Creativity vs Copyright and the Digital World: who will win? Who SHOULD win?

Creativity

Vs

Copyright and Digital World

Who will win? Who SHOULD win?

By Marco Fiorettihttp://mfioretti.com

Marco Fioretti ([email protected]) 2017/05/19 Scuola Romana dei Fumettihttp://mfioretti.comhttp://stop.zona-m.net/ Some Rights Reserved

A Digital World is wonderful for creators

• Examples: Tie Fighter, Dark Resurrection...


• Great works, Great Exposure, with less and less money

Copyright: what it should be, and what it IS

• Protect and reward authors.. was NOT the original purpose of most copyright laws

• Encouraging authors with copyright only was a method to achieve the purpose of

common good = give people more culture, education, entertainment

• In its current form, copyright:

• Lasts too long (70+ years after death of creators?!?)

• It’s too wide in scope

• Result: continuous abuses (thanks to digitization!) to:

• Censor: block free speech/political dissent

• Block creation of future, competing works

(*) Example: www.techdirt.com/articles/20120407/00171418416/yes-copyrights-sole-purpose-is-to-benefit-public.shtml


Of 173 Super-Hero Movies since 1977...

10+ Superman (1938!)

9+ Batman (1939!)

9+ Captain America (1941! / 1964)

13+ X-Men (1963)


Creativity! No, wait...

● 77 out of 173 movies in 40 years are reboots/spin-offs/sequels/continuity..

● Of stuff that is 60/70 years old

● Owned by the same 2/3 distributors and 5/6 publishers

(Including Disney, which does even worst with traditional tales)

● Who forbid everybody else to make their own original movies with the

same characters, at least for profit (*)

● Thanks to copyright that “promotes and protect creativity”

(*) Recommended reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_film#Legal_situation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issues_with_fan_fiction

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5933976/are-fan-fiction-and-fan-art-legal


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_film#Legal_situation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issues_with_fan_fiction

Corporate-only creativity? No, thanks

● possible only thanks the combination of:

● Digital technology (3D, VFX, promotion through social media...)

● Abuse of copyright in time and scope

● Bad for creativity, creators, the economy, culture, free speech...

● saturates the market

● raises entry costs

● does not block copies: only future, original, but independent works with

the same characters


What if Batman and Superman were...


Source: www.techdirt.com/articles/20160714/10232234972/fans-case-putting-batman-superman-public-domain.shtml

“DC would

still (*)

make lots

of money

because...”

(*) thanks to

digitization, of

course

What if Captain America was...


(*) https://www.reddit.com/r/lgbt/comments/17i15b/what_does_captain_america_have_to_say_about/

“Captain America...

was born in 1922, so he

would probably have

some old-fashioned

ideas about sexuality.”

(*)

“he's a huge Bible nut”

(*)

Homophobe and/or

a religious fanatic?

•Realistic

•Thought provoking

•100% legal, free

speech-wise

•NOT going to happen,

thanks to copyright,

because it would hurt

commercial interests

The (Italian) MGS fan movie you will never see


The CREATOR of Metal Gear Solid wants to see it.

The copyright owners of MGS do not. End of story

Source: http://kotaku.com/the-metal-gear-solid-fan-film-well-never-see-finished-1649735326

Free Asterix and Poirot!


Asterix: born ~60 years ago

still “copyrighted” by people who never

wrote or drew anything

Poirot: Born 100 years ago

40 years after Agata Christie’s death,

you must ask permission to OTHERs to

publish new Poirot novels

“Out of Print”??? No way!


• In a digital world, “Out of Print” has

NO RIGHT to exist

• It is economically feasible to print on

demand, ad libitum

• Is it right to deny people the right to

buy books, etc... in this way?

• Is it convenient for the actual

authors?

This book is

only 30 years

old, but

nobody can

buy it NEW.

WHY?

The death of Fair Use and Public Domain


The death of Fair Use and Public Domain


• Creative works done today will not be “free” before 2087

• No old works in public domain from 2011 to 2019

•“Intellectual property” CANNOT be like “Physical Property”

• Education and Free Speech need circulation and reuse

• Culture and Creativity need the past, and reuse of the past

But they are now locked by copyright abuse (“Out of print”, Orphan Works...)

Via digitization, and against original purpose of copyright

Suggested Reading: http://mttlr.org/2011/01/06/the-death-of-the-public-domain/ and https://law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/

Digital Dangers for Creators and Culture


Digital age & Digitization: what do they mean?

• Digitization =

Encode, as huge strings of

1s and 0s,...

In order to store and/or share them...

Every kind of data or document!


110010100110101010010010

• Extremely convenient: one storage & network for everything

• Quite harmful for creativity and culture, but only if you don’t

know it!

Copyright lost by author’s own fault


Gene Roddenberry:

• Star Trek Creator

• “Super Geek”

• But so “smart” that

he did not properly

save his own

screenplays and

notes

Copyright lost by author’s own fault


If you store your work in secret, proprietary file formats that can

only be decoded with one, proprietary software program...

The one who literally controls the “right to copy” is the author of

that software

And it is only YOUR FAULT

Ignorance of digital matters is not excusable anymore for creators

And video/videogames are even worst...


Nintendo

Flipnotes

from only seven

years ago

already lost?

Digital Dangers: closure of the analog hole


Current laws and treaties (DRM, DMCA, etc) make it illegal to circumvent digital protection

for copying. Analog to digital is (still) legal. Therefore, analog outputs are “BAD!”

Results: you are forced to buy again (if possible...) what was already yours (VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray...)

Besides paying for “pirating” your OWN pictures, texts, etc... whenever you buy a new phone, drive...

Digital Dangers: CENTRALIZED networks


Above: an episode of “Mr Rogers”

• lost ~30 years ago,

• found and put on YouTube in March 2017

Below: same video, removed 1 day later because of

copyright holders that were NOT using it at all

Source: http://stop.zona-m.net/2017/03/all-the-absurdity-of-modern-copyright-in-one-removal/

Centralized social media =

• Much more visibility

• Much more (automatic) copyright abuse against

creators and culture

Digital Dangers: Loss of Net Neutrality


AKA “transforming the Internet into the next (closed) TV

“Faster” for major content distributors

Slower, or closed, to all OTHER creators and innovators

Reference: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/05/18/one-step-closer-closed-internet/

Final proposals/provocations


Reduce copyright duration to 10, max 20 years after publication

Make derivative but original works NOT blockable (with mandatory payment of

fixed percentage on profits, if any?)

To creators:

• become MUCH more knowledgeable of digital formats, protocols,

networks, licenses... than, on average, they are today

• use and demand OPEN formats, protocols, software... in your work

• evaluate alternative licenses, e.g. Creative Commons

• to gain much more independence and opportunities