringing material be removed?
- chopsueyar 15y agoThe aggrieved party would bring suit against the infringing artist, but the judge could not compel an act (injunctive relief) against a party that was not part of the lawsuit.
- ccc3 15y agoI have a friend who owns a company that makes manufacturing equipment. I've often heard him say, usually in frustration, that if you make something in America you will eventually get sued. Sadly, it looks like his observation now extends to movies.
- gallerytungsten 15y agoWhile your contention about manufacturers being sued is generally accurate, that is a matter of product liability, which is a considerably different issue than the copyright issue at hand. In the case at hand, the issue is artistic copyright and the moral rights of artists. One of the applicable governing laws in this area is the Berne copyright convention, which the US ratified in 1989. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protec... Additionally, a number of articles have mentioned that the tattoo artist had a contract with Tyson that covered the type of controversy that's the subject of the litigation. Bottom line: I think he has a case.
- aychedee 15y agohttp://www.directorys.uniquearticles.info/Article/Traditional-Maori-Tattoo-Designs/121023 http://www.directorys.uniquearticles.info/Article/Traditiona... All parties are behaving immorally anyway.
- robomc 15y agoIt really doesn't look anything like a moko though... ie: http://static2.stuff.co.nz/1233108507/512/167512.jpg http://static2.stuff.co.nz/1233108507/512/167512.jpg I'd seen that tattoo a few times and hadn't realised it was supposed to be māori in any way...