I'm sick of goddamned streaming services

No, not at all. I pointed out some fundamental differences that are meant to show that there is no one obvious law to govern IP. I said both systems were bad, and for pretty much the same reasons; I gave cautionary tales taken from both countries. I then focused on the US for some of your questions because the details differ, and I wanted to make sure we both knew what I was talking about.

We apparently have a second misunderstanding concerning 'moral rights'. On the one hand, I mentioned these to point out that major differences exist between different IP laws (and they are much, much larger than you made them out to be). On the other hand, I asked you why you would think that it was moral to have IP rights in the first place. The latter has nothing to do with the specific concept of 'moral rights', and it refers to your morals -- whether they are informed by Christianity or pirate codes or anything else.

What the hell is the Berne Convention if not fundamental agreement to the same standards.

Yes, I think it is moral to have intellectual property. What I create is mine. If I sell the copyright for a price I agree to, then they are someone else's. I retain moral rights regarding the defacement of the property.

What moral rights do you assign creations? Be specific. Germany has laws governing copyright and moral rights. Where do you disagree and what would you implement in their place. Germany and the US differ very little in both regards.

It really isn't, which is why the convention is full of placeholders: It doesn't say here's how you treat copyright; it says however you treat copyright for people in your country, you also have to give the same protections to those from other countries. So my creations enjoy US copyright in the US, your creations would be protected under German moral right laws in Germany as well.

Why?

Me, in my perfect system -- because I have already said I haven't got one --, or are you asking about German law?

What do you get for $160 a month?

Granted its a different country but iv pretty much got the full top of the range offering from sky including full sports, movies, on demand boxsets etc. HD, multiroom. Pay BT for unlimited superfast fibre broadband, plus phone line& calls. All for a good bit less than $160!

Why not? How is my owning a book I wrote and others not being able to sell and profit from it wrong.

If I choose to sell print rights to someone on the basis of an exclusive contract, what's wrong with that? Not being able to do this would limit potential profit from my own creation.

What does copyright enforcement prevent happening that diminishes society?

Let's start with German Moral Rights laws. I've already googled these and don't see much other than guaranteeing the integrity of the work: subsequent copyright owners are not allowed to alter the work or destroy it. Do they go beyond this? How is this different than here in the US?

I don't know if it's true or not, but I've heard that it is easier to watch most European Leagues in America than in their home countries. For example most sports packages in the US will offer ALL Premier League, Championship, League 1 & 2 matches (yes, yes, I know you're Scottish, just know theirs better).

I don't think that 'why not?' is a sufficient argument for a law. Having said that, I have tried to explain and show with several examples that the current copyright system often prevents rather than allows creators to monetize; and its enforcement diminishes society because it prevents many creators from continuing to create related work, it prevents many more from creating work related to other people's work, and it keeps audiences from accessing the creations they and the creators want them to access. Straczynski made B5 and can't continue to make B5. Moore couldn't tell his Miracleman story. For a long time, German audiences couldn't watch The Cage or an unedited Amok Time (legally), despite being willing to pay.

They go far beyond this. (Reminder: I am not saying this system is better; all my criticism applies to both systems equally. I am just answering your question about the differences.)

First of all, it means that there are no "subsequent copyright owners". Only the creator has a copyright in German law; it cannot be sold. They can allow third parties to use the work for a fee, and that's it. (Because the systems are incommensurate, there is a choice involved in what element of German law to call copyright. Others might phrase what I just said not as copyright being unsellable but as sellable copyright having a completely different content to copyright in the US.)

Secondly, this means that the unity of a work is defined by the identity of the author, not the content of the work. In the US, you can ask things like, Who owns Superman? That question does not make sense in German copyright law.

Thirdly, it means that similar rather than identical works (another, new story about Superman, as opposed to another copy of an existing comic book) are not easily excluded by means of copyright; this mostly falls under trademark law.

Fourthly, it means that usage is restricted in ways dependent on the author's person. For instance, whether a political party can draw your original character designs on its posters -- for free and without asking your permission -- depends on whether you are on record as agreeing or disagreeing with their values and policies.

But moral rights go beyond that. I just listed a few of the most striking differences that refer to those areas governed by copyright in the US. But the moral rights of a creator also extend to their privacy, the representation of their person in the public sphere, and hence work differently if creators are minors or mature, for instance.

I've got Sky and BT Sports so I can pretty much watch games from all the leagues however you are correct. In the UK, we have a ban on Saturday 3pm matches being broadcast live. Thats when most of them are on. Ironically, these matches are getting recorded and broadcast out of the UK, we just can't watch them.

By the way, the guy my team got who had played 91 games for Seattle Sounders (Andy Rose) is fucking brutal! If thats the standard required to be a first teamer in the states

Ah, so you're Motherwell huh? He wasn't an every game starter 3 seasons ago and definitely wouldn't be now (we've literally doubled per team player spending in that time) but unless he's fallen off a cliff while over there he should be better than decent CDM depth.

He's shite.

Once we get through our injuries, he'll be a squad man.

I think it's the "silver package" or some shit like that - cable with all the HBO, Starz & Shotime channels, plus internet and phone service.

Why were Germans not able to see Amok Time or The Cage? Why these two? I would have thought Patterns of Force would be the one not able to be viewed in Germany.

If the original creator didn't want to open his creation for others to create related work, I think the others should find other ways of expressing themselves, perhaps transcending the original.

If the original creator wanted others to build on his creation, creating related work, he's free to do this under many forms of licenses, not the least of which is a "Creative Commons" license. Guess where this originated? There are a wealth of other collaborative license agreements, many having to do with software. Where do you think these originated?

I really appreciate the time you took to detail these, but:

1) The US doesn't prevent licensing. How does eliminating outright sales help the creator? I think your argument is it helps society as other people better able to pen Superman can contribute to the Superman universe. Other people should think of something else to draw/write unless the owners of Superman choose to license him.

2,3) "Superman" is a registered trademark. link
The copyright gives other protections.

4) See 3.


I'm not sure what you're calling for (I seem to have derailed the thread beyond its original and secondary purposes), but it seems to be "let anyone rip and upload media content so others may watch it for free and or make their own versions of it" for the betterment of society.

Really?

Patterns of Force too, yes, but that's not so much a problem of copyright. The other two simply weren't available because no-one could figure out the rights. (Cage not at all, Amok Time only in an old 1972 recut for kids without the pon farr.)

I don't know what you're asking.

I didn't say it did. But the US also allows for sale of copyright, and that's usually how the entertainment industry does it.

I didn't say it did. You asked me how German copyright differed from the US, and I enumerated differences. Some advantages do exist; you can't get into a Straczynski situation where the creator isn't allowed to continue with his own creation. And this sentence works a bit differently:

But other disadvantages exist as well.

Yes, that is the case in the US. So?

What?

No, I think I've said several times that I'm not calling for that.

Reading back, I don't see where Straczynski was prevented from furthering Babylon 5. link

Nor was Moore prevented from inking Miracleman (it wasn't Miracleman until a later artist took it up):

Moore's groundbreaking Marvelman stories continued until 1984, before abruptly stopping on a mouth-watering cliff-hanger. The reasons are shrouded in he-said-she-said bickering. Marvel Comics allegedly pressured Warrior's publisher to drop the series because it was misleading buyers by using the word "Marvel" in the title. But while that may have been true, in recent years it's become clear that there were massive conflicts between Moore and Skinn (Moore says he felt the publisher was being financially unfair to Marvelman's original creator, Mick Anglo). source
​

It seems Moore believes in intellectual property.

This thread is critical about streaming services and the alternative given was pirated media. You indicated this is preferable to existing copyright law.

How you would handle intellectual property rights? Stating that intellectual property is artificial and negating any ownership doesn't seem practical in our society.

If you want to know more about this, google Straczynski lock stock and barrel. This is a phrase he consistently used when describing in which way the production company owned his creation. The film rights were, as you will see, specifically excluded; but they were effectively tied into so many other rights that it was practically impossible even to do a film without the original production company's involvement, and they weren't interested until recently.

(The monicker Miracleman does appear earlier in the series, and Moore didn't ink it. Sorry, both OT, but I can't help myself.)

Precisely. I don't see how you can read that and conclude that Moore continued the series.
​

He believes that the existing laws treat creators unfairly, which is why he gets into conflict with production companies and publishers that act in ways that are currently legal but immoral in his eyes.

Not at all. I love streaming services, and whenever a show I am interested in is available via a paid stream, I will gladly buy it. You seem to have a very fixed idea of what this discussion is about, and you keep moving my position back to a direct contradiction of yours, which it isn't. What I indicated is that where streaming fails -- for instance, by not making a show available even though it is technologically easy to do so --, current IP law doesn't have a moral leg to stand on and so breaking it, while obviously illegal, is not automatically immoral.

Preventing piracy is definitely not practical in our society, and besides, our society is changing rapidly especially in the area of media and communication technology.

I've already said that I don't have a solution. That doesn't mean I can't see that the current law isn't a solution either, and point that out when someone wrongly declares that those laws have some kind of moral imperative to them (aside from the basic Kriton argument, which is fair enough).

However, I do have some ideas about which directions we should be looking:

One, I would refocus copyright on concrete particular creations rather than general ideas. I see a much greater imperative to protect the text of someone's novel or the specific TV episodes or movies someone produces, as opposed to forbidding other people from then doing their own work with characters and worlds and storylines already established.

Two, I think we need to move more towards a focus on production rather than later monetization. Crowdfunding provides a new -- not the only -- version of patronage. You want to see a certain kind of media: You pay someone to make it, and then it will exist. I'm currently paying someone to make me a kitchen, and I don't expect them to monetize the kitchen afterwards by screwing me over on licensing fees for every pizza I make.

And three, we need to move away from the myths of the current IP law: We need to realize how it is used to disempower creators, and how creators cannot create unless they build on other creators' stuff.

I figured out the real motivation for this:
One of the largest shareholders in Disney is Steve Jobs' widow, one of the largest shareholders in Apple is Steve Jobs' widow. Apple is going to be getting into the content creation business (spending $1 billion this year on it) The next gen Apple TV is going to support 4K. So what's going on? When the Disney service launches, it'll only be available on the new Apple TV for something like 6 months. Then when it launches on other platforms, the less than current programming will only be available on Apple's streaming service (which will cost slightly less than Disney's), but all the freshest stuff will be on Disney's service. Having the older stuff will give people a reason to subscribe to Apple's service, while Apple builds up its catalog of original programming. Disney being exclusive to the Apple TV for a few months will increase sales of the Apple TVs.

Fuck that bitch.

Hmmmm.... apparently you can sort of, ummmmm.... cheat Vudu Disc to Digital. If you own a BluRay copy of a movie, you can buy a digital copy of the movie on Vudu for $2. If look up the case for a movie and there's an image of the UPC code, you can scan it with the Vudu app and get the movie in your Vudu library.

Or if you find the UPC numbers, you can use a UPC generator and scan that.

Fascinating.

Apparently @AlphaMan likes being fucked in the ass?!?

Sorry, what?

He negged the OP. I was repwhining.

My bad... fat fingers on my iPhone. I meant to agree with the OP.

I completely agree and was just organizing my thoughts on how the new Star Trek is going to be exclusive to CBS All Access. Here's what I came up with:

I am not paying for that shit.

I already pay for CBS through my cable subscription and I'm looking into ways to get that down if not completely eliminated somehow. Why would I pay more for just CBS? or just ABC/Disney? I heard about this show some time ago and to be honest, I'm skeptical, but willing and wanting to give it a shot. But I'm not going to pay more to see it. It seemed like they were going back and forth if it was going to be on All Access or regular CBS for the first year, well it looks like it's All Access from the start and as of this point, I'm out. Fuck 'em.


I'm going to pay more, aren't I?

Bend over and take that anal reaming like a man!

The EU Suppressed a 300-Page Study That Found Piracy Doesn’t Harm Sales

hmmmmm


hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Gaming not so much but:

"The only negative link the report found was with major blockbuster films:“The results show a displacement rate of 40 percent which means that for every ten recent top films watched illegally, four fewer films are consumed legally.”

The pirating tangent this thread took was about major films. hmmmm?

Did it though? Most modern major films are shit, and the few that are good I can either (1) watch in the theater on discount Tuesdays for a whopping $8 (2) watch on Netflix (3) watch on Amazon (4) watch on HBO or (4) watch on Hulu. Usually the film isn't worth option 1 (I've seen maybe 4 films in theaters in the last year). And if the studio greedily chooses not to make 2-4 an option, they can fuck off and I'll watch it anyway. They had their chance to make money off of me and chose not to.

But again most modern films are shit. The rare modern films I actually want to see I do pay for. But don't blame piracy for the shitty quality of modern cinema.

So what is your pirated media? Give me a for-instance.

I've found every piece of media I've ever wanted to see available through legal channels.

The last two were Comfort and Joy and Ikarie XB-1. Two pretty obscure titles. Both were available on Amazon UK. Yes it took me a week or so to have in my hot little hands. I guess if I were an impatient child wanting instant gratification I could be miffed that they weren't available to stream through any of the legal channels.

They are oddly compelling films. The first I learned about on a car site after hearing about an BMW variant the protagonist was seen driving. The movie is about the Glasgow Ice Cream Wars.



I forget how I got turned on to Ikarie. It may have been mentioned here. While buying from Amazon UK it actually came from the Czech Republic.



Your desire to be satisfied immediately by downloading pirated media is childish and selfish.

Generally older movies or TV shows that are difficult or impossible to find on current streaming services.

One example: I had never watched the Buffy TV series, and I started watching it on Netflix back in December. I used my own Netflix account for which I pay $10 per month (rather than ponying up $150 to buy the series on DVD). By March or so, I was roughly half way through the final season with 10ish episodes left, but then Netflix removed Buffy from their service (and several other good shows). I also pay for Hulu, and it happened to be on Hulu too, but when I tried to play it, the commercials would load fine, and then the show would stutter and freeze 10 minutes into each episode. So I had roughly 10 episodes left to watch, and no platform to finish the series on. I wasn't going to bend over backwards trying to hunt down the season 7 DVDs for $20+ and spend days or weeks doing so. With only 10 episodes left, piracy was the easiest option. I had already paid for the rights to watch the show twice (Netflix and Hulu), after all. I wasn't about to pay a third time.

On pirate sites you can find HD versions of the original Star Wars movies, without all the added bullshit Lucas dumped in for the short bus editions. There's also a 5 hour version of Wim Winders Until the End of the World, which only aired on German TV.