Slashdot Mirror
Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double Bass
Slate has a piece about Harry Potter and copyright worldwide that is a disguised call for copyright reform. Well written, well argued, extremely good argument, won't be picked up anywhere else.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
It's pretty sad. Rowling always said she would NEVER sell the rights to Harry Potter. Now if you look at he books, there's a small message on the copyright page saying that Time Warner own the rights to all the character names and likenesses.
The fact she's an unmitigated sellout aside, Rowling (I have no problem with people making money from their creations, but do NOT take the moral high ground and say you'll never sell the rights, then in the same breath be a media whore who gives their soul to the nearest media behemoth), along with Time-Warner, are becoming cease-and-desist junkies of the highest order. MANY fansites are being shut down.
" In something of a departure, Harry's Belarussian clone wields a grenade launcher and re-fights the White Russian wars"
Now that's a Harry Potter I can identify with more!
graspee
Won't be picked up anywhere else? This article has been on the front page of msn.com all day Friday.
Overall, I found the article somewhat weak. While the author made some very good specific points, he often harped about the quality of the localised ripoffs. Specifically, the author referred to the original as "superior" to the localised versions which incorporated a culture's own mythology and history.
Having written a large number of editorial articles in the past, I think I understand where this author is coming from. The author may be attempting to appeal to those who are staunch (some might say zealous) supporters of the Harry Potter and its creator Rowling by appealing to their vanity.
Unfortunately, I think the tradeoff wasn't worth it. The end result is that anybody *rational* who reads it (anybody who can understand the innate quality and indeed superiority of characters adapted to the mythos, legends, and history of a given community) will see this HUGE flaw in logic and will doubt the rest of the article.
I know I do, myself - even though after careful examination I agree with his specific points, I wish such careful examination wasn't required.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
There's a thin line between knock-off and parody. National Lampoon's "Bored of the Rings" and "Doon" were obvious Parodies of "Lord of the Rings" and "Dune." (Second part of sentence gratuitously inserted for the caffeine deprived.) "Harry Potter and Leopard Walk-Up-toDragon" appears to create sufficient confusion by mixing Harry Potter characters and Tolkien characters without permission. This should not be allowed unless it is clearly sold as a satire. "Tanya Grotter" is clearly trying to ride the coat tails of the Harry Potter hype. Tanya Grotter appears to be somewhat derivative of Harry Potter. However, most "grown-up" reviews of Harry Potter point out that J.K. Rowling's work borrows ideas from all sorts of other previous works. Derivation, in and of itself, is the way that literature advances. It is not a reason to use copyright law to suppress a work.
Art which uses found objects, cultural references, preexisting stories may be protected under the fair use doctrine.
To decide whether a use is "fair use" or not, courts consider:
1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit education purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and,
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. 17 U.S.C. 107(1-4)
more here
--Stephen
It has to be said: if McDonald's had patented, trademarked or copyrighted the 'plastic burger joint', they'd be suing Burger King and Wendy's, and never mind the competitive market...
It also has to be said, that if Rowling has registered "Harry Potter" as a trademark, then she has to fight anyone diluting that trademark. Just like anyone else defending their trademarks - defend it or lose it.
This article is just weak. First off, it makes the argument that the ripoff works are okay because, while they may tarnish the characters, to block them would be some sort of crime against a free market. Then right at the end, the author suddenly decided to talk about parody, but actually admits that the copycat works are not works of parody. The 2 Live Crew analogy is particularily terrible, it's the writer's way of framing the issue beside a case that everyone agrees on, but it really has nothing to do with the books in question.
If this was about the publishers attacking small fan-fiction sites, that'd be one thing, but this is a case of people making millions and millions of dollars by copying (no, not always word for word, but stealing characters, etc. is still stealing), in a pure act of commerce. You can hate JK Rowling for being rich and blocking these books, but you at least have to credit her for caring about the books, the people the article is defending are pure commercial opportunists.
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
On the one hand, I think that anyone who wants to publish a 'Star Trek' or 'Star Wars' book should be required to ok it first with the owners of those franchises.
BUT....
If I want to write a sci-fi which takes place in a future 'confederation' with an egotistical Captain 'Church', and a navigation officer called 'Prok' who is annoyingly logical, well that should be ok.
No-one is going to mistake it for the original, but by using some of the same background, I ease the readers immersion into the story, and possibly extend the original in interesting ways.
Note: This is what the Potter books already do, they're based on any number of Boys Own Adventure stories, where 3 or so schoolfriends have all sorts of adventures while dodging crotchety old school-masters, etc.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
JK Rowling trying to prevent people stealing her ideas? Harry Potter is the most derivative piece of fiction I've seen. I mean 'the Dark Side', kid with unknown Force/magical powers living with his aunt/uncle who happens to be really good on an x-wing/broomstick. If Voldemort turns out to be Harry's father, George Lucas should sue.
or just use the themes and ideas of Potter (as in Tanya Grotter's case)
How can you copyright themes and ideas? Does all future fantasy work now violate their copyright? There's nothing totally original and new there. I don't see a problem as long as its not using the character names or trademarks, or claim to be written by Rowling, or if the author has Harry Potter in one hand and a pen in the other. How many works were "inspired" by Tolkien? If its just a little *too* close, go ahead and sue. But I dunno how someone fighting with a grenade launcher infringes on Harry Potter.
Basically, the Potter books aren't 100% original, nor are they as well written as their predecessors. They all have a very linear plot with Harry in every scene - compare The Two Towers where there are three simultaneous stories- and they're relentlessly literal where they could be surreal. Masefield's stuff is amazingly surreal, but then he *was* Poet Laureate.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
He first ignores the difference between inspired by and derivative works, lumping in Tonya Grotter (which with the data given may or may not be a derivative work) with Harry Potter in Calcutta.
Second, he doesn't consider any of the logical consequences of ending derivative work protection, except for a brief consideration of movie rights.
For example, if international copyright is changed to allow Harry Potter in Calcutta, certainly there's no obvious reason why an unauthorized Harry Potter in New York shouldn't be similarly allowed. Or an alternate Harry Potter 6 book, for that matter.
Translations are derivative works, not the original; all translation is paraphrase. Should a translation of a Rowling Harry Potter into French not pay royalties to her? How about a mere English-languge paraphrase?
Similarly, a movie of the first Harry Potter is not a copy of the book but just a derivative work, and any other version of the film shot by a different studio isn't a copy, either. Should Disney be allowed to suddenly start making its own Harry Potter films based directly on the books?
Moron. He doesn't even raise the questions.
1) Read the copywrite page again.
The images and characters are owned by warner brothers (which in turn are a subsidiary of Time-Warner, but saying that Time-Warner owns it is still imprecise), but the books are publishing rights are owned by the publishing company.
2) Where would we be without the Shannara books? Tolkien didn't publish enough for the voracious readers and we wanted more in the same genre that was invented by those books!
The same can be said for the original sword & sorcery books created by the Conan the Barbarian series (which actually generously allowed many authors to write books on it), and the spy novels that started with the James Bond books (yes, they were books first).
Do you think that this is any different? People want more than seven books! Sure, those seven will be revered and treasured, but we want MORE books about ordinary kids doing magic.
Killing off the "copies" will obviously be doing the world a great disservice.
Well...mostly. I'm sure that there are some porn-related Harry Potter knock-offs that don't exactly scream good literature.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
The fact this character is an invention of someone else's fantasy (a russian man writing about a girl instead of a british woman writing about a boy) means the characters, even in the overlap, will not be the same.
The girl could have been given any (more dissimilar) name at all and there would have been little anyone could do to stop the publication. Clearly the issue isn't with someone writing a parody, but only with someone besides AOL profiting from that parody. And in that regard, I call shenanigans!
"It's pretty sad. Rowling always said she would NEVER sell the rights to Harry Potter. Now if you look at he books, there's a small message on the copyright page saying that Time Warner own the rights to all the character names and likenesses."
She didn't sell the rights to the books (IIRC), only to the "names and likenesses," which was probably a mandatory step moving it into the movie industry, having action figures, &c. She probably didn't want to deal with all of the paperwork of subcontracting each individual entity for these things (a company to make toys, &c) and it may have been a mandatory, and not terribly offensive part of the deal for her.
Looking at my copy of Book 4 (I don't have book 5 on hand) it says, in the jacket:
"Text copyright © 2000 by J.K. Rowling"
Thus, I would say calling her an "unmitigated sellout" is probably a bit harsh.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
...it still propagates what I perceive to be a very big misconception about what copyright is really for. The Constitution of the United States, in the copyright clause, has specifically stated that the purpose of copyright is "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts", not specifically to provide authors like J.K. Rowling with an incentive to continue writing. Richard M. Stallman (whatever you may think of him) explains this very well in this article. Copyright law is not a monopoly granted by a (responsible) government in an attempt to strike a balance between the rights of authors and rights of the public, but rather as an attempt to balance two different, sometimes conflicting rights of the public: the public wants a lot of good quality works for its consumption, and the public also wants these works to be available at low cost. Stallman makes a nice analogy between this dilemma and that of building public works projects like buildings and dams. For public works, a government would want to build the best and safest public works, while at the same time it wouldn't want to spend too much money to do so. Nobody will build a bridge or dam for free, of course, so the government then has to decide how much money it is willing to spend for the public's welfare. For copyright legislation, the government is not spending public money, but the public's rights and freedoms.
Well, the United States government has done, with the current travesties of law like the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the DMCA, the equivalent of having contractors build a bridge that totally covers the river. And worse yet, it is attempting to wrestle other countries into making similar laws apply there as well, under the pretext of protecting international trade.
Yes, copyright law all over the world is in bad need of reform, but without remembering its original purpose for existing in the first place. Authors are granted these copyright monopolies not because they were the original creators of the work and they are entitled to it, but because it is supposed to serve the public interest. A lot of the misapplications of copyright restrictions mentioned in the article mainly boil down to violations of this principle.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
... and then there are re-labeled rip-offs. Yes, Rowling's work may be deriviative and all fiction works on inspiration from what has gone before it, but names like "Tanya Grotter" (and even naming a book "Harry Potter" when it has no connection to the author) is just trading off the name of her work.
This has nothing to do with copyright reform - the authors of these new books are trading off Harry Potter by slightly changing the name and keeping all the magic and other elements of the book in it. It's not like they're even trying to be different. If they wrote a book about a magician but was different in other ways you could say that 'magic' was in vogue, and it is OK. But is seems like these people are just ripping off quite a lot and writing some stories for the cash.
I don't even like the argument about local market conditions. Harry Potter books are popular everywhere. People love 'Harry Potter'. So people churn out these knock-off books. If the authors wanted to write for the local market I'm sure they could easily make up their own stories but again the just rip-off works just to get the cash.
(As you can tell by now) I don't agree with the author of the article at all. He just wants a cheap argument to allow author's who have no creative insight in the least to get rich off the hard work of others. If the authors stuck to fan-fiction they would probably get my sympathy. But whoring cash for when they have no talent - I hope they burn (metaphorically of course!).
The article isn't an argument to apply carefully current copyright law (which allows satire, use of excerpts in criticism, etc.). Rather, it's an argument that copyright laws are not being used to protect the rights of an author to profit from their own work but instead are diminishing the ability of others to make new product that might be loosely, or even directly, based on the original work. While this might sound like the author doesn't like copyright at all, rather she seems to be saying that copyright should be more literal and only prevent TRUE copying of material. In her example, she's advocating the ability to publish a book where Harry Potter meets Gandalf while still being against someone simply selling bootleg versions of "Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone."
Did you read it or you just repeat after others?
Tanya Grotter is completely based on Russian folklor fantasy story tails, which I heard more than 3 decades ago from my grandmother. And I won't be surprised to find out that Harry Potters stories are based on west-europen folklor. So, who is stealing what?
Less is more !
I've been planning on writing someting about just this subject for a while. This is the natural situation, if you think about creativity.
How does creative stuff happen? Some author or musician or whatever really digs something, and feels inspired, and writes something that features all the stuff he digs.
You might create a ripping bluegrass tune in the style of Flatt and Scrugs, or if you're Mr. Bungle, mix surf music with death metal. If you're a writer, maybe you will create an epic like the great Finnish epics, only set in a world of your own creation, or maybe a world where the ancient Greek gods are all immortal personifications, updated for the modern age. Maybe you'll write a story where refugees from Troy found the Roman empire. Maybe you'll write a story about a nerdy boy who becomes a great magician, but who doesn't fight the demon Barbatos and an evil possible future version of himself.
In the days before oppressive copyright, this was the norm. The world of fiction was a big pot of cool stuff and everyone worked out of it. To this day, the rich mythical history of past civilizations shape our current world.
Terry Pratchett said this, and I think it's interesting:
'Books in a genre may well remind you of other books in that genre. This is allowed. If it wasn't, H G Wells would have been the only person permitted to write about time machines. Being a fantasy writer is like being allowed to sit around a big bubbling pot, a stew made up of everything that's gone before. You're allowed to take a certain amount of stuff out, and you don't object if it turns out that you're putting stuff in, too. And so the stew bubbles on. There are only two crimes: one is to claim that the pot is yours, and that the other is to claim that there is no pot.'
He wasn't talking about taking specifics like Harry Potter's name and rough history, but such distinctions are slight and, in my opinion, completely unimportant.
I cant think of any instrument more painful to ride then a flying double bass. Sitting on the strings, Painful. On the Back there is noting good to hold on to. Oh You definitely don't want to sit on the pin on the bottom I guess the side may be the best place. But with the strings on it you would sit on it crooked, the bridge is about 7" and the neck will be at an angle when you grab it. I think I will wait for the flying Harp or the Flying Piano-Forte, The Flying Tuba may make be good. I think a Flying Cello may work a bit better. But a Double Bass No Way, Ill just stick to playing it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I've read the book series about Tanya Grotter (there is more than one) while I was in Russia not too long ago.
Let me say this about the book. It is not the same as Harry Potter in anyway shape or form. It simply uses similar names and items. The storyline itself is different enough that I would not consider it a copyright violation.
What Tanya and her friends are doing - is trying to capitalize on the market potential of Harry Potter. A Harry Potter Book in Kazan, Russia costs about 140 Rubles (4 dollars) while you can buy a Tanya Grotter for slightly cheaper - 100 Rubles (3 dollars). Since the names are somewhat similar and the covers (of the Harry Potter Books and Tanya Grotter Books) both have the same style of artwork, a good many people buy the Tanya Grotter book as it is cheaper (and written by a Russian, meaning understandable, FYI - the Harry Potter books don't transalate well at all, Just how do you say muggle in a foreign language?)
This of course ticks off the Harry Potter People, but I don't think you can Tanya Grotter for blatant copyright violations (other than similar names)...
There is always a frontier where there is an open and willing mind
Practically all the comments here (except "The article is lousy" (#6318621)) are based on a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of copyright: the notion that copyright protects the ideas (themes, style, atmosphere, characterization, etc.) embodied in a literary work. It does not. It protects only the particular embodiment of those ideas, in other words, the particular phrases and sentences that make up a work. If those are not copied (or translated*), then there is no copyright violation. The Slate article author touches on this a little, but not strongly enough.
All the long threads about derivative works, the thin line between parody and knockoff, and fair use are simply beside the point. If Tanya Grotter does not contain any of the English text of Harry Potter, or Russian translation of that text, then no copying has occurred, and thus no violation of copyright.
Derivative works include some portion or portions of the original work. In other words, they are partially copies of the original, plus some original matter. Without a license, they are generally illegal. Derivative works that parody the original have a special exemption (but it is certainly also possible to parody a work without deriving from it at all). Fair use also is a special limited license to copy. But if no copying is being done, then fair use need not be invoked.
* This actually opens up some very interesting philosophical questions related to the logical coherence of copyright laws, since given the right translation rule, any string can be translated into any other.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.