4 ms·

Well, Hamlet (like all of Shakespeare's works) is not copyrighted. A manga that had been out only a few years before The Lion King would certainly be. But you

Well, Hamlet (like all of Shakespeare's works) is not copyrighted. A manga that had been out only a few years before The Lion King would certainly be. But you make an excellent point: There's not really any originality left in the arts. It's all been done before.

cujo 12y ago
It wasn't a "few" years. It was ~30 years.
- morganvachon 12y ago
  "Few" relative to Hamlet.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
>Well, Hamlet (like all of Shakespeare's works) is not copyrighted I find it interesting that the HN community is usually deeply anti-copyright until they're own works or the works they like are used seemingly without permission. Then we all become copyright nannies and strict copyright lawyers. This is why I think IP reform will never truly work. We're all to hypocritical about it. We want to use Disney's stuff but we don't want to let Disney use anyone else's. If the stuff that someone else owns is more valuable that ours we want it. When someone takes something of value from us, we freak out. That isn't politics, that's just envy and theft. I saw reddit take down a site that was using some redditors clip-art without permission, most likely accidentately. The outrage and DDOS was unbelievable for a place where "free culture" is the norm. It seems like there is no real anti-copyright movement, at least an organized one. Just a disorganized group engaging in hypocritical self-interest under the guise of "political reformer." Shame really, 10+ years ago, it seemed guys like Lessig were making progress and we were just one SCOTUS ruling from change. If anything, we're farther from reform than ever now.
- scbrg 12y ago
  > I find it interesting that the HN community is usually deeply anti-copyright until they're own works or the works they like are used seemingly without permission. Then we all become copyright nannies and strict copyright lawyers. Generally, I'd say the anti-copyright community gets angry when it is copyright advocates that commit copyright infringement. It doesn't really have to do with whether they like the infringed work - but when the very people who are actively working on maintaining, or even worsening the copyright situation (such as Disney) get away with infringing it leaves a very bitter taste, and is hard to forgive. People get angry when it is OK for Disney to break the law and make millions doing so, while a random kid doing it on a much smaller scale without earning a dime gets fined into oblivion. The hypocrisy and the injustice is worse than the crime itself.
- Avshalom 12y ago
  It's not that weird. Disney is an 800lb media gorilla. When they rip something off it's punching down. I am a poorish dude in a bedroom when I rip off Disney I'm punching up. Which is why I don't give a shit about Disney ripping of kimba in this case. Tezuka is/was a media giant in Japan and the Lion King didn't really do anything to harm the Kimba IP financially anyway.
- innguest 12y ago
  The reason for the contradiction between belief and behavior arises from lack of principles. Most people will decide on a per-issue basis how they feel about it, and then rationalize their sentiment. The truth is intellectual property is not real property, and therefore has no legitimate claim for protection in a capitalist society. That's the principle, property rights for property. Be it Disney or whomever.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > The truth is intellectual property is not real property, and therefore has no legitimate claim for protection in a capitalist society. This is true in the sense that intellectual property is a subcategory of intangible personal property which is a subcategory of personal property, which is a different and mutually exclusive subcategory of "property" from real property. But I suspect that you are using "real property" to mean something other than what that term means in discussing categories of property (since otherwise you'd be arguing that all personal property is inconsistent with capitalism, which only makes sense if you've gotten capitalism confused with a particularly extreme form of communism.) But I don't know exactly what you do mean by "real property", and I think you would do well to define what you mean by it (and maybe choose a term that doesn't already have a clear and well-understood meaning in the context of property) and explain why that thing is the only thing with a "legitimate claim for protection in a capitalist society". (And then, for bonus points, explain what relevance being the only thing with a "legitimate claim for protection a capitalist society" should even be relevant in any modern mixed economy, all of which have made the conscious choice to deviate in some important ways from pure capitalist notions of property rights.)
    - innguest 12y ago
      Real property = that which is material, i.e. made out of stuff that you can carry around. For instance, if you print a computer file, the sheet of paper with the data on it is real property because it's a material thing in the world. The file on the computer is not real property because it is not a material thing in the real world that you can carry around - you can put it on a flash drive and carry that around, but not the bytes or the letters that make up that data. Even if you could carry the bytes around (let's say for the sake of the nitpickers) in your hand without a flash drive, just the bytes, then only those bytes would be property, but the information those bytes represent is never property because the information anything represents is purely conceptual; not inherently material, but something that comes from the interpretation of material things. So I'd be free to arrange my own bytes in the same way you arranged your bytes, if you happen to publish your arrangement in any way, and you could not sue me for some bogus "copyright" claim since you have your bytes and I have mine, and you'd impinge on my right if you told me I can't arrange my bytes in a certain way because you've arranged yours that way first. Capitalism can only concern itself with real, material property because one can only possess material things. IT is not possible, really, to possess an interpretation of something material (unless you never tell anyone, like Coca-Cola does, but they do not rely on law for their trade secret to be enforced, they simply don't tell anyone).
- morganvachon 12y ago
  How was I at all hypocritical? I stated a fact (Hamlet is not copyrighted) and implied that that may be why there is no outrage over it being copied. I didn't say that was good or bad, and I didn't speak of my own beliefs on the issue. If you're going to point fingers at me, at least know the direction to point.
madaxe_again 12y ago
Well, there are only seven stories to tell, or so it's said: Voyage and Return, Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Hero's Quest, Rebirth/Bildungsroman, Comedy, Tragedy.

cujo 12y ago

It wasn't a "few" years. It was ~30 years.

morganvachon 12y ago
"Few" relative to Hamlet.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

>Well, Hamlet (like all of Shakespeare's works) is not copyrighted I find it interesting that the HN community is usually deeply anti-copyright until they're own works or the works they like are used seemingly without permission. Then we all become copyright nannies and strict copyright lawyers. This is why I think IP reform will never truly work. We're all to hypocritical about it. We want to use Disney's stuff but we don't want to let Disney use anyone else's. If the stuff that someone else owns is more valuable that ours we want it. When someone takes something of value from us, we freak out. That isn't politics, that's just envy and theft. I saw reddit take down a site that was using some redditors clip-art without permission, most likely accidentately. The outrage and DDOS was unbelievable for a place where "free culture" is the norm. It seems like there is no real anti-copyright movement, at least an organized one. Just a disorganized group engaging in hypocritical self-interest under the guise of "political reformer." Shame really, 10+ years ago, it seemed guys like Lessig were making progress and we were just one SCOTUS ruling from change. If anything, we're farther from reform than ever now.

scbrg 12y ago
> I find it interesting that the HN community is usually deeply anti-copyright until they're own works or the works they like are used seemingly without permission. Then we all become copyright nannies and strict copyright lawyers. Generally, I'd say the anti-copyright community gets angry when it is copyright advocates that commit copyright infringement. It doesn't really have to do with whether they like the infringed work - but when the very people who are actively working on maintaining, or even worsening the copyright situation (such as Disney) get away with infringing it leaves a very bitter taste, and is hard to forgive. People get angry when it is OK for Disney to break the law and make millions doing so, while a random kid doing it on a much smaller scale without earning a dime gets fined into oblivion. The hypocrisy and the injustice is worse than the crime itself.
Avshalom 12y ago
It's not that weird. Disney is an 800lb media gorilla. When they rip something off it's punching down. I am a poorish dude in a bedroom when I rip off Disney I'm punching up. Which is why I don't give a shit about Disney ripping of kimba in this case. Tezuka is/was a media giant in Japan and the Lion King didn't really do anything to harm the Kimba IP financially anyway.
innguest 12y ago
The reason for the contradiction between belief and behavior arises from lack of principles. Most people will decide on a per-issue basis how they feel about it, and then rationalize their sentiment. The truth is intellectual property is not real property, and therefore has no legitimate claim for protection in a capitalist society. That's the principle, property rights for property. Be it Disney or whomever.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > The truth is intellectual property is not real property, and therefore has no legitimate claim for protection in a capitalist society. This is true in the sense that intellectual property is a subcategory of intangible personal property which is a subcategory of personal property, which is a different and mutually exclusive subcategory of "property" from real property. But I suspect that you are using "real property" to mean something other than what that term means in discussing categories of property (since otherwise you'd be arguing that all personal property is inconsistent with capitalism, which only makes sense if you've gotten capitalism confused with a particularly extreme form of communism.) But I don't know exactly what you do mean by "real property", and I think you would do well to define what you mean by it (and maybe choose a term that doesn't already have a clear and well-understood meaning in the context of property) and explain why that thing is the only thing with a "legitimate claim for protection in a capitalist society". (And then, for bonus points, explain what relevance being the only thing with a "legitimate claim for protection a capitalist society" should even be relevant in any modern mixed economy, all of which have made the conscious choice to deviate in some important ways from pure capitalist notions of property rights.)
  - innguest 12y ago
    Real property = that which is material, i.e. made out of stuff that you can carry around. For instance, if you print a computer file, the sheet of paper with the data on it is real property because it's a material thing in the world. The file on the computer is not real property because it is not a material thing in the real world that you can carry around - you can put it on a flash drive and carry that around, but not the bytes or the letters that make up that data. Even if you could carry the bytes around (let's say for the sake of the nitpickers) in your hand without a flash drive, just the bytes, then only those bytes would be property, but the information those bytes represent is never property because the information anything represents is purely conceptual; not inherently material, but something that comes from the interpretation of material things. So I'd be free to arrange my own bytes in the same way you arranged your bytes, if you happen to publish your arrangement in any way, and you could not sue me for some bogus "copyright" claim since you have your bytes and I have mine, and you'd impinge on my right if you told me I can't arrange my bytes in a certain way because you've arranged yours that way first. Capitalism can only concern itself with real, material property because one can only possess material things. IT is not possible, really, to possess an interpretation of something material (unless you never tell anyone, like Coca-Cola does, but they do not rely on law for their trade secret to be enforced, they simply don't tell anyone).
morganvachon 12y ago
How was I at all hypocritical? I stated a fact (Hamlet is not copyrighted) and implied that that may be why there is no outrage over it being copied. I didn't say that was good or bad, and I didn't speak of my own beliefs on the issue. If you're going to point fingers at me, at least know the direction to point.

madaxe_again 12y ago

Well, there are only seven stories to tell, or so it's said: Voyage and Return, Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Hero's Quest, Rebirth/Bildungsroman, Comedy, Tragedy.