6 ms·

"Who truly owns the tales of Snow White and Cinderella?" If you want to make your point, you need to choose something that isn't already public domain. Disney

by jerf 3y ago

"Who truly owns the tales of Snow White and Cinderella?" If you want to make your point, you need to choose something that isn't already public domain. Disney already only owns their own interpretations, and, arguably, whatever penumbric emanation they can convince a court is stealing from them, but it still certainly isn't the entire space of Snow White and Cinderella stories. There is some fairly recent stuff being used in the images in the article and there isn't even any question whether or not it's Mario or Coca Cola; if Nintendo and Coca Cola did a cross promotion I could believe the exact images that popped out. If they were trying to claim the entire concepts of dumpy plumbers dressed in any manner vaguely like Mario that would be one thing... but that's Mario and Luigi, full stop. That's Robocop. That's C3PO. It's not even subtle. If we can AI-wash those trademarks away then we can AI-wash absolutely anything.

lovecg 3y ago
I think the world would be completely fine without a copyrighted C3PO or Robocop. George Lucas didn’t have billions of merchandising revenue in mind when working on his wild and thought unlikely to be successful science fiction movie in the 70s. Robocop was also a labor of love. We don’t really need Nth Star Wars sequel powered by those extra profits. The art form could be healthier overall.
- livinginfear 3y ago
  > George Lucas didn’t have billions of merchandising revenue in mind... Doesn't copyright stop other people from making billions in merchandising revenue off of George Lucas' ideas without his consent? > We don’t really need Nth Star Wars sequel powered by those extra profits. Without a copyrighted C3PO, he could start turning up in just about anyone's derivative works. There could be horrible Star wars sequels forever, or TV ads with C3PO selling household cleaning products.
  - kevindamm 3y ago
    "As a protocol droid, I cannot actually recommend the best smelling cleaning product, but these are the most purchased cleaning products:" ...followed by a semi-hallucinated list containing at least a few being marketed by C3PO.
  - lovecg 3y ago
    Centralization makes a difference here I think. Disney built an impressive machine where everything feeds on everything else. The problem is not so much bad sequels per se, it’s all the marketing that goes into making sure they solidly occupy their corner of our mindshare and force the whole industry to compete churning out more and more subpar sequels. If one company would build a Star Wars theme park, another produced toys etc. etc. this might not be a huge concern.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago
  Fine if they weren't copyrighted today, or ever? Because if copyright was eliminated the day Star Wars was released, other people would have copied the film reels and charged for entry, and Lucas would have hardly made a cent. Or if copyright was eliminated the day he went looking for funding, it wouldn't have ever been made. Personally, I think the world's a little richer for star wars's existence.
  - lovecg 3y ago
    You make a good point, there’s a difference in copyrighting exact works vs. the characters or the story that the work is made up of. I’m not arguing for removing literal copyright (though the terms should be shorter). But I think it’s fine if other people rushed to make their own Star Wars movies after it came out. Hardcore fans are pretty good at deciding what’s “canon” vs. not anyway, and the rest of us don’t care as long as the work is of good quality. Would it matter if the same Spiderman or Batman movie that’s remade once a decade could be made by literally anyone without paying royalties? It could make for richer content I’d think.
    - Nevermark 3y ago
      The only problem with this view, is: > "the rest of us don’t care as long as the work is of good quality" Copyright protects Disney. But it also protects every creative author, no matter how disadvantaged, from mass shareholder driven behemoths. Today "Disney likes your work" is ear music. Without copyright it would be a death nell.
      - Teever 3y ago
        So how can we modify copyright so that it protects the little guy more than it protects Disney?
        from-nibly 3y ago
        That's not how laws work.
- bkudria 3y ago
  > George Lucas didn’t have billions of merchandising revenue in mind From https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/01/06/why-is-the-force-still-with-us-star-wars-george-lucas https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/01/06/why-is-the-for... > Lucas’s most significant business decision—one that seemed laughable to the Fox executives at the time—was to forgo his option to receive an additional five-hundred-thousand-dollar fee from Fox for directing “Star Wars” and to take the merchandising and sequel rights instead.
d6e 3y ago
Am I not allowed to draw Mario? I don't really see the difference in me drawing mario or an AI drawing mario.
- troupo 3y ago
  > Am I not allowed to draw Mario Probably not for anything commercial, not for any exhibitions or public viewing etc. You'd have to check the actual trademarks etc.
  - haskellandchill 3y ago
    Hasn't pop art already been there done that?
    - troupo 3y ago
      There are extensions, and exceptions, and different licenses applicable, and fair use, and the concept of transformativeness, and... :) Basically, IANAL, but if you just draw a picture of Mario, all you can do is hang it on your fridge. If you make it out of colored oatmeal, that may be enough of a transformative work for you to be able to sell and exhibit it. Or, say, a satirical cartoon for your newspaper featuring Mario, that might also be okay.
      - kridsdale1 3y ago
        https://www.etsy.com/market/mario https://www.etsy.com/market/mario Nintendo isn’t getting a cent from any of this commercial activity. On Apple Music or Spotify if I search for Mario OST I get a bunch of third party MIDI renderings of various quality.
- idopmstuff 3y ago
  This has always felt like the important-but-ignored distinction to me. You can definitely draw Mario! Copyright doesn't protect against you doing so. You can also use tools to recreate copyrighted materials. For example, you can use Word to type out the text of a copyrighted book. Perhaps more relevant to the AI discussion, you can use a scanner and printer to reprint copyrighted text. What you can't do is use those recreations for commercials purposes. You can't sell your paintings of Mario. You can't decorate your business with Mario drawings. That's why I've always felt like the idea that AI should be blocked from creating these things is generally not the right place to look at copyright. Rather, the issue should be if someone uses AI to create a picture of Mario and then does something commercial with it, you should be able to go after the person engaging in the commercial behavior with the copyrighted image.

by jerf 3y ago

lovecg 3y ago

I think the world would be completely fine without a copyrighted C3PO or Robocop. George Lucas didn’t have billions of merchandising revenue in mind when working on his wild and thought unlikely to be successful science fiction movie in the 70s. Robocop was also a labor of love. We don’t really need Nth Star Wars sequel powered by those extra profits. The art form could be healthier overall.

livinginfear 3y ago
> George Lucas didn’t have billions of merchandising revenue in mind... Doesn't copyright stop other people from making billions in merchandising revenue off of George Lucas' ideas without his consent? > We don’t really need Nth Star Wars sequel powered by those extra profits. Without a copyrighted C3PO, he could start turning up in just about anyone's derivative works. There could be horrible Star wars sequels forever, or TV ads with C3PO selling household cleaning products.
- kevindamm 3y ago
  "As a protocol droid, I cannot actually recommend the best smelling cleaning product, but these are the most purchased cleaning products:" ...followed by a semi-hallucinated list containing at least a few being marketed by C3PO.
- lovecg 3y ago
  Centralization makes a difference here I think. Disney built an impressive machine where everything feeds on everything else. The problem is not so much bad sequels per se, it’s all the marketing that goes into making sure they solidly occupy their corner of our mindshare and force the whole industry to compete churning out more and more subpar sequels. If one company would build a Star Wars theme park, another produced toys etc. etc. this might not be a huge concern.
6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago
Fine if they weren't copyrighted today, or ever? Because if copyright was eliminated the day Star Wars was released, other people would have copied the film reels and charged for entry, and Lucas would have hardly made a cent. Or if copyright was eliminated the day he went looking for funding, it wouldn't have ever been made. Personally, I think the world's a little richer for star wars's existence.
- lovecg 3y ago
  You make a good point, there’s a difference in copyrighting exact works vs. the characters or the story that the work is made up of. I’m not arguing for removing literal copyright (though the terms should be shorter). But I think it’s fine if other people rushed to make their own Star Wars movies after it came out. Hardcore fans are pretty good at deciding what’s “canon” vs. not anyway, and the rest of us don’t care as long as the work is of good quality. Would it matter if the same Spiderman or Batman movie that’s remade once a decade could be made by literally anyone without paying royalties? It could make for richer content I’d think.
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    The only problem with this view, is: > "the rest of us don’t care as long as the work is of good quality" Copyright protects Disney. But it also protects every creative author, no matter how disadvantaged, from mass shareholder driven behemoths. Today "Disney likes your work" is ear music. Without copyright it would be a death nell.
    - Teever 3y ago
      So how can we modify copyright so that it protects the little guy more than it protects Disney?
      - from-nibly 3y ago
        That's not how laws work.
bkudria 3y ago
> George Lucas didn’t have billions of merchandising revenue in mind From https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/01/06/why-is-the-force-still-with-us-star-wars-george-lucas https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/01/06/why-is-the-for... > Lucas’s most significant business decision—one that seemed laughable to the Fox executives at the time—was to forgo his option to receive an additional five-hundred-thousand-dollar fee from Fox for directing “Star Wars” and to take the merchandising and sequel rights instead.

d6e 3y ago

Am I not allowed to draw Mario? I don't really see the difference in me drawing mario or an AI drawing mario.

troupo 3y ago
> Am I not allowed to draw Mario Probably not for anything commercial, not for any exhibitions or public viewing etc. You'd have to check the actual trademarks etc.
- haskellandchill 3y ago
  Hasn't pop art already been there done that?
  - troupo 3y ago
    There are extensions, and exceptions, and different licenses applicable, and fair use, and the concept of transformativeness, and... :) Basically, IANAL, but if you just draw a picture of Mario, all you can do is hang it on your fridge. If you make it out of colored oatmeal, that may be enough of a transformative work for you to be able to sell and exhibit it. Or, say, a satirical cartoon for your newspaper featuring Mario, that might also be okay.
    - kridsdale1 3y ago
      https://www.etsy.com/market/mario https://www.etsy.com/market/mario Nintendo isn’t getting a cent from any of this commercial activity. On Apple Music or Spotify if I search for Mario OST I get a bunch of third party MIDI renderings of various quality.
idopmstuff 3y ago
This has always felt like the important-but-ignored distinction to me. You can definitely draw Mario! Copyright doesn't protect against you doing so. You can also use tools to recreate copyrighted materials. For example, you can use Word to type out the text of a copyrighted book. Perhaps more relevant to the AI discussion, you can use a scanner and printer to reprint copyrighted text. What you can't do is use those recreations for commercials purposes. You can't sell your paintings of Mario. You can't decorate your business with Mario drawings. That's why I've always felt like the idea that AI should be blocked from creating these things is generally not the right place to look at copyright. Rather, the issue should be if someone uses AI to create a picture of Mario and then does something commercial with it, you should be able to go after the person engaging in the commercial behavior with the copyrighted image.