[Non-political] News that makes you Laugh/Cry/Both...

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 12:28 am

spare the rod, spoil the child....

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 1:07 am

Wow. That happened 20 miles from me.

While I think the fighting for 2 hours was a bit much, and the pre-beatings completely out of line (if they happened)... That is certainly a creative method of discipline.

K · Post by K » Wed Oct 19, 2011 11:34 pm

Bitcoin tanks, as expected. Still, like any good pyramid scheme you could still make money if you had gotten in at the ground floor.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 4:33 am

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/21387.html

US trying to kill fan-comics in Japan.

id otn get this idea, and cant stand it here either.. where the copyright begins to have rights of its own and the copyright owner has no say in the matter.

why in the fuck would Japan agree to copyright laws such as in the USA? the mangaka dont mind it....do copyright owners everywhere jsut lose their rights and the law no longer allows them to think for themselves?

there is a point when the law must exist FOR the people...not to just exist, and this is a clear cut case of that when it involves copyright. USA is just to sue happy and innovation cannot happen like it does in Japan.

when was the last time you bought something other than produce that was "made in america"?

not even 100 years later and USA trying to drop another bomb on JApan even after the March earthquake that they haven't fully recovered form.

cant people keep their dick-beaters to themselves and leave other countries alone? dont we have enough over here to deal with?

i smell that christian missionaries have not yet ended because this is the same thing...oh Japan, says the USA, its for your own good, we are only trying to enlighten you and save your soul!

HORSE SHIT!

USA comics suck as, and everyone wants manga, and USA cant stand it isnt the best at something...so just trying to fuck over other people....USA the school ground bully of the world.

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Nov 02, 2011 2:15 pm

I never understood copyright for art. Only in America do we feel that someone should be compensated for the rest of their lives for writing a song. (I should be able to sing "Happy Birthday in public all I want without being sued!)

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 2:28 pm

Art (incl. books, movies, music, etc.) is a major part of any economy. And quite frankly if you could not be guaranteed payment for a best-selling book you spent 4 years writing a lot of people would just plain not write. So thanks to copyright we get artistic works created and the economy is weakened.

What is your objection to that?

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 2:36 pm

There is nothing wrong with copyright. Now Copyright of Lifetime+90 years is pretty silly. But Copyright of Lifetime would be fine with me.

The problem is two fold:
1) fair use
2) corporations being people

Disney doesn't want to lose Mickey Mouse to Public Domain. I can understand that, but by doing plastic surgery on the copyright laws everytime Mickey comes close to becoming Public Domain, they're screwing the rest of the US.

And we let really stupid things get copyrighted.
Like TimeZone historical Data
BluePrints
LAWS

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Nov 02, 2011 2:39 pm

Alright, why would the person that wrote a bestselling novel twenty years ago still be getting paid for it? Why are they entitled to a lifetime of money for writing one book? Why do they have the right to sue daycare centers for intellectual property that's decades old?

I don't care if a writer gets money now. I don't see why copyright for art, music, and literature should last more than a couple of years (5 at the max).

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 2:51 pm

What if the work doesn't become popular until ten years down the line? They already had to suffer from not getting compensated until much further down the line.

Also, authors are essentially never get so popular they can live off the royalties from a single creation of fiction. Examples are few and far between at best.

And your example refers to Disney, the icon of copyright gone wrong.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 2:54 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:I don't care if a writer gets money now. I don't see why copyright for art, music, and literature should last more than a couple of years (5 at the max).

Because 5 years is rarely enough time for anything to be profitable except for rare flash-in-the-pan and already established franchises. It took years for classic icons like Mickey and TMNTs and Bugs Bunny to get off of the ground. Rowlings released her first Harry Potter book in 1997, it took until 2001 for the first movie to come out. Should she not have gotten paid for that movie since she pretty much did the lion's share of the advertising and writing?

If copyright only lasted for a couple of years then artists would have to pump and dump product. And even if you bucked the odds and released something that was an instant hit it'd leave your franchise dead in the water. If after Shigeru Miyamoto's copyright for Super Mario Bros. 1 ran out after two years, why would he have made Super Mario Bros. 3? He wouldn't have gotten any cash for it because since the Mario character was public domain people could just copy his cartridge and given him the finger. He'd have to, fuck, make Super Marian Bros. 3 or some shit with a bunch of new characters and new mechanics and whatever the fuck.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 3:43 pm

Lago, while I agree with the thrust of your post, you did mess up the details pretty bad. Copyright applies not just to the iconic characters, but also the entire text and content of individual games. Just because "Mario" would be in the public domain, doesn't mean "Super Mario Bros 3" would be. Miyamoto would have to compete with other people's Mario games, but he would still have sole ownership of any specific Mario game he made for 5 years after its release.

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 4:01 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:[If copyright only lasted for a couple of years then artists would have to pump and dump product. And even if you bucked the odds and released something that was an instant hit it'd leave your franchise dead in the water. If after Shigeru Miyamoto's copyright for Super Mario Bros. 1 ran out after two years, why would he have made Super Mario Bros. 3? He wouldn't have gotten any cash for it because since the Mario character was public domain people could just copy his cartridge and given him the finger. He'd have to, fuck, make Super Marian Bros. 3 or some shit with a bunch of new characters and new mechanics and whatever the fuck.

Mario 3 is a very good game. Even if the Mario characters where public domain back in the 80's there is only a few select people who could have used them to the effect seen in SMB3. So Miyamoto could easily compete with any other game using the Mario characters, because his games where the best. Also he would be the only one who could make the claim, 'From the creator of Super Mario 1' which counts for something.

Every great creator borrows liberally from many sources, it's often been said that there are no new ideas. The way copyright works now is that if you get there first, you can lock out your competition. Despite that I think we probably should have copyright, but I like the original (American?) terms, 14 years, extendable once for another 14.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:46 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:(I should be able to sing "Happy Birthday in public all I want without being sued!)

you can cause the govt isnt going to go against the nuns who wrote it and tell them they have to prosecute, and the nuns dont want compensation.

it is how it should be.

copyright is only there to protect your work...not prevent derivations.

that has been totally fucked over in this country...and now they want to do it to other countries too.

yay for the playground bully USA!

more like USA! bad doggy, no biscuit!

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:05 pm

shadzar wrote:
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:(I should be able to sing "Happy Birthday in public all I want without being sued!)
you can cause the govt isnt going to go against the nuns who wrote it and tell them they have to prosecute, and the nuns dont want compensation.

Damn I know there was a reason I have shadzar on ignore. There are idiots, fucking and trans fucking idiots. Guess who shadzar is?

"Happy Birthday to You", also known more simply as "Happy Birthday", is a song that is traditionally sung to celebrate the anniversary of a person's birth. According to the 1998 Guinness Book of World Records, "Happy Birthday to You" is the most recognized song in the English language, followed by "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." The song's base lyrics have been translated into at least 18 languages.[1], p. 17

The melody of "Happy Birthday to You" comes from the song "Good Morning to All", which was written and composed by American siblings Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill in 1893.[2][3] Patty was a kindergarten principal in Louisville, Kentucky, developing various teaching methods at what is now the Little Loomhouse;[4] Mildred was a pianist and composer.[1], p. 7 The sisters created "Good Morning to All" as a song that would be easy to be sung by young children.[1], p. 14

The combination of melody and lyrics in "Happy Birthday to You" first appeared in print in 1912, and probably existed even earlier.[1], pp. 31–32 None of these early appearances included credits or copyright notices. The Summy Company registered for copyright in 1935, crediting authors Preston Ware Orem and Mrs. R.R. Forman.[citation needed] In 1990, Warner Chappell purchased the company owning the copyright for $15 million, with the value of "Happy Birthday" estimated at $5 million.[5] Based on the 1935 copyright registration, Warner claims that the United States copyright will not expire until 2030, and that unauthorized public performances of the song are technically illegal unless royalties are paid to it. In one specific instance on February 2010, these royalties were said to amount to $700.[6] In the European Union, the copyright of the song will expire on December 31, 2016.[7] The actual American copyright status of "Happy Birthday to You" began to draw more attention with the passage of the Copyright Term Extension Act in 1998. When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Act in Eldred v. Ashcroft in 2003, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer specifically mentioned "Happy Birthday to You" in his dissenting opinion.[8] An American law professor who heavily researched the song has expressed strong doubts that it is still under copyright.[1]

You know, there are times it fucking sucks to be a Barbershop Harmony Society Chapter Secretary ... but hearing shadzar view of history is so fucking funny when you actually know the sick truth that it makes up for all of it. Nuns ...

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:06 pm

Actually Michael Jackson owned the rights to Happy Birthday,and now I guess his children do.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:07 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Alright, why would the person that wrote a bestselling novel twenty years ago still be getting paid for it? Why are they entitled to a lifetime of money for writing one book?

Because they should be the only one allowed to make money of there EXACT creation and should get paid for it... that doesnt mean that other people shouldnt be able to write and make money off of Harry Potter a boy fighting trolls and...oh wait that DID happen before JKR and SHE took the name and change the story a bit and made a derivative work and now have millions form it...

that is how it SHOULD be...she got to make a derivative work...that makes copyright work TO increase productivity in development while giving the original the chance to earn money form it...

copyright is jsut a patent on IP instead of a physical thing or procedure.

Mickey Mouse shit is TRADEMARK. they want him as theirs, they jsut need to trademark his as, and then like Exxon v Kellogs they can fight over a simple tiger so one has to wear an ascot while the other gets to be a real normal tiger.

Walt is dead, so his creation shouldnt be earning him more money...and Beuna Vista can have Mickey, Goofy and Donald.

its like someone else said. corporations being treated as having the same rights as people...that shit is the problem because mostly corporations own copyrights now and do NOT want others to be able to work on their things unless it is work for hire so the corp keeps all copyrights and the artist has NO rights.

mangaka own the copyrights to their works form Naruto to Bleach, they just enter into contract with Shonen or whatever to publish them.

Warner Brothers wants Superman so bad they are still fighting the familes of Schubert and the other to use them and be EXCLUSIVE to WB. Kirby fighting Marvel, etc...

copyright is supposed to protect the creator of the content, not some business that bought an idea. but a business wants to keep using that idea over and over...

this too applies to D&D because we have the whole problem of 4th edition NOT being D&D, but the copyright holder gets to use the trademark and trade-dress on whatever they want to confuse a piece of "art" with a brand name.

copyright itself is now a problem, NOT a solution thus copyleft and Creative Commons exists to PREVENT some corporation form claiming something to make money form, but also hurts the creator using them in some cases, because they give up a LOT of the protections that CREATORS should have under copyright.

JKR and her 7~9 books, she can have until the end of time...but after a period of time after they have been profitable for her, copyright was supposed to ALLOW derivative works by others...and she still solely keeps her 7~9 books and decides what can be done with those...

which is basically how fan manga doushinji (sp) works in Japan. it is REAL copyright that works...because it DOES get new people into the art and brings their abilities and may be able to make their own characters and stories later, rather than borrow from other peoples art or likenesses to them.

motion pictures is where it all goes to hell in a hand basket, and when the REAL copyright problems began.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:13 pm

tzor wrote:
shadzar wrote:
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:(I should be able to sing "Happy Birthday in public all I want without being sued!)
you can cause the govt isnt going to go against the nuns who wrote it and tell them they have to prosecute, and the nuns dont want compensation.
Damn I know there was a reason I have shadzar on ignore. There are idiots, fucking and trans fucking idiots. Guess who shadzar is?

oh boo-hoo i got it a little mixed up....

Mildred Hill was a kindergarten and Sunday-school teacher, like her younger sister Patty.

nun...sunday-school teacher... religious bullshit and nonsense was in there. i dont memorize precise trivial details about stupid shit...nor do i wikipedia everything or google it.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:14 pm

sabs wrote:Actually Michael Jackson owned the rights to Happy Birthday,and now I guess his children do.

It was in private hands from 2004-2011 and one of the hands may have been his. Now it's not. He never had sole control over it. Warner Music Group always had it, but it was in private hands during those years.

Access Industries is a privately held, U.S.-based industrial group founded in 1986 by its chairman, Len Blavatnik. Access’s industrial focus spans three sectors: natural resource and chemicals; media and telecommunications; and real estate. It is the owner of the Warner Music Group as of July 20, 2011.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:21 pm

shadzar wrote:nun...sunday-school teacher... religious bullshit and nonsense was in there. i dont memorize precise trivial details about stupid shit...nor do i wikipedia everything or google it.

Le sigh. Hill gets credited with the melody. It's the holder of the words (the lyrics) that is the fucking pain in the ass. The estate who owns the melody is a nice bunch of guys, we (SPEBSQSA aka the Barbershop Harmony Society) even got permission to rearrange the melody for four part barbershop harmony, but the lyrics guys refused to budge. We eventually had to publish the song using our own made up words.

Did you know that when people first published hymns, it was the publisher who married a given lyric to a hymn tune? One guy wrote hymn tunes and the other worte lyrics and they never even met or considered the other in their works.

And I only google things because if I cited my own memory it would be consiered heresay.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:26 pm

There's a reason Fridays and stuff sings that stupid
Happy Happy Happy, Happy Happy Happy.. song
Instead of Happy Birthday to you.

Course, you can totally sing Happy Birthday to You in your own house, it's fair use. You just can't sing it as part of a paid establishment.

It's possible Michael just owned part of it. Or Michael owned the Copyright to the Norma Jean Version.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:46 pm

tzor wrote:And I only google things because if I cited my own memory it would be consiered heresay.

well everything someone posts on here is heresy (or did you mean hear-say?)

yes i know how MOST music works.. a lyricist and musician are not always the same person, but often both had writes...

Mildred wrote the music and Patti wrote the lyrics is the thing...neither did it for money as it was for Mildred's sunday school as was spun off the other song Good Morning...blahblah...

but that is the whole problem with copyright.. someone wants moeny for EVERYTHING and cant imagine that someone would do something like make a song and NOT want money for it...

the church or sunday school didnt want moeny, Mildred didnt..she was probably already paid as a sunday school teaching and wa a pianist...so got money form those... she just wanted something to help occupy the kids.

again the problem being corporations that think everything is business (see EIC in Pirates movies)...when not everyone gives two shits about squeezing moeny out of someone else for every little thing...

which is the point most people try to make when bringing up Happy Birthday song..not everything is done for recognition or money.

it is just so hard to come by money today or the level of greed that EVERYONE thinks they need money and the corporations make it impossible to do anything unless you ahve the right paperwork, they will swoop in and take something and charge everyone for it unless you are like Salk and give away your creation like polio vaccine.

some people just like their work to be appreciated and that is all they need, be it because of religious nonsense background, boy scouts, or just the love of their art/creation. businesses like to money-grab (like D&D powers cards, fate cards, 4th edition, etc....)

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 1:27 am

Orion wrote:Lago, while I agree with the thrust of your post, you did mess up the details pretty bad. Copyright applies not just to the iconic characters, but also the entire text and content of individual games. Just because "Mario" would be in the public domain, doesn't mean "Super Mario Bros 3" would be. Miyamoto would have to compete with other people's Mario games, but he would still have sole ownership of any specific Mario game he made for 5 years after its release.

Juton wrote:So Miyamoto could easily compete with any other game using the Mario characters, because his games where the best. Also he would be the only one who could make the claim, 'From the creator of Super Mario 1' which counts for something.

This is not true, for several reasons.

1.) If the copyright for a game's plot/characters/whatever was just five years Miyamoto wouldn't have made a Super Mario Bros. 3. He would've made a Super Marian 3 or whatever the fuck so he could've gotten a new set of characters and more exclusive rights to T-Shirts and such. You might be saying 'big deal, SMB3 wouldn't have been much with different characters' but that's because SMB3 is a simple game with almost no plot. The Harry Potter or Star Wars franchise would just plain not exist because the money to make it goes way down.

2.) Miyamoto is further disincentived from making SMB3 because it helps rivals. If he makes SMB1 and it's a smash hit and some MSX gaming company (this is before the 3rd Generation Console Wars died in Japan) makes SMB2 or whatever and it's a smash hit or mediocre or even bad, Miyamoto making SMB3 a smash hit helps his competitor. Again, he'd be better off making SMB3 with a whole new slate of characters and settings. Especially because:

3.) Creating your own beloved franchise from scratch is hard. Copying someone else's is easy. I mean, if you're trying to sell kid's books or pump and dump some direct-to-DVD animation would you rather have to research and plot out and design a story and music from scratch or would you rather just pick-and-mix and create Aladdin 12? Entertainment companies don't give a shit about quality, they care about profits and it's much safer to release a Halo 2 than a Halo 1. Hollywood and the gaming industry has a hard enough time as it is breaking out of its habit of formulatic plots and reliance on cheap and overused gimmicks; how much worse do you think it would be if there was nothing stopping anyone from unilaterally making a Harry Potter 8? I mean, they would eventually, but only after they realize:

4.) That kind of thing runs franchises into the ground. And it doesn't matter if Shigeru Miyamoto decides to do something good with the Mario franchise, at that point he'd have fewer sales because people are fucking sick of Mario-mania. After a certain point no one really gives a care that he had nothing to do with the Mario sex comedy or suction-cup Toads and that he'll bring the magic back to the Marioverse with SMB3; they'll just not buy it because of saturation.

5.) It's very debatable whether only Miyamoto would've been able to make Super Mario Bros 3. The mechanics were really good, don't get me wrong, but IMO there are better games on the NES. Crystalis is in my opinion better than any of the 8/16-bit Legend of Zeldas in every category you'd care to name but it just didn't sell as well because it wasn't an established franchise. Which brings us to a huge problem: it creates an incentive for companies with more money and more resources to gank resources and lock out other people. Someone comes up with an indie game or a cult classic or whatever, then someone else just snatches it up and cranks it right back out with little touches and using the magic of distribution to get a bunch of money for something that they didn't work on at all.

The net effect is that not having copyright causes good authors to give up on works or ideas that have some life in them and bad people to leech off and wreck anything that made it in the five-year window. I know this is the Gaming Den and we have an unwarranted self importance in improving other peoples' products, but seriously, most people with cash don't give a jack shit about quality or integrity. They'd rather just drain dry the money from something that was already good and then go looking around for the next franchise to rape.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 7:33 am

Disney copied a lot for "the Lion King" from "Kimba the White Lion".

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 4:08 pm

And the rest from Hamlet.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 4:14 pm

Fuchs wrote:Disney copied a lot for "the Lion King" from "Kimba the White Lion".

It can get even more interesting. The origins for the iconic song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" goes back to the 1920's. It's gets it start as a folk song, and when later adapted got into a nasty copyright battle.

Interesting fact, the original backgroud chant was "Uyimbube." The weavers who didn't know Zulu "Wimoweh." The evil Tzor often thinks it is "Ream the Rabbit."

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.
In the jungle, chaotic jungle, someone will start a fight
In the jungle, the lion's angry, someone must take the blame
In the jungle, they toss and tumble, every day it is the same

They go and ...
Ream
They go and Ream the Rabbit
Ream
They go and Ream the Rabbit
Every day
That is what I say!