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Samsung Forced YouTube To Pull GTA 5 Mod Video Because It Showed Galaxy Note 7 As Bomb (redmondpie.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Redmond Pie: The Galaxy Note 7 wasn't just recalled, it was cancelled. For good. And that makes Samsung very cranky indeed. So when YouTube user HitmanNiko created a video showing a Grand Theft Auto 5 mod in which Galaxy Note 7 handsets can be used as grenades, it's perhaps somewhat understandable that someone inside Samsung took offense to the idea. What's incomprehensible though is the fact that Samsung has apparently set about trying to erase that video, and presumably others like it, from the Internet. The first step? Forcing YouTube to remove HitmanNiko's video. Trying to view the video now does nothing but display a message which says that the video is "no longer available due to a copyright claim by Samsung Electronics America" which leaves quite the bad taste in our mouths. The biggest issue here is that this is arguably the worst misuse of the DMCA we have ever come across, simply because nothing was copied, unless Samsung is trying to claim that by making the in-game grenades look like Galaxy Note 7 smartphones then the video creator was in fact in breach of copyright.
And that's the problem here and in other cases like it.
It has to be checked-off by a court to say exactly that. Only after that step can the guy turn around and sue for damages and lost wages. It's as backward as you can get. It's putting the onus on the defense to prove that they're _not_ infringing. Assume guilt much?
Copyright law needs a top to bottom reform. Period.
No, you just need to STFU. For fucks sake, does literally every god damn thing have to mention the election? No, no it doesn't. I get it, you're a small minded individual, and this is all you can think of to say. But shut the fuck up. We're what, a bit less then three weeks from the election? Everywhere you go all people are talking about is how much Trump sucks or how much Clinton sucks and on and on and on. I think I speak for most people when I say we're fucking sick and tired of hearing about it. This story doesn't involve Trump. This story doesn't involve Clinton, Fuck you for trying to bring them in to it.
Creative writing/art/etc was doing well before anyone thought of copyright.
No, actually it wasn't. Before copyright, writers got no credit and no money for their work. Most of the works surviving from the middle ages we don't even know who wrote them-- the authors are called things like "the Pearl poet" by scholars, because all we know of him (?) is that he (or she) wrote the Pearl sequence (and Gawain).
Copyright law might be broken, but no copyright is not the solution.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I don't think copyright is totally bad. For example, I recently published my first novel. Without copyright law, someone else could grab my novel and start printing/selling their own copies of it. I'd wind up competing with my own novel. Then there are issues of film studios being able to take anyone's work and make movies based off of it without compensating the author at all. I'd have to spend a lot of time and money filing lawsuits to make them stop and, without copyright law, I might not be successful.
The big problem with copyright law isn't its existence. It's the length. Copyright was originally 14 years plus a one-time 14 year extension. This isn't so bad. The novel I just published would have until 2044 (assuming I renewed the copyright) to make me money. Then, the book transfers to the public domain for others to build on it. Very few works still make money after 28 years - and I'd wager most of the ones that still do (like Star Wars) partly keep making money because of new material being added.
However, over the years, copyright terms lengthened until now it's 70 years after the author's death. If I die at age 90, my novel will be protected by copyright until 2135. At that point, my youngest son (now 9) would be 128 - and likely deceased. If my youngest son had a child at 30, his child would be 98 when my copyright ran out. I don't need copyrights on my works lasting until my great-great-great grandchildren are born. That's not giving me incentive to create new works. 14 years + 14 years would be plenty.
If copyright law was reset back to 14 years plus an optional one-time 14 year extension, a lot of the problems with copyright would go away.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
It's not a violation of your trademark to use your trademark to refer to your brand. Otherwise, every time anybody used any brand name it would be a trademark violation. Deception must be at least attempted for trademark violation to occur - that is, the violator must make some pretense that the usage is known to and endorsed by the owner of the trademark. Perhaps Samsung could argue that the use of their trademark might confuse people into thinking that this GTA mod was sanctioned or released by them. I think such an argument would at best get them laughed out of court and at worst get any lawyer Samsung sent disbarred and maybe jailed for contempt; but they could at least argue that.
Do *you* think anybody could have reasonably been confused by the use of these names in a GTA mod showing them being used as grenades? No? Neither would a judge or a jury.
Lets say we do away with copyright tomorrow and all of my novels have that creator endorsed marking on them. The big question is whether the book buying public would even care. My novel sells for $7.99 (paperback). Suppose HarperCollins decides to publish an edition of my book without my approval. Thanks to copyright going away, there is no legal recourse for me to tell them to stop or to compensate me. Being a bigger publishing house, they might be able to undercut me on price. Now, my $7.99 paperback has to contend with their $4.99 paperback edition. Plus, they are able to get their version of my book into all the bookstores while mine is still limited in scope. (My book is only available from Amazon at the moment.)
The big question is: Would the buying public care that my book has the "Creator Endorsed" logo on it or would they flock to the cheaper copy to save some cash?
As much as I'd like to say people would go with Creator Endorsed, I think they'd go with the saved cash and I'd wind up losing sales. (This is the only time when I'd call "lost sales" an actual thing since the person actually bought a copy of the book but did so from someone who was selling their own version without getting approval/providing compensation.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
As an author, I think your message "we should take away copyright, because authors would keep on writing even if they got no money and no credit for it" to be, basically, utterly and completely despicable.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Samsung just joined Sony on my "Do not buy" list.
Samsung joined Sony on my 'forbidden' list when they started pushing out Smart TV firmware upgrades that had non-optional advertising built in. So I'm not surprised in the least by their recent attempt at censorship.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.