It's unusual, but not unreasonable to say you own yourself.
It is unreasonable. In fact it's disgusting.
There are three conditions that must be met for something to fall within the definition of property. 1) the owner must be able to use it; 2) the owner must be able to lend it out and recover it again; 3) the owner must be able to transfer it away or otherwise dispose of it.
Can you sell yourself to someone else, permanently and irrevocably? That's a necessary element in order for something to be property. It's also slavery, it's abhorrent, and the practice should be eliminated wherever and whenever it is found.
People have an inherent right to freedom in their own person, which covers all the things you talk about. But it is an inalienable right; they cannot surrender their freedom and lose it. It is a right that one can fail to exercise, or which others may infringe upon, but you've always got it, and we should make damn well sure that it can be used at will.
Except we're talking about luxuries, not necessities
That is irrelevant. We're talking about commodities. Whether that commodity is vital or not does not change its nature. One item of a given commodity is basically the same as any other. One instance of the text of a book is the same as any other instance. While one could imagine differences in cost due to the copies the work is embodied in (a cheap paperback as opposed to a fine parchment folio) the work itself is constant and should not result in different pricing.
If you need a character with the amount of backstory that Mickey Mouse has then you have to create that backstory yourself instead of resting on someone else's laurels.
Just like Disney didn't draw upon established characters such as Snow White, or Cinderella, or Robin Hood? No. There is just as much value in a derivative work as there is in an original work. There is nothing wrong or uncreative about refining existing material, or altering it, or reinterpreting it. Many of our finest works are highly derivative. Look at Shakespeare -- widely acclaimed as the best author in the English language, and almost everything he did was based on earlier work by others.
There are good reasons for copyright, but you're nowhere near them.
Well, technically what happens is that the copyright holder gains an exclusive right. He doesn't get any more of a right to create the derivatives than he had before. After all, copyright doesn't grant rights to do things; it grants rights to stop others. This is why someone who makes child porn has a copyright on it but can still get in trouble for it. Nor does anyone really lose a right. He just can, within the confines of the copyright, prevent others from exercising their rights. The exclusivity is limited, and beyond that (e.g. fair use derivatives) people can still exercise their right. When the copyright runs out, no one regains rights, but instead no one can stop them from exercising the rights they've had all along.
I'm an anarcho-capitalist, I love the freedom to use my labor to gain more free time for myself later ("money") but I don't like to encumbered by, or taken advantage of, laws that prevent others from trying their hand at creating something.
I agree that ideally there would not be encumberances. However, I feel -- and this is the general theory behin copyright -- that tolerating an temporary encumberance for a greater eventual gain is worthwhile.
Basically copyright is a bribe that we give to artists, so that they will do things we want them to do. The artists we give the bribe to would not have done these things otherwise. Artists that would, we don't bribe; it's tricky to identify who is who, however. The bribe is a cost the public has to pay in that we are encumbered, etc. But if the benefit derived from the artists is greater, it was worth it in the end.
I simply want to find the optimal point at which we get the greatest benefit for the least cost.
As I see it, your policy is to simply have the least cost, even though this will be a less than maximum benefit. I understand that, but I think that you're ignoring the potential benefits of copyright. At least from copyright when it's implemented properly. It sure isn't implemented properly right now!
All my works -- ALL of them -- are freely copyable. I openly allow anyone to take anything I've written, slap their name on it, and market it themselves. The same is true of anything I produce beyond the written word, and I've seen a few of my creations copied by others.
I generally do the same thing, but because I do know when copyright is and isn't a motive for me. When it is not, why should I have it? It doesn't make sense for the public, and it just seems spiteful, if people who don't need copyrights try to get them anyhow. But if I was incentivized by copyright for some particular thing, I wouldn't have a problem going after it.
Using those screenshots in the guide may or may not be fair use. There are four factors traditionally considered when trying to figure out if something is a fair use:
1. The purpose and character of the use. Here it is transformative, since it is in a guide, but it is also commercial, rather than educational. There are commercial fair uses, but this is a bit of a wash.
2. The nature of the work being used. Here it is a creative work, which is in Blizzard's favor.
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used as compared to the work as a whole. This is solidly in Kopp's favor. The screenshots show only teeny tiny portions of WoW, and likely are not really important parts.
4. The effect of the use on the market for the work. This is also in Kopp's favor. His guide is no substitute for WoW; in fact it can't be, since it is only useful in conjunction with WoW.
On the whole, I think that he does have a good fair use defense.
Blizzard issues a notice to Ebay to remove it. (This is similar to, but distinct from, a section 512 takedown notice -- something the plaintiff's attorneys may be confused about, from reading the complaint)
Ebay removes it automatically.
He contests it, which results in Ebay putting it back up after a period of time.
Blizzard issues another notice.
Ebay removes it automatically again.
Cycles of putting it up and having it taken down continue until his ebay account eventually gets suspended.
Even if he was mostly upset about Ebay having this policy that is highly favorable toward rightsholders, ultimately the central issue is whether or not the takedown notices are supported by a right held by Blizzard.
Ebay doesn't make a decision, you see. They don't want to be in that position. They just do what they're told with regard to takedowns, with the proviso that takedowns that are challenged and not responded to will be canceled, and the offending item put back up. (Which is similar to the 512 system)
Blizzard and this guy, Kopp, are the ones in the best position to resolve things. Ebay is stuck in the middle.
Well, I'm a copyright and trademark attorney. And beyond merely having a J.D., which is the ordinary level of education held by lawyers, I got an LL.M. (a Master's) in IP. And copyright and trademark are what I practice in. I got into law because I became so interested in these fields (I used to be an artist), and my interest remains very high.
A lot of people use/. and I have seen other lawyers here from time to time. It's tough to know for sure how many, given that there are probably more lurkers than posters, but I would guess that I'm one of the most knowledgable people here with regard to this subject.
But hey, if talking trash about me makes you feel like a big man, knock yourself out.
Okay, so you're saying not that pirates have an advantage, but that the gap between publishers and pirates has narrowed. Well, that's possible, at least in some areas, though I think you're overstating just how broad it has been at times especially for certain classes of works. In any event though, I don't think that there would be a big difference between if we didn't have copyright now, and if we didn't have it 50 or 100 years ago.
Anyway, it doesn't interest me too much. Unless things really change dramatically, my goal of best serving the public can probably be achieved with less copyright than now, but not no copyright at all. (at least across the board -- some things should be uncopyrightable)
No, a guide book is not a fair use. It's a use of public domain materials. A use is a fair use if the underlying material is copyrightable; the game rules that underlie WoW are not.
His use of the WoW trademark appears to be nominative. And use of screenshots would be fair use.
Really, the copyright and trademark parts of the case seem open and shut in the guide author's favor. However, there is an interesting breach of contract claim that Blizzard could assert. I'm mostly interested to see how that works out. If it's like the bnetd case, it could be bad for the guide author.
This is a derived work, and derived works require permission. It is not a parody, and does not come under the heading of protected speech. If you intend to create art derived from somebody else's art, and you do not secure permission, you are reckless at best, or at worst, a thief.
Not really.
Remember, copyrights only apply to creative portions of works. Works which lack creativity (e.g. the white pages) or uncreative portions of works (e.g. a historical novel which is chiefly fiction, but which contains some historical facts as well) are not protected.
One sort of thing that is not copyrightable is a system or method of operation, per 17 USC 102(b). Facts are also not copyrightable, since they lack originality, and thus creativity.
So if someone is describing the game mechanics of WoW, then he is at most only copying uncopyrightable material: the system by which the game functions, and facts about the game. He is not copying creative parts of the game, such as the artwork, storyline, sounds, or software. Since there is no copyright as to the parts of the work he is using, he is not infringing on the derivative right.
Blizz must defend their IP vigorously or risk losing their rights to it.
Complete non-sequitur, thats a method of DISROBUTION, not creation or duplication. Movies not being distributed on bittorrent has absolutly nothing to do with the ease people are able to copy them.
BT is actually both distribution and reproduction. If the downloader wasn't making a new copy, what would happen to the copy on the machines serving it?
In any case, it's true for reproduction and distribution. Pirates have no special advantages, and since the technologies they use are just as available to everyone else, they never will. In fact, given economies of scale, official publishers generally have the advantage over pirates. A CD factory can make more CDs, faster, at a lower unit cost, than some schmoe with a CD burner can.
And theft is not needed either. Pirates usually rely on a first generation copy of published material. Where that material is digital -- CDs, computer software, printed text -- there's no quality loss. Where it is analog -- fine art, photos, movies, vinyl records -- there may be some, but again, this gives the advantage to publishers, not pirates.
To explain, lack of copywrite didn't discourage people from releasing work in the past because methods of duplication were difficult.
Meh.
Authors and pirates have always had parity in technology, often with a bit of an edge to the authors due to economies of scale, first mover advantages, etc. There's no reason that the MPAA can't put their movies on Bit Torrent themselves, rather than letting that medium remain the playground of pirates that it largely is. But, they don't want to, and for this they've no one to blame but themselves.
I don't think copyright takes away any ability to compete, it merely requires you to compete using your own work instead of other people's work.
And that's anticompetitive. When Twain's books were copyrighted, only he could sell them, and he could charge a premium. When they hit the public domain, anyone could sell them, and the competition forced the various publishers to become more efficient and lower their prices.
It's no different from saying that a monopoly on wheat held by one farmer doesn't take away my ability to compete with him, so long as I sell rye instead. You're ignoring that I can't compete with him in the wheat market, and that this lack of competition may harm the public and harms me by restricting my freedom.
Sometimes monopolies are okay, but they need to be seriously justified.
Some list the "perpetual copyright" on Mickey Mouse as a problem that Copyrighrt has brought upon us but they should ask themselves "Is it really important that works can contain Mickey Mouse?"
Yes. If I have a Mickey Mouse story I want to tell, then I'm going to need the character. Not being able to use it harms me, since I'm not free to create the works I want. It harms the public, since they can't get those works, which could very well be better than those that Disney makes. It harms Disney to a degree, since the lack of competition lets it sit on its laurels.
We might want to give them a monopoly so that they'll create Mickey Mouse to begin with, but after that, we want everyone free to use it. This results in the greatest competition, producing the best Mickey Mouse works we can. It forces Disney to create something new if it wants a monopoly again. And it results in the least intrusion on people's freedom.
Disney certainly has done well by making works that contain fairy tale characters and stories. Why shouldn't the rest of us get to use Mickey Mouse in just the same way?
Most authors don't make 1% or even 0.5% of their book sales.
Like I said, the numbers were arbitrary.
Kidnapping is violating someone's property -- their person.
People aren't property.
Intentional emotional distress doesn't happen without voluntary cooperation of both parties.
Thoroughly untrue. If I suddenly and without warning scare you half to death, and you're left with mental trauma, e.g. constant nightmares, new phobias, anxiety, etc., then I've harmed you, just not physically. Your nonsense about trespassing isn't relevant. It can happen anywhere, and with sufficient rapidity that you can't really protect yourself.
Frankly, you're advocating crackpot positions, and I'm now less interested in discussing them with you as I am in refuting them so that others aren't taken in.
I hadn't heard of that before, but then patents aren't my field.
In any event, I think that it's better to consider the balance with regard to broad policy and classes of works, rather than trying to look at individual works.
A market for data simply cannot exist without some restriction on just going out and copying it.
That's not a good enough justification. And it treads dangerously close to the utterly discredited sweat of the brow theory. Copies of a work are commodities, and commodity markets should not be impaired with monopolies unless there is a very good reason. There are good reasons in the case of copyright, but merely not wanting competition at marginal cost isn't one of them.
But without copyright the freedom to use expensive elements in your art would be greatly reduced, simply because you can't afford it.
Sure. But the key question is, what's best for the public? Having works be unencumbered with efficient competition, or having encumberances and less competition but more investment put into works?
Both are valuable, and we should strive to have a balance of the two that is best for the public, rather than concentrating on one over the other. Of course, shifts in technology and society may tip the balance against copyright. But I don't think we're close to that yet.
Well, I have a hobby in my spare time of trying to make trademarks generic. You can google for more information about this on any search engine. Or I could write about it and xerox you a xerox on my xerox.
I care not for laws -- when I mean prior art I mean the work of previous individual using their time as they please, freely. When the law takes over terms, there is a problem.
It's merely jargon, but using it in an unusual manner can make it harder to understand you than it needs to be. Think of how many novice computer users call the monitor the computer, and the computer the hard drive, and so on. It makes it hard to provide them with tech support; they can't quite explain what their problem is, and the person helping them has a harder time telling them how to fix their problem and giving advice so that it doesn't happen again.
If you went to Target and bought a bottle of Soda with the word 'Coke' on it, and it had coffee in it (actually, see Coke Blak, heh), or had a knockoff cola, you'd stop shopping at Target.
No, I'd stop buying things labeled 'Coke' because I would no longer have any idea of what I'd be buying. And as another poster has noted, how would I know that this Target is related in any way to other stores of the same name? Basically I would have a much harder time as a customer, because I would have to test everything instead of being able to rely on all goods or services that bore a particular label being basically the same as others with that label. As I said, trademark law is basically about consumer protection. It's also about unfair competition, in that it's not very fair for one company to steal the customers of another, not by being better or cheaper, but simply by tricking customers.
So the labor of one person is worth more than the labor of another because of government force?
You're missing the point.
If I were to write a book, and there was no copyright, I could expect that of all the money that could possibly be made from the book, I might get 1% of that (the number is arbitrary). If there were a copyright, but no derivative right, I could expect maybe 10%. And if there were a copyright with a derivative right, I could expect maybe 25%.
So, let's say that the book will ultimately be worth $10,000. Without a copyright, I can expect to make $100. Given that I can spend the same amount of time working at a different job and earning more, I would not bother to write the book. The opportunity cost is too high for me. With the first level of copyright discussed, I could get $1,000. Maybe now it's worth it to me to write the book, or maybe not. And with the second level, it's worth $2,500, and it is much better than the best alternative, which is to work at some job for a wage.
If the public is interested in getting books written, then yes, without copyright some books will be. But with copyright -- at least up to a certain point -- more books can be written than otherwise would be, because the authors want to make money and have a better chance of doing so now.
The public is also interested in being frugal and in not being restricted by copyrights, and so they don't want to provide more copyright than it takes. If I would write the book for sure with the copyright that directs 25% of profits to me, then there's no need to have a more expansive copyright that directs 50% of the profits to me.
The derivative right is basically just part of this policy. It's fine to the extent that it serves the public interest. Because while we want people to be free to make derivatives without permission, we also want people to create original works. And favoring one tends to disfavor the other. It's not a zero-sum game, however, and when considered in the long run, favoring one could result in also eventually favoring the other, too.
Nothing should stop me unless I am directly harming the physical body or physical property of another person -- but there should be no law against hurting their "thoughts."
Okay, so you'd be in favor of allowing kidnapping if no one got hurt, or in causing intentional emotional distress (e.g. non-physically torturing someone into a mental breakdown), and so on.
The Jackass who's filing this suit is one of those slimeballs that scrapes freely available information (the kind you can get from any number of free websites that do not charge for it) and packages it up so he can sell it for a rediculous fee.
Why anyone would by crap like that when you can just look it up on the web I have no idea.
Meh. I can download Shakespeare for free from all over the net. But I also bought a hardback collection of his work. Just because you wouldn't buy something is no reason to denigrate people who would, or people who create things for them.
And to be clear, Blizzard's not the one harassing in court here. It is the GAME GUIDE writer suing Blizzard.
Well apparently Blizzard kept issuing complaints to Ebay that resulted in the guy being unable to sell any of his guides there. So arguably they were harassing him out of court, and he's decided to go to court to protect himself.
Here's another person creating his own art based on the prior art of someone else.
While I understand what you mean, you might want to avoid casual use of the term 'prior art' as it is a term of art in patent law, and this is essentially a copyright discussion.
why is it OK to protect the overall look of a game or the name when pieces of the game are taken directly from thousands of games before it?
These are really two different questions. So long as the assemblage is creative and original, it's not a problem that many of the component elements are not. Dragons and knights and rescuing princesses and so on are all staples of the fantasy genre and are unprotected, but what you do with those elements may be perfectly worthy of a copyright. And there are a lot of ways you can put those parts together. Think of them as being like legos; the individual blocks aren't interesting, but what you do with them is. As for the name, that's basically just consumer protection. If I bought a bottle of soda with the word 'Coke' all over it, I don't want it to actually contain coffee or something.
Why is it wrong for someone to use their own labor to make a product (even a direct knock off) and go and sell it?
It's not wrong, per se. But it might be unwise. Until fairly late in the 19th century, US copyright law didn't include a derivative right. So, if you wrote a book, anyone else could translate that book into another language without needing permission or having to pay you, the original author. If we have this right, then that means more of the possible profit that can be made from a work is directed to the author. This increases the incentive he has to create and publish works, and one goal of the copyright system to cause works to be created and published. Of course, we must balance this against other goals of the system, such as having the least restrictive, if any, copyright law at all, and having the shortest copyright terms, and encouraging the creation and publication of derivative works by any author.
Intellectual property laws were originally created to protect artists and artists alone.
That's wrong in many regards. First, I would strongly encourage you to not use the term 'intellectual property.' It includes bodies of law such as trademarks and patents which have nothing to do with artists, and which have quite different reasons for existing. Second, copyright laws were not created to protect artists alone; they also protected publishers, but their actual goal was to serve the public interest by enticing authors and publishers to behave in certain ways beneficial to the public. Helping authors is just a means to an end; it's not our goal.
Think of cable television. A town that doesn't have cable will often give a monopoly on cable tv to a particular company for a term of years, in exchange for the company shouldering the cost of building the infrastructure. The goal of the town is not to have to pay one company that can charge monopoly prices. It is to get someone to build the cable tv infrastructure so that it can eventually be opened up to competition.
Blizzard is not an artist, it is a co-op of artists. The idea that a co-op can have more rights than an individual is ridiculous -- individuals have rights, co-ops are just groups of individuals trying to market a huge variety of products together. Each artist at Blizzard has their own art they've created, and they should worry individually about making the best produt they can at the lowest price. That is competition.
That's a really bizarre statement.
The argument that invention and art would not occur without the force of copyright and IP is over.
I disagree. First, I at least have never felt that creation and invention wouldn't occur without copyrights and patents, respectively. Second, however, the quantity of those acts would likely decrease sharply. So we have to decide whether unrestricted competition or some degree of monopoly granting wil
In which case I'd ask him two things. First, if he has any juicy gossip about the other Superfriends. And second, if he could have other powers instead of the one he's got, would he want them, and if so, what would they be?
Yeah, but they used to say that about DVDs. In time bandwidth will become plentiful enough that it's not particularly annoying to move that much data on the net, store it conveniently, etc. Feel free to ridicule the MPAA et al, but not for this specific concern.
I have no problem with the notion of class action lawsuits. I do have problems with coupon settlements where the lawyers rake in several million dollars on their contingent fee and the plaintiffs get a coupon for free popcorn. I have no problem with lawyers getting paid on contingency but fairly commonly in the past lawyers have arranged deals with the defendents to quickly settle the deal and they get an assload of money for doing almost nothing while the victims get free popcorn. That I have a problem with. I have no problem with lawyers who have integrity and aren't in it for a quick buck.
I can agree with that. Lawyers of course have a duty to serve their clients, and this should include getting damages in a form that is most useful to them, in terms of the amount, where and how it can be used, transactional costs, etc. Usually this will probably be cash. I can see some rare times when discounts would be okay, but the trick is that it would likely only work when the clients are still doing business with the tortfeasor, and the transactional costs are very low. For example, if there was a class action against an electric company, for most clients, a discount on a future bill would probably work out just as well, and cost less to administer (which could raise the amount of the discount).
N.b. that traditionally at least, the number of seats has been determined by Congress. And FDR's court packing plan was to have Congress pass a law that would automatically add seats under certain conditions; he didn't just nominate people. And the plan failed anyhow.
Slashdot Mirror
It's unusual, but not unreasonable to say you own yourself.
It is unreasonable. In fact it's disgusting.
There are three conditions that must be met for something to fall within the definition of property. 1) the owner must be able to use it; 2) the owner must be able to lend it out and recover it again; 3) the owner must be able to transfer it away or otherwise dispose of it.
Can you sell yourself to someone else, permanently and irrevocably? That's a necessary element in order for something to be property. It's also slavery, it's abhorrent, and the practice should be eliminated wherever and whenever it is found.
People have an inherent right to freedom in their own person, which covers all the things you talk about. But it is an inalienable right; they cannot surrender their freedom and lose it. It is a right that one can fail to exercise, or which others may infringe upon, but you've always got it, and we should make damn well sure that it can be used at will.
Except we're talking about luxuries, not necessities
That is irrelevant. We're talking about commodities. Whether that commodity is vital or not does not change its nature. One item of a given commodity is basically the same as any other. One instance of the text of a book is the same as any other instance. While one could imagine differences in cost due to the copies the work is embodied in (a cheap paperback as opposed to a fine parchment folio) the work itself is constant and should not result in different pricing.
If you need a character with the amount of backstory that Mickey Mouse has then you have to create that backstory yourself instead of resting on someone else's laurels.
Just like Disney didn't draw upon established characters such as Snow White, or Cinderella, or Robin Hood? No. There is just as much value in a derivative work as there is in an original work. There is nothing wrong or uncreative about refining existing material, or altering it, or reinterpreting it. Many of our finest works are highly derivative. Look at Shakespeare -- widely acclaimed as the best author in the English language, and almost everything he did was based on earlier work by others.
There are good reasons for copyright, but you're nowhere near them.
Well, technically what happens is that the copyright holder gains an exclusive right. He doesn't get any more of a right to create the derivatives than he had before. After all, copyright doesn't grant rights to do things; it grants rights to stop others. This is why someone who makes child porn has a copyright on it but can still get in trouble for it. Nor does anyone really lose a right. He just can, within the confines of the copyright, prevent others from exercising their rights. The exclusivity is limited, and beyond that (e.g. fair use derivatives) people can still exercise their right. When the copyright runs out, no one regains rights, but instead no one can stop them from exercising the rights they've had all along.
I'm an anarcho-capitalist, I love the freedom to use my labor to gain more free time for myself later ("money") but I don't like to encumbered by, or taken advantage of, laws that prevent others from trying their hand at creating something.
I agree that ideally there would not be encumberances. However, I feel -- and this is the general theory behin copyright -- that tolerating an temporary encumberance for a greater eventual gain is worthwhile.
Basically copyright is a bribe that we give to artists, so that they will do things we want them to do. The artists we give the bribe to would not have done these things otherwise. Artists that would, we don't bribe; it's tricky to identify who is who, however. The bribe is a cost the public has to pay in that we are encumbered, etc. But if the benefit derived from the artists is greater, it was worth it in the end.
I simply want to find the optimal point at which we get the greatest benefit for the least cost.
As I see it, your policy is to simply have the least cost, even though this will be a less than maximum benefit. I understand that, but I think that you're ignoring the potential benefits of copyright. At least from copyright when it's implemented properly. It sure isn't implemented properly right now!
All my works -- ALL of them -- are freely copyable. I openly allow anyone to take anything I've written, slap their name on it, and market it themselves. The same is true of anything I produce beyond the written word, and I've seen a few of my creations copied by others.
I generally do the same thing, but because I do know when copyright is and isn't a motive for me. When it is not, why should I have it? It doesn't make sense for the public, and it just seems spiteful, if people who don't need copyrights try to get them anyhow. But if I was incentivized by copyright for some particular thing, I wouldn't have a problem going after it.
Well, it depends.
Using those screenshots in the guide may or may not be fair use. There are four factors traditionally considered when trying to figure out if something is a fair use:
1. The purpose and character of the use. Here it is transformative, since it is in a guide, but it is also commercial, rather than educational. There are commercial fair uses, but this is a bit of a wash.
2. The nature of the work being used. Here it is a creative work, which is in Blizzard's favor.
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used as compared to the work as a whole. This is solidly in Kopp's favor. The screenshots show only teeny tiny portions of WoW, and likely are not really important parts.
4. The effect of the use on the market for the work. This is also in Kopp's favor. His guide is no substitute for WoW; in fact it can't be, since it is only useful in conjunction with WoW.
On the whole, I think that he does have a good fair use defense.
You OTOH, may be less fortunate.
What appears to have been happening is this:
He puts an item up for auction.
Blizzard issues a notice to Ebay to remove it. (This is similar to, but distinct from, a section 512 takedown notice -- something the plaintiff's attorneys may be confused about, from reading the complaint)
Ebay removes it automatically.
He contests it, which results in Ebay putting it back up after a period of time.
Blizzard issues another notice.
Ebay removes it automatically again.
Cycles of putting it up and having it taken down continue until his ebay account eventually gets suspended.
Even if he was mostly upset about Ebay having this policy that is highly favorable toward rightsholders, ultimately the central issue is whether or not the takedown notices are supported by a right held by Blizzard.
Ebay doesn't make a decision, you see. They don't want to be in that position. They just do what they're told with regard to takedowns, with the proviso that takedowns that are challenged and not responded to will be canceled, and the offending item put back up. (Which is similar to the 512 system)
Blizzard and this guy, Kopp, are the ones in the best position to resolve things. Ebay is stuck in the middle.
Well, I'm a copyright and trademark attorney. And beyond merely having a J.D., which is the ordinary level of education held by lawyers, I got an LL.M. (a Master's) in IP. And copyright and trademark are what I practice in. I got into law because I became so interested in these fields (I used to be an artist), and my interest remains very high.
/. and I have seen other lawyers here from time to time. It's tough to know for sure how many, given that there are probably more lurkers than posters, but I would guess that I'm one of the most knowledgable people here with regard to this subject.
A lot of people use
But hey, if talking trash about me makes you feel like a big man, knock yourself out.
Okay, so you're saying not that pirates have an advantage, but that the gap between publishers and pirates has narrowed. Well, that's possible, at least in some areas, though I think you're overstating just how broad it has been at times especially for certain classes of works. In any event though, I don't think that there would be a big difference between if we didn't have copyright now, and if we didn't have it 50 or 100 years ago.
Anyway, it doesn't interest me too much. Unless things really change dramatically, my goal of best serving the public can probably be achieved with less copyright than now, but not no copyright at all. (at least across the board -- some things should be uncopyrightable)
No, a guide book is not a fair use. It's a use of public domain materials. A use is a fair use if the underlying material is copyrightable; the game rules that underlie WoW are not.
His use of the WoW trademark appears to be nominative. And use of screenshots would be fair use.
Really, the copyright and trademark parts of the case seem open and shut in the guide author's favor. However, there is an interesting breach of contract claim that Blizzard could assert. I'm mostly interested to see how that works out. If it's like the bnetd case, it could be bad for the guide author.
This is a derived work, and derived works require permission. It is not a parody, and does not come under the heading of protected speech. If you intend to create art derived from somebody else's art, and you do not secure permission, you are reckless at best, or at worst, a thief.
Not really.
Remember, copyrights only apply to creative portions of works. Works which lack creativity (e.g. the white pages) or uncreative portions of works (e.g. a historical novel which is chiefly fiction, but which contains some historical facts as well) are not protected.
One sort of thing that is not copyrightable is a system or method of operation, per 17 USC 102(b). Facts are also not copyrightable, since they lack originality, and thus creativity.
So if someone is describing the game mechanics of WoW, then he is at most only copying uncopyrightable material: the system by which the game functions, and facts about the game. He is not copying creative parts of the game, such as the artwork, storyline, sounds, or software. Since there is no copyright as to the parts of the work he is using, he is not infringing on the derivative right.
Blizz must defend their IP vigorously or risk losing their rights to it.
That's not as true as you may think.
Complete non-sequitur, thats a method of DISROBUTION, not creation or duplication. Movies not being distributed on bittorrent has absolutly nothing to do with the ease people are able to copy them.
BT is actually both distribution and reproduction. If the downloader wasn't making a new copy, what would happen to the copy on the machines serving it?
In any case, it's true for reproduction and distribution. Pirates have no special advantages, and since the technologies they use are just as available to everyone else, they never will. In fact, given economies of scale, official publishers generally have the advantage over pirates. A CD factory can make more CDs, faster, at a lower unit cost, than some schmoe with a CD burner can.
And theft is not needed either. Pirates usually rely on a first generation copy of published material. Where that material is digital -- CDs, computer software, printed text -- there's no quality loss. Where it is analog -- fine art, photos, movies, vinyl records -- there may be some, but again, this gives the advantage to publishers, not pirates.
To explain, lack of copywrite didn't discourage people from releasing work in the past because methods of duplication were difficult.
Meh.
Authors and pirates have always had parity in technology, often with a bit of an edge to the authors due to economies of scale, first mover advantages, etc. There's no reason that the MPAA can't put their movies on Bit Torrent themselves, rather than letting that medium remain the playground of pirates that it largely is. But, they don't want to, and for this they've no one to blame but themselves.
I don't think copyright takes away any ability to compete, it merely requires you to compete using your own work instead of other people's work.
And that's anticompetitive. When Twain's books were copyrighted, only he could sell them, and he could charge a premium. When they hit the public domain, anyone could sell them, and the competition forced the various publishers to become more efficient and lower their prices.
It's no different from saying that a monopoly on wheat held by one farmer doesn't take away my ability to compete with him, so long as I sell rye instead. You're ignoring that I can't compete with him in the wheat market, and that this lack of competition may harm the public and harms me by restricting my freedom.
Sometimes monopolies are okay, but they need to be seriously justified.
Some list the "perpetual copyright" on Mickey Mouse as a problem that Copyrighrt has brought upon us but they should ask themselves "Is it really important that works can contain Mickey Mouse?"
Yes. If I have a Mickey Mouse story I want to tell, then I'm going to need the character. Not being able to use it harms me, since I'm not free to create the works I want. It harms the public, since they can't get those works, which could very well be better than those that Disney makes. It harms Disney to a degree, since the lack of competition lets it sit on its laurels.
We might want to give them a monopoly so that they'll create Mickey Mouse to begin with, but after that, we want everyone free to use it. This results in the greatest competition, producing the best Mickey Mouse works we can. It forces Disney to create something new if it wants a monopoly again. And it results in the least intrusion on people's freedom.
Disney certainly has done well by making works that contain fairy tale characters and stories. Why shouldn't the rest of us get to use Mickey Mouse in just the same way?
Most authors don't make 1% or even 0.5% of their book sales.
Like I said, the numbers were arbitrary.
Kidnapping is violating someone's property -- their person.
People aren't property.
Intentional emotional distress doesn't happen without voluntary cooperation of both parties.
Thoroughly untrue. If I suddenly and without warning scare you half to death, and you're left with mental trauma, e.g. constant nightmares, new phobias, anxiety, etc., then I've harmed you, just not physically. Your nonsense about trespassing isn't relevant. It can happen anywhere, and with sufficient rapidity that you can't really protect yourself.
Frankly, you're advocating crackpot positions, and I'm now less interested in discussing them with you as I am in refuting them so that others aren't taken in.
I hadn't heard of that before, but then patents aren't my field.
In any event, I think that it's better to consider the balance with regard to broad policy and classes of works, rather than trying to look at individual works.
A market for data simply cannot exist without some restriction on just going out and copying it.
That's not a good enough justification. And it treads dangerously close to the utterly discredited sweat of the brow theory. Copies of a work are commodities, and commodity markets should not be impaired with monopolies unless there is a very good reason. There are good reasons in the case of copyright, but merely not wanting competition at marginal cost isn't one of them.
But without copyright the freedom to use expensive elements in your art would be greatly reduced, simply because you can't afford it.
Sure. But the key question is, what's best for the public? Having works be unencumbered with efficient competition, or having encumberances and less competition but more investment put into works?
Both are valuable, and we should strive to have a balance of the two that is best for the public, rather than concentrating on one over the other. Of course, shifts in technology and society may tip the balance against copyright. But I don't think we're close to that yet.
Well, I have a hobby in my spare time of trying to make trademarks generic. You can google for more information about this on any search engine. Or I could write about it and xerox you a xerox on my xerox.
I care not for laws -- when I mean prior art I mean the work of previous individual using their time as they please, freely. When the law takes over terms, there is a problem.
It's merely jargon, but using it in an unusual manner can make it harder to understand you than it needs to be. Think of how many novice computer users call the monitor the computer, and the computer the hard drive, and so on. It makes it hard to provide them with tech support; they can't quite explain what their problem is, and the person helping them has a harder time telling them how to fix their problem and giving advice so that it doesn't happen again.
If you went to Target and bought a bottle of Soda with the word 'Coke' on it, and it had coffee in it (actually, see Coke Blak, heh), or had a knockoff cola, you'd stop shopping at Target.
No, I'd stop buying things labeled 'Coke' because I would no longer have any idea of what I'd be buying. And as another poster has noted, how would I know that this Target is related in any way to other stores of the same name? Basically I would have a much harder time as a customer, because I would have to test everything instead of being able to rely on all goods or services that bore a particular label being basically the same as others with that label. As I said, trademark law is basically about consumer protection. It's also about unfair competition, in that it's not very fair for one company to steal the customers of another, not by being better or cheaper, but simply by tricking customers.
So the labor of one person is worth more than the labor of another because of government force?
You're missing the point.
If I were to write a book, and there was no copyright, I could expect that of all the money that could possibly be made from the book, I might get 1% of that (the number is arbitrary). If there were a copyright, but no derivative right, I could expect maybe 10%. And if there were a copyright with a derivative right, I could expect maybe 25%.
So, let's say that the book will ultimately be worth $10,000. Without a copyright, I can expect to make $100. Given that I can spend the same amount of time working at a different job and earning more, I would not bother to write the book. The opportunity cost is too high for me. With the first level of copyright discussed, I could get $1,000. Maybe now it's worth it to me to write the book, or maybe not. And with the second level, it's worth $2,500, and it is much better than the best alternative, which is to work at some job for a wage.
If the public is interested in getting books written, then yes, without copyright some books will be. But with copyright -- at least up to a certain point -- more books can be written than otherwise would be, because the authors want to make money and have a better chance of doing so now.
The public is also interested in being frugal and in not being restricted by copyrights, and so they don't want to provide more copyright than it takes. If I would write the book for sure with the copyright that directs 25% of profits to me, then there's no need to have a more expansive copyright that directs 50% of the profits to me.
The derivative right is basically just part of this policy. It's fine to the extent that it serves the public interest. Because while we want people to be free to make derivatives without permission, we also want people to create original works. And favoring one tends to disfavor the other. It's not a zero-sum game, however, and when considered in the long run, favoring one could result in also eventually favoring the other, too.
Nothing should stop me unless I am directly harming the physical body or physical property of another person -- but there should be no law against hurting their "thoughts."
Okay, so you'd be in favor of allowing kidnapping if no one got hurt, or in causing intentional emotional distress (e.g. non-physically torturing someone into a mental breakdown), and so on.
I have
The Jackass who's filing this suit is one of those slimeballs that scrapes freely available information (the kind you can get from any number of free websites that do not charge for it) and packages it up so he can sell it for a rediculous fee.
Why anyone would by crap like that when you can just look it up on the web I have no idea.
Meh. I can download Shakespeare for free from all over the net. But I also bought a hardback collection of his work. Just because you wouldn't buy something is no reason to denigrate people who would, or people who create things for them.
And to be clear, Blizzard's not the one harassing in court here. It is the GAME GUIDE writer suing Blizzard.
Well apparently Blizzard kept issuing complaints to Ebay that resulted in the guy being unable to sell any of his guides there. So arguably they were harassing him out of court, and he's decided to go to court to protect himself.
Here's another person creating his own art based on the prior art of someone else.
While I understand what you mean, you might want to avoid casual use of the term 'prior art' as it is a term of art in patent law, and this is essentially a copyright discussion.
why is it OK to protect the overall look of a game or the name when pieces of the game are taken directly from thousands of games before it?
These are really two different questions. So long as the assemblage is creative and original, it's not a problem that many of the component elements are not. Dragons and knights and rescuing princesses and so on are all staples of the fantasy genre and are unprotected, but what you do with those elements may be perfectly worthy of a copyright. And there are a lot of ways you can put those parts together. Think of them as being like legos; the individual blocks aren't interesting, but what you do with them is. As for the name, that's basically just consumer protection. If I bought a bottle of soda with the word 'Coke' all over it, I don't want it to actually contain coffee or something.
Why is it wrong for someone to use their own labor to make a product (even a direct knock off) and go and sell it?
It's not wrong, per se. But it might be unwise. Until fairly late in the 19th century, US copyright law didn't include a derivative right. So, if you wrote a book, anyone else could translate that book into another language without needing permission or having to pay you, the original author. If we have this right, then that means more of the possible profit that can be made from a work is directed to the author. This increases the incentive he has to create and publish works, and one goal of the copyright system to cause works to be created and published. Of course, we must balance this against other goals of the system, such as having the least restrictive, if any, copyright law at all, and having the shortest copyright terms, and encouraging the creation and publication of derivative works by any author.
Intellectual property laws were originally created to protect artists and artists alone.
That's wrong in many regards. First, I would strongly encourage you to not use the term 'intellectual property.' It includes bodies of law such as trademarks and patents which have nothing to do with artists, and which have quite different reasons for existing. Second, copyright laws were not created to protect artists alone; they also protected publishers, but their actual goal was to serve the public interest by enticing authors and publishers to behave in certain ways beneficial to the public. Helping authors is just a means to an end; it's not our goal.
Think of cable television. A town that doesn't have cable will often give a monopoly on cable tv to a particular company for a term of years, in exchange for the company shouldering the cost of building the infrastructure. The goal of the town is not to have to pay one company that can charge monopoly prices. It is to get someone to build the cable tv infrastructure so that it can eventually be opened up to competition.
Blizzard is not an artist, it is a co-op of artists. The idea that a co-op can have more rights than an individual is ridiculous -- individuals have rights, co-ops are just groups of individuals trying to market a huge variety of products together. Each artist at Blizzard has their own art they've created, and they should worry individually about making the best produt they can at the lowest price. That is competition.
That's a really bizarre statement.
The argument that invention and art would not occur without the force of copyright and IP is over.
I disagree. First, I at least have never felt that creation and invention wouldn't occur without copyrights and patents, respectively. Second, however, the quantity of those acts would likely decrease sharply. So we have to decide whether unrestricted competition or some degree of monopoly granting wil
Apache Chief.
In which case I'd ask him two things. First, if he has any juicy gossip about the other Superfriends. And second, if he could have other powers instead of the one he's got, would he want them, and if so, what would they be?
Yeah, but they used to say that about DVDs. In time bandwidth will become plentiful enough that it's not particularly annoying to move that much data on the net, store it conveniently, etc. Feel free to ridicule the MPAA et al, but not for this specific concern.
I agree, although the last people I want to see on the bench are strict constructionists.
I have no problem with the notion of class action lawsuits. I do have problems with coupon settlements where the lawyers rake in several million dollars on their contingent fee and the plaintiffs get a coupon for free popcorn. I have no problem with lawyers getting paid on contingency but fairly commonly in the past lawyers have arranged deals with the defendents to quickly settle the deal and they get an assload of money for doing almost nothing while the victims get free popcorn. That I have a problem with. I have no problem with lawyers who have integrity and aren't in it for a quick buck.
I can agree with that. Lawyers of course have a duty to serve their clients, and this should include getting damages in a form that is most useful to them, in terms of the amount, where and how it can be used, transactional costs, etc. Usually this will probably be cash. I can see some rare times when discounts would be okay, but the trick is that it would likely only work when the clients are still doing business with the tortfeasor, and the transactional costs are very low. For example, if there was a class action against an electric company, for most clients, a discount on a future bill would probably work out just as well, and cost less to administer (which could raise the amount of the discount).
N.b. that traditionally at least, the number of seats has been determined by Congress. And FDR's court packing plan was to have Congress pass a law that would automatically add seats under certain conditions; he didn't just nominate people. And the plan failed anyhow.