General Category > Comic Related Discussion
PD law - 'Manufacturing consent and copyright law'
Yoc:
Here's an interesting blog entry we here might enjoy on the principles of Copyright law I found on usenet.
Never an easy concept to understand.
http://tinyurl.com/ybeacpu
Feel free to comment or correct if you find anything.
-Yoc
John C:
While I agree with the basic premise that copyright law needs reform, it's a weird approach to use the Kirby case to make it. I mean, if the New York Times Science Section ran a story on Venus, would there be outcry that there wasn't a single mention of Mars? The case has nothing to do with the public domain unless you're an agitator.
I might also take issue with the "corporate behemoth" crack at the end. Without Marvel's reach, I imagine the Fantastic Four would be as popular as other superhero properties Kirby did mostly on his own, like Fighting American, Captain Victory, and Silver Star.
And to take the author's own approach, nowhere in HIS article does he mention all the rise in Creative Commons material, licensed openly for anybody to use, regardless of copyright. (No, I wouldn't expect him to, which is partly my point above.) Does it matter that blonde-haired pseudo-Shakespearean Thor isn't public domain when (warning: I'm making this example up, don't ask me who) someone has published a Marvel-free Thor and given license to use it as long as credit has been given? Where it does matter, doesn't that make the author every bit the "copyright vampire" Marvel has been...?
Yoc:
True enough John, but this post and his own were made to encourage people to investigate the concept and speak about it.
:)
JVJ (RIP):
--- Quote from: John C on April 04, 2010, 08:37:42 AM ---While I agree with the basic premise that copyright law needs reform, it's a weird approach to use the Kirby case to make it. I mean, if the New York Times Science Section ran a story on Venus, would there be outcry that there wasn't a single mention of Mars? The case has nothing to do with the public domain unless you're an agitator.
I might also take issue with the "corporate behemoth" crack at the end. Without Marvel's reach, I imagine the Fantastic Four would be as popular as other superhero properties Kirby did mostly on his own, like Fighting American, Captain Victory, and Silver Star.
And to take the author's own approach, nowhere in HIS article does he mention all the rise in Creative Commons material, licensed openly for anybody to use, regardless of copyright. (No, I wouldn't expect him to, which is partly my point above.) Does it matter that blonde-haired pseudo-Shakespearean Thor isn't public domain when (warning: I'm making this example up, don't ask me who) someone has published a Marvel-free Thor and given license to use it as long as credit has been given? Where it does matter, doesn't that make the author every bit the "copyright vampire" Marvel has been...?
--- End quote ---
The problem, as I see it, John,
is that it should be possible for someone else to create a blonde, thee and thou-spouting Thor who transforms into Donald Blake if they wanted to. And, just as Walt Disney's versions of Snow White and Cinderella and The Little Mermaid and Zorro and Treasure Island and 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas, and etc. etc. have become the new defacto "versions" of those stories, perhaps someone else could create one for Thor. It's been done several times (Why does Walt Simonson spring suddenly to mind?) under the corporate aegis of Marvel, but think of what might happen if Thor was in the Public Domain.
Disney mined the public domain and made it meaningful (and commercially viable) to a new audience. The point is that neither Marvel nor Disney were corporate behemoths when they started. And Marvel and Jack Kirby managed 100 issues of the FF without benefit of corporate stature or support. Now, the corporate heirs of both companies are trying to prevent using material they DID NOT CREATE from being mined by creatives as source material for modern works.
I have no belief that the heirs of either Kirby or Disney should still be profiting, any more than I think the heirs of Robert Louis Stevenson should have benefited from Disney's 1950 adaptation.
And I agree with you that the Kirby case has nothing to do with the Public Domain. It WAS a poor choice of examples. Also I agree as to Kirby's past achievements being less than memorable, and I said as much in the last issue of The Jack Kirby Collector (#54). But I state again that FF and Thor established themselves and succeeded without any "Corporate Behemoth" behind them - so I don't see the mention of same as being a "crack" but more of a salient point in the argument.
Your analogy of Venus and Mars doesn't hold up, I don't think. The analogy would be better stated as talking about Venus without mentioning Outer Space. Anything that is not copyrighted is public domain. Together they(copyrighted material and public domain material) comprise everything being talked about. So I believe that the mention of public domain is germane to any discussion of copyright. And the "Creative Commons" aspect may have implications in the future, but has little impact on the discussion at hand.
As always, thanks for an interesting post.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
Yoc:
Thanks for your post as well Jim!
:)
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