Original character, do not spiel

[Jinxtengu]

Seeing as there haven’t been many new discussion threads created recently, (Unless I’ve entirely missed them while lazily scanning the forums) I’m creating a new discussion thread on the pertinent issue of copyright.

So personally I’ve got a fairly loose view about copyright, mainly because I like the idea of collage.
I think that collage, either created with digital media or with paper is one of the few reasons that may still serve as a reason for letting the human race continue to exist.

But now let me ask, if someone were to draw Garfield, combined with Art Garfunkel combined with Bart Simon, would this be a legitimate case of copywrite infringement?. What do you think? Or sonic except he’s now a member of the taliban. In this case I would argue fair use.

Namco infamously bought the rights to loading screen minigames, effectively stopping anyone else from doing them. Should that be a thing?
Or how about copywriting the human genome, or the color purple, is that going too far? (Both are real examples)
Apparently there’s a whole graffiti movement which prides itself on subverting cultural icons.
Should people really have a right to express themselves in this way (or indeed any way at all)?. Shouldn’t these individuals be crushed by the power of massive copyright holders and corporate conglomerates?

Is this really just a clash of power in disguise?
Also, it’s possible to defame a person, by calling them stinky, even super-super stinky, but... can you defame a brand (take any recognisable character such as Louis the marmoset) by drawing similar likenesses, each of them suffering a cleft pallete? Do people get what Im’ getting at?

[Deleted]

wait a second, is that why we don't have minigames during loadscreens anymore? i really liked when the old maxis games had these minigames during the installation process of the game

[Deleted]

i think that nothing should be copyrighted and ppl should be free to spread all their stuff. i mean, its like what jinx said, where do you draw the line on whats copyrightable and whats not? everything is just a copy of stuff invented in the 20th century which is a copy of 19th century stuff all the way to stone age and dinosaurs.


with the internets, we got the power to spread any idea for basically free, trying to restrict that is a mistake. its like if we had a machine that produces free food and instead of solving world hunger, we would try to figure out who has the right to eat what food.


tear the copyrights dooooown

May 7, 2018 18:51:51 GMT @rato said:

wait a second, is that why we don't have minigames during loadscreens anymore? i really liked when the old maxis games had these minigames during the installation process of the game

yeah its real, the patent expired this or last year though

[Deleted]

I think that the true modern definition of "copyright" has nothing to do with protecting artist's work. "Copyright" protects only the middle-men - managers, publishers, producers and so on. It protects their chance at getting MONEY as they take their place in the wicked chain between artist and people. When you pirate something, they say you've violated "copyright laws". But who in their right mind would pirate a game or a song to later claim that THEY are the authors? People just play and listen, damnit! Even if they don't pay, they still acknowledge it's NOT THEIRS. It's a really clever scheme out there. Someone with a keen business mind had an idea to mix the notions of "owning something as a product" and "owning something as a creation". A very illogical mixture, but most people don't even think about it...

But even if today's "copyright" truly meant protecting the author and his work, I still think that things like "Do What The Fuck You Want" license are perfectly fine.

[Deleted]

the people who argue about creative works getting messed are very stupid because big companies like disney buy the right to mess up creative works, and they produce worse shit that 1000 fan fiction writers could come up with.
If there was no copyright protection then people would better understand the distinction between the author and people who are not the author I think since they would not even have the illusion that some people have "right" to mess with it while others do not.
And anyway, in ancient times stories and characters were not the property of their teller, they went through the generations because they belonged to everyone to be told and retold as they willed, and they evolved along with them. Also, these permutations were controlled by the people who told the stories, not by big companies that have a vested interest in keeping people big eyed and docile.

[Deleted]

the greek character hercules is actually a disney corpright for quite a while, i'm not just talking about the disney movie hercules, disney has the possession of the actual myth

[Jinxtengu]

May 10, 2018 3:32:32 GMT @rato said:

the greek character hercules is actually a disney corpright for quite a while, i'm not just talking about the disney movie hercules, disney has the possession of the actual myth

Are you sure about that? I would've thought that the Greek Myth was public domain,and that their heavily bastardised rendition was their IP.

[Deleted]

May 10, 2018 3:32:32 GMT @rato said:

the greek character hercules is actually a disney corpright for quite a while, i'm not just talking about the disney movie hercules, disney has the possession of the actual myth

[citation needed]

[softest]

Pretty fond of copyleft.

Like at a basic level I like copyright as a way of protecting people who aren't big companies from having their work stolen, but in actual effect it's like the other way round. Control instead of protection.

[drake]

hahaha 'I think that collage, either created with digital media or with paper is one of the few reasons that may still serve as a reason for letting the human race continue to exist. ' I like it. i think copyright is mostly retarded. mostly. I like to think if someone used an image of my work I wouldn't have a problem. i shouldnt, as I use lots of music in my games often without permission

[Deleted]

I am not a very big fan of the GPL license. I think it is perverse that a license created under the banner of software "freedom" involves restricting the way in which people can distribute software.
For people unaware of what the GPL is, it makes it so that you are only allowed to distribute software along with it's source code, and it makes it so that anything that incorporates code licensed under it is also itself licensed by it.

I think a much better solution would be to make it that any software under the GPL cannot restrict reverse engineering of source code, since that then maintains the freedom of the receiver to use it as they wish, and maintains the freedom of the distributor to distribute it as they wish. It also maintains the very good thing about the GPL which is it's "virality", since any code that falls under it can only be reused in projects that are themselves under the GPL, more and more code falls under it and becomes available to the world.

I guess the problem with my idea is that companies might release intentionally obscure code in order to make it harder to reverse engineer and less useful. This would almost certainly make the amount of useful free software in the world smaller.