While informative, this video do overlook the effect that french "rights of the author" and the Bern convention had on modern copyright law. A convention that USA did not sign on to until 1970, btw. That is partially the source of the life+something change. Anyways, thanks to the Bern convention it will be damn hard for any one nation to basically turn back the clock. This because the convention insist that the signatory nations must respect the copyright period of whatever nation the work was first published in.
some poor geek bought each and every one of those releases. hahahaha
One Google search of “Star Wars fan film” should show that anyone can tell a Star Wars story who wants to tell one. The difference is that not just anyone can tell one and profit from it. And great new stories for copyrighted characters and universes are told all the time by media tie-in writers working under contracted license agreements. Those writers do profit from their work. If anyone wants to tell a Star Wars story and profit from it, all they have to do is be good at it. Were just anyone able to make a Star Wars feature film and have it released, the chances are much greater of it sucking than of it being good. In many ways, copyright laws protect us from ourselves.
The vid says that only companies benefit from copyright protection after the author's death. Um, not true. It's the human offspring of the author who benefit from their parent's creation. Whoever created that video seems to have forgotten about this thing called "family". Strange.
Here is a suggestion: stop complaining and create something new.
Perhaps the maker of this video doesnt seem to realize that by having copyrights it may be helping increase creativity. If everyone was allowed to continue the story of Star Wars freely you would have less people creating something new and different. Theres already enough rehashes as it is. Being forced to create something new instead of using Star Wars as your base for a story allows for new stuff. At least new Star Wars, stuff is released every so often so its not like the story isnt being used. Sounds like he's just upset that someone came up with a better idea then what he's had and he wants some of the money from it.
Honesty though there is some trueth to his arguement. A series like Firefly which is an extremely good series will never be continued until fox sells the rights to it. Fox will never make more episodes of the series and because of that I think they should not be allowed to maintain rights. I think if a company doesn't make products from the rights it holds after so long then they should lose those rights. (Hear that fox we want more Firefly. Preferably following the story of the series and not taking place after the movie.)
In all seriousness, why should the financial success of Star Wars in any way impact upon its copyright period? Is the narrator implying that there be some sort of arbitrary limit on financial gain one can receive from a work before losing all right to it?
I'm by no means a major fan of capitalism, and I'm all for a sensible copyright legislation (e.g. lifetime of author + 15 years), but I don't think that you can seriously justify stripping George Lucas of his rights to Star Wars based on the fact that he's made 'enough' money already, just as you can't justify piracy based on the assumption that enough people have already paid for the item in question,
While informative, this video do overlook the effect that french "rights of the author" and the Bern convention had on modern copyright law. A convention that USA did not sign on to until 1970, btw. That is partially the source of the life+something change. Anyways, thanks to the Bern convention it will be damn hard for any one nation to basically turn back the clock. This because the convention insist that the signatory nations must respect the copyright period of whatever nation the work was first published in.
some poor geek bought each and every one of those releases. hahahaha
One Google search of “Star Wars fan film” should show that anyone can tell a Star Wars story who wants to tell one. The difference is that not just anyone can tell one and profit from it. And great new stories for copyrighted characters and universes are told all the time by media tie-in writers working under contracted license agreements. Those writers do profit from their work. If anyone wants to tell a Star Wars story and profit from it, all they have to do is be good at it. Were just anyone able to make a Star Wars feature film and have it released, the chances are much greater of it sucking than of it being good. In many ways, copyright laws protect us from ourselves.
The vid says that only companies benefit from copyright protection after the author's death. Um, not true. It's the human offspring of the author who benefit from their parent's creation. Whoever created that video seems to have forgotten about this thing called "family". Strange.
Here is a suggestion: stop complaining and create something new.
Perhaps the maker of this video doesnt seem to realize that by having copyrights it may be helping increase creativity. If everyone was allowed to continue the story of Star Wars freely you would have less people creating something new and different. Theres already enough rehashes as it is. Being forced to create something new instead of using Star Wars as your base for a story allows for new stuff. At least new Star Wars, stuff is released every so often so its not like the story isnt being used. Sounds like he's just upset that someone came up with a better idea then what he's had and he wants some of the money from it.
Honesty though there is some trueth to his arguement. A series like Firefly which is an extremely good series will never be continued until fox sells the rights to it. Fox will never make more episodes of the series and because of that I think they should not be allowed to maintain rights. I think if a company doesn't make products from the rights it holds after so long then they should lose those rights. (Hear that fox we want more Firefly. Preferably following the story of the series and not taking place after the movie.)
In all seriousness, why should the financial success of Star Wars in any way impact upon its copyright period? Is the narrator implying that there be some sort of arbitrary limit on financial gain one can receive from a work before losing all right to it?
I'm by no means a major fan of capitalism, and I'm all for a sensible copyright legislation (e.g. lifetime of author + 15 years), but I don't think that you can seriously justify stripping George Lucas of his rights to Star Wars based on the fact that he's made 'enough' money already, just as you can't justify piracy based on the assumption that enough people have already paid for the item in question,