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While I applaud aereo's challenging of the law and twist on the law to create something. The outcome is correct! I read every day on hacker news; copyright laws

While I applaud aereo's challenging of the law and twist on the law to create something. The outcome is correct! I read every day on hacker news; copyright laws are wrong, too long, not fair... I do not see it the same way. The hacker news community is a community who creates many things themselves; many of the community has chosen the path to give open licenses to their creation. This is their right and thankfully they do it. But. All things are not equal; while i think the giving open licenses to software benefits everyone. I do not see mandating open licenses and wide use of "The Arts" to do the same. Creation needs to be a struggle. Taking someone else thing and modifying it is an easy path to create something. It also damages the original creation. Software and Art are NOT the same thing. Because software industry has chosen a different path should not mandate everything do the same. Taking the collection of Marvel comic's characters and Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" and creating a movie would also be cool, but it damages the original. It also by-passes the true meaning of greatness; Original. We as a society have in the last few decades valued bullshit Art over copyright and originality. Why? because it is easy and gives a short amount of pleasure. Great things to not need marketing. Tolkien does not need marketing. He and his family (example) should be compensated forever. there should be no termination to it and his family should profit from it forever. We should never take away the rights of the people who create things. If is their choice to give openness to them.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
untilHellbanned 12y ago
This is important for people to read. Thanks.
lentil_soup 12y ago
Why should the family of Tolkien be compensated forever? What have they done to suddenly be entitled to this? Also, how does mixing and modifying things damage the original? The original is still there and you can appreciate it without worrying about stuff someone else has done with it. That is specially true in software that's what makes it such a great medium.
- throwaway1592 12y ago
  My view is that the damaging is because 1.) people are not experiencing the original. 2.) the voice of the characters is not that of the creator and can not be true to their his intentions. When the allow others to create derivatives works there are always changes but they allowed those changes
  - lentil_soup 12y ago
    "people are not experiencing the original." Sure, but they're experiencing an original interpretation of another work, it'll be judged on its own merit. They can still look up the original if they want to. What's wrong with that?. As Newton said: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" If we were to ban any derivative work you'd need to forget about pretty much any "art" done in the last 400 years (to say a number). As mentioned somewhere else Tolkien's work is not "original" in that case then, it's a mash-up of European mythology. What about music? most modern music relies on samples of other works (check this TED talk by Mark Ronson about it: http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_ronson_how_sampling_transformed_music http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_ronson_how_sampling_transforme...). And TV/Film? Many movie/tv scripts are just a modern version of Shakespeare's works. Anything we do now is influenced by something someone has done before, that's called progress and if we block this with made up "laws" we are going to be very impoverished as a society.
    - logfromblammo 12y ago
      You cant swim in the same river twice. No one can ever experience the original, because the context of everyone's experience has changed. Would your perception of Lord of the Rings be the same before and after reading Wheel of Time or Game of Thrones? Would it even be the same before and after the France-U.S.-Vietnam War? Would it have been the same if written before World War 2? When a work is created, the intention of the artist is fixed, but as artwork, it is continuously shaped by the perceptions of its audience. Art holds a mirror up to life, and that evolves. So experiencing the original is quite impossible now. People who did experience the original have already gone on to reshape the culture with their own works, and we cannot, for instance, un-see the Peter Jackson films based on the books.
vidarh 12y ago
You think Tolkien did not borrow? Where do you think the names of half the characters came from? Our culture would be substantially reduced if we removed all copying. > there should be no termination to it and his family should profit from it forever. What purpose would that serve for society? > We should never take away the rights of the people who create things. If is their choice to give openness to them. We created those rights out of nothing to begin with. Without artificially created monopoly protections, these people would have no basis for preventing copying. People have the choice not to publish. Yet people willingly published before copyright too. Those temporary rights were granted as a bargain: We give up the right to copy for some time, in return for hopefully gaining in the form of encouraging more creation of content. As it stands, it seems a lot of us believe that the bargain has been shifted too much in favour of content creators.
- throwaway1592 12y ago
  I believe the bargain is correct or swayed to the user because people want it for free. the creator should have the sole right to set the terms of use and transfer the terms. It is his property.
  - wtallis 12y ago
    Creators can demand whatever terms they want - and they do, as anyone who's read an EULA knows. But creators shouldn't have unrestricted ability to use the public courts to enforce terms that the general public has no interest in aiding the enforcement of.
    - logfromblammo 12y ago
      If artists want to control their creations forever, they can lock their stuff up in a vault and be cremated with them. If they want to be immortalized as a contributor to the common culture, they will have to relinquish control sooner or later. Otherwise, your creation loses relevance and fades away. Extant copies deteriorate. Collectors lose interest. Your work moves from the paragraph body to the footnotes. Artwork requires a continuous investment of creative energy, otherwise it is replaced by the work of other artists. Museums keep works on display, and encourage patrons to enjoy them as frequently as they are able. Corporations produce series sequels and souvenir merchandise. Artists cross-license their work to creators that work in different media, such as book authors optioning movie rights to film studios. Works in the public domain get remixed into more contemporary works. Characters like Captain Nemo, Dorothy Gale, and Alice (in Wonderland) will never die because anyone who cares to do so can refresh and update their image in the zeitgeist. Take the Norse deity Thor. Would the typical person outside of the Germanic and Scandinavian countries know anything about him if he were not included in non-original stories and artworks, like jewelry, altar carvings, and the eddas? Would anyone care if Marvel did not adopt him into its comic pantheon? Will he enjoy being a woman as much as his adopted brother? The common culture evolves continuously. The laws are in place to encourage participation by folks who would not otherwise be able to expend the effort without compensation. They are not there to wall everything off and put locked gates everywhere. At some point, we need to be able to remember our childhood without paying someone a licensing fee.
look_lookatme 12y ago
Wow downvoters, it's ok to have an opinion like this!
- jblow 12y ago
  It is suspiciously posted by an account that was just created and is even named "throwaway". Downvotes are fully justified.
- vidarh 12y ago
  It's ok, and I didn't downvote, but it's an extreme viewpoint, so it is unsurprising that he's been downvoted. He is promoting a view of copyright that extends far past the rights granted by any extant copyright system, in a forum where a lot of us are very aware of how much of culture is constant remixing and borrowing, or outright "stealing" of past content that has only been possible because copyright law is not nearly as exclusionary as the property law principles he seems to believe should apply (and as I pointed out elsewhere, in his other comments he hints at support for a degree of control which does not even apply to any property law system in the world) .

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

untilHellbanned 12y ago

This is important for people to read. Thanks.

lentil_soup 12y ago

Why should the family of Tolkien be compensated forever? What have they done to suddenly be entitled to this? Also, how does mixing and modifying things damage the original? The original is still there and you can appreciate it without worrying about stuff someone else has done with it. That is specially true in software that's what makes it such a great medium.

throwaway1592 12y ago
My view is that the damaging is because 1.) people are not experiencing the original. 2.) the voice of the characters is not that of the creator and can not be true to their his intentions. When the allow others to create derivatives works there are always changes but they allowed those changes
- lentil_soup 12y ago
  "people are not experiencing the original." Sure, but they're experiencing an original interpretation of another work, it'll be judged on its own merit. They can still look up the original if they want to. What's wrong with that?. As Newton said: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" If we were to ban any derivative work you'd need to forget about pretty much any "art" done in the last 400 years (to say a number). As mentioned somewhere else Tolkien's work is not "original" in that case then, it's a mash-up of European mythology. What about music? most modern music relies on samples of other works (check this TED talk by Mark Ronson about it: http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_ronson_how_sampling_transformed_music http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_ronson_how_sampling_transforme...). And TV/Film? Many movie/tv scripts are just a modern version of Shakespeare's works. Anything we do now is influenced by something someone has done before, that's called progress and if we block this with made up "laws" we are going to be very impoverished as a society.
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    You cant swim in the same river twice. No one can ever experience the original, because the context of everyone's experience has changed. Would your perception of Lord of the Rings be the same before and after reading Wheel of Time or Game of Thrones? Would it even be the same before and after the France-U.S.-Vietnam War? Would it have been the same if written before World War 2? When a work is created, the intention of the artist is fixed, but as artwork, it is continuously shaped by the perceptions of its audience. Art holds a mirror up to life, and that evolves. So experiencing the original is quite impossible now. People who did experience the original have already gone on to reshape the culture with their own works, and we cannot, for instance, un-see the Peter Jackson films based on the books.

vidarh 12y ago

You think Tolkien did not borrow? Where do you think the names of half the characters came from? Our culture would be substantially reduced if we removed all copying. > there should be no termination to it and his family should profit from it forever. What purpose would that serve for society? > We should never take away the rights of the people who create things. If is their choice to give openness to them. We created those rights out of nothing to begin with. Without artificially created monopoly protections, these people would have no basis for preventing copying. People have the choice not to publish. Yet people willingly published before copyright too. Those temporary rights were granted as a bargain: We give up the right to copy for some time, in return for hopefully gaining in the form of encouraging more creation of content. As it stands, it seems a lot of us believe that the bargain has been shifted too much in favour of content creators.

throwaway1592 12y ago
I believe the bargain is correct or swayed to the user because people want it for free. the creator should have the sole right to set the terms of use and transfer the terms. It is his property.
- wtallis 12y ago
  Creators can demand whatever terms they want - and they do, as anyone who's read an EULA knows. But creators shouldn't have unrestricted ability to use the public courts to enforce terms that the general public has no interest in aiding the enforcement of.
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    If artists want to control their creations forever, they can lock their stuff up in a vault and be cremated with them. If they want to be immortalized as a contributor to the common culture, they will have to relinquish control sooner or later. Otherwise, your creation loses relevance and fades away. Extant copies deteriorate. Collectors lose interest. Your work moves from the paragraph body to the footnotes. Artwork requires a continuous investment of creative energy, otherwise it is replaced by the work of other artists. Museums keep works on display, and encourage patrons to enjoy them as frequently as they are able. Corporations produce series sequels and souvenir merchandise. Artists cross-license their work to creators that work in different media, such as book authors optioning movie rights to film studios. Works in the public domain get remixed into more contemporary works. Characters like Captain Nemo, Dorothy Gale, and Alice (in Wonderland) will never die because anyone who cares to do so can refresh and update their image in the zeitgeist. Take the Norse deity Thor. Would the typical person outside of the Germanic and Scandinavian countries know anything about him if he were not included in non-original stories and artworks, like jewelry, altar carvings, and the eddas? Would anyone care if Marvel did not adopt him into its comic pantheon? Will he enjoy being a woman as much as his adopted brother? The common culture evolves continuously. The laws are in place to encourage participation by folks who would not otherwise be able to expend the effort without compensation. They are not there to wall everything off and put locked gates everywhere. At some point, we need to be able to remember our childhood without paying someone a licensing fee.

look_lookatme 12y ago

Wow downvoters, it's ok to have an opinion like this!

jblow 12y ago
It is suspiciously posted by an account that was just created and is even named "throwaway". Downvotes are fully justified.
vidarh 12y ago
It's ok, and I didn't downvote, but it's an extreme viewpoint, so it is unsurprising that he's been downvoted. He is promoting a view of copyright that extends far past the rights granted by any extant copyright system, in a forum where a lot of us are very aware of how much of culture is constant remixing and borrowing, or outright "stealing" of past content that has only been possible because copyright law is not nearly as exclusionary as the property law principles he seems to believe should apply (and as I pointed out elsewhere, in his other comments he hints at support for a degree of control which does not even apply to any property law system in the world) .