4 ms·

Generally, this seems to be a good law. To my understanding, it's on par with the protections we already have in the US. It's interesting how the law singles o

by tikhonj 12y ago

Generally, this seems to be a good law. To my understanding, it's on par with the protections we already have in the US. It's interesting how the law singles out "discriminatory": >If a parody conveys a discriminatory message (for example, by replacing the original characters with people wearing veils and people of colour), the holders of the rights to the work parodied have, in principle, a legitimate interest in ensuring that their work is not associated with such a message. Why is that the only case where right holders have a "legitimate interest" like this? There are lots of other cases where somebody should have a similar case by a similar standard: obscenity, sex, violence, religion or anything else counter to a group's core beliefs. The law should be consistent one way or another, but it isn't. A few decades ago, sex would have been the one issue singled out. And before that? Probably anti-religious messaging. Or maybe just communism, although that was more of an American concern. Point being, it really brings to mind the idea of "moral fashion" from "What You Can't Say"[1]. As time goes on, I'm seeing the ideas from that essay illustrated more and more, especially because we seem to be in a transitionary period between two different fashions. It's a bit disconcerting, honestly; it feels like things aren't really changing, just the names and details. [1]: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

nathan_long 12y ago
> There are lots of other cases where somebody should have a similar case by a similar standard: obscenity, sex, violence, religion or anything else counter to a group's core beliefs. Just what I came here to say. If I wrote a children's song and someone parodied it with sexual content, I'd be miffed. On the other hand, if original authors could define what's offensive, they could object to each parody individually on made-up grounds. It's probably better to totally separate the questions of "can you make a parody" and "can you publish a work with content X, whether or not it's a parody" (with the answer being "yes, we believe in free speech" in all but a very few cases).
- jiggy2011 12y ago
  The UK is a bit more nuanced with free speech than the US, it can be illegal to make an offensive joke on twitter for example.
  - therealdrag0 12y ago
    Sheesh!
  - bshimmin 12y ago
    "Nuanced" is a good word for this. It feels like there has been a gradual shift over the last few years - and the Twitter rulings (of which another just today) exemplify this - towards less freedom, supported by vague ideas like "incitement" to "terrorism" and "racial hatred". For anyone old enough to remember the wild west of Usenet a decade or two ago, the sort of stuff we see people being imprisoned for posting on Twitter now seems extremely tame. But hey, celebrities didn't really get into Usenet too much...
    - ZoFreX 12y ago
      There is nothing new or special about the Twitter rulings in the UK. Whether you agree with it or not, if you wrote similar messages to someone via letter 20 years ago you could get in trouble. Simply changing the medium hasn't changed the legal ramifications.
      - bshimmin 12y ago
        Aside from the fact that there have been actual changes to the law (mentioned in my "vague ideas" clause), what's changed is that people used to post obscene and threatening things on usenet, and whenever the police were involved, nothing ever came of it. With Twitter in the UK, in 2014, people now go to prison for posting such things. Of course Twitter is more popular than Usenet ever was, but I'm not sure whether that's more the point than a gradual erosion of freedom of speech in the UK which I personally think we've seen.
  - gojomo 12y ago
    That 'nuance' to 'free speech' where certain speech is punished by the government is actually 'not free speech'.
- slg 12y ago
  I think most American's assume that the level of free speech that we have in the US is universal in other countries with similar ideologies. Most other countries do outlaw various types of speech with discrimination and hate speech being two of the most common examples. EDIT: Here is an educating and interesting Wikipedia article on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country
  - _delirium 12y ago
    The U.S. outlaws some speech as well, though it makes a different set of choices, and generally bans less of it. Some categories of speech typically banned in the U.S. include: "obscenity", "fighting words", "incitement to unlawful action", "defamation", any false statement in some contexts, intrusion on privacy in some contexts (two branches of this are disclosure of personal secrets, and disclosure of trade secrets), etc. Though some of these categories have narrowed over the years, e.g. obscenity used to be extremely broad (including even James Joyce novels), but is now less so. International publication often ends up arbitraging these differences. For example a good deal of American communist literature was published in Europe to escape American censorship, and vice-versa for European neo-Nazi material, which was published in the U.S. to escape European censorship.
pessimizer 12y ago
>Why is that the only case where right holders have a "legitimate interest" like this? There are lots of other cases where somebody should have a similar case by a similar standard: obscenity, sex, violence, religion or anything else counter to a group's core beliefs. The law should be consistent one way or another, but it isn't. I think that's because the only consistent and fair position is to allow all parodies without any restriction other than confusion with the original work. Since they still want to censor, they can't allow that, and instead use a vague term ('discriminatory message') that is unlimited in effect. The racial/religious example in the text isn't a restriction; a 'discriminatory message' could be applied to anything from painting gardeners in a bad light to slandering Texas beef[1]. It's good that it loosens up the law in spirit, at least. [1] http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1998-01-20/business/9801200126_1_oprah-winfrey-tv-crew-circus http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1998-01-20/business/98012... "Turner's law is a tribute to the increasing power of the media, and a major reason why at least 12 other states have passed laws making it a crime to denigrate products, mostly fruits and vegetables."

by tikhonj 12y ago

nathan_long 12y ago

> There are lots of other cases where somebody should have a similar case by a similar standard: obscenity, sex, violence, religion or anything else counter to a group's core beliefs. Just what I came here to say. If I wrote a children's song and someone parodied it with sexual content, I'd be miffed. On the other hand, if original authors could define what's offensive, they could object to each parody individually on made-up grounds. It's probably better to totally separate the questions of "can you make a parody" and "can you publish a work with content X, whether or not it's a parody" (with the answer being "yes, we believe in free speech" in all but a very few cases).

jiggy2011 12y ago
The UK is a bit more nuanced with free speech than the US, it can be illegal to make an offensive joke on twitter for example.
- therealdrag0 12y ago
  Sheesh!
- bshimmin 12y ago
  "Nuanced" is a good word for this. It feels like there has been a gradual shift over the last few years - and the Twitter rulings (of which another just today) exemplify this - towards less freedom, supported by vague ideas like "incitement" to "terrorism" and "racial hatred". For anyone old enough to remember the wild west of Usenet a decade or two ago, the sort of stuff we see people being imprisoned for posting on Twitter now seems extremely tame. But hey, celebrities didn't really get into Usenet too much...
  - ZoFreX 12y ago
    There is nothing new or special about the Twitter rulings in the UK. Whether you agree with it or not, if you wrote similar messages to someone via letter 20 years ago you could get in trouble. Simply changing the medium hasn't changed the legal ramifications.
    - bshimmin 12y ago
      Aside from the fact that there have been actual changes to the law (mentioned in my "vague ideas" clause), what's changed is that people used to post obscene and threatening things on usenet, and whenever the police were involved, nothing ever came of it. With Twitter in the UK, in 2014, people now go to prison for posting such things. Of course Twitter is more popular than Usenet ever was, but I'm not sure whether that's more the point than a gradual erosion of freedom of speech in the UK which I personally think we've seen.
- gojomo 12y ago
  That 'nuance' to 'free speech' where certain speech is punished by the government is actually 'not free speech'.
slg 12y ago
I think most American's assume that the level of free speech that we have in the US is universal in other countries with similar ideologies. Most other countries do outlaw various types of speech with discrimination and hate speech being two of the most common examples. EDIT: Here is an educating and interesting Wikipedia article on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country
- _delirium 12y ago
  The U.S. outlaws some speech as well, though it makes a different set of choices, and generally bans less of it. Some categories of speech typically banned in the U.S. include: "obscenity", "fighting words", "incitement to unlawful action", "defamation", any false statement in some contexts, intrusion on privacy in some contexts (two branches of this are disclosure of personal secrets, and disclosure of trade secrets), etc. Though some of these categories have narrowed over the years, e.g. obscenity used to be extremely broad (including even James Joyce novels), but is now less so. International publication often ends up arbitraging these differences. For example a good deal of American communist literature was published in Europe to escape American censorship, and vice-versa for European neo-Nazi material, which was published in the U.S. to escape European censorship.

pessimizer 12y ago

>Why is that the only case where right holders have a "legitimate interest" like this? There are lots of other cases where somebody should have a similar case by a similar standard: obscenity, sex, violence, religion or anything else counter to a group's core beliefs. The law should be consistent one way or another, but it isn't. I think that's because the only consistent and fair position is to allow all parodies without any restriction other than confusion with the original work. Since they still want to censor, they can't allow that, and instead use a vague term ('discriminatory message') that is unlimited in effect. The racial/religious example in the text isn't a restriction; a 'discriminatory message' could be applied to anything from painting gardeners in a bad light to slandering Texas beef[1]. It's good that it loosens up the law in spirit, at least. [1] http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1998-01-20/business/9801200126_1_oprah-winfrey-tv-crew-circus http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1998-01-20/business/98012... "Turner's law is a tribute to the increasing power of the media, and a major reason why at least 12 other states have passed laws making it a crime to denigrate products, mostly fruits and vegetables."