Piracy and Intellectual Property
prof_braino
Posts: 4,313
Has anybody seen this TED talk on trade mark protection in the fashion industry?
http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html
It seems that the fashion industry, and many other industries, have trademark protection, but not patent or copyright protection.
I got the impression that LACK of patent and copyright protection is what moves all these industries forward, and is the reason FOR innovation and profits.
Can this right true? It seems like the exact opposite of what I usually hear.
http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html
It seems that the fashion industry, and many other industries, have trademark protection, but not patent or copyright protection.
I got the impression that LACK of patent and copyright protection is what moves all these industries forward, and is the reason FOR innovation and profits.
Can this right true? It seems like the exact opposite of what I usually hear.
Comments
Yep, would be very difficult to grant long term monopolies on clothes. Each season sees a new cycle, and the many variations are cyclic themselves, with a 70's - 80's vibe happening right now, BTW. So many cultures, so many clothes. Imagine Disney owning platform shoes, only produced under license, for example. Or goofy things, like all shirts are Dockers / polo with an AD on them, and a license / terms of use. One interesting data point from my daughters growing up, and something I never noticed in play with Mrs, was a dress is only worn once per formal occasion. It's poor form to show up in last years. Not having the patents and copyrights drives a ton of new content, playing off of culture on a national, regional, local, village, etc... scale. There are blockbusters, but there is also just a ton of smaller scale production, with people of all ages / genders looking to stand out from the crowd. Can't do that with the monopoly and more rigid management patents and copyrights bring to the table.
That's also part of what drives the Manga scene. All the fan art meets the demand for new stories. Truth is, all the stories we tell are told. Basic human drama hasn't changed, because people haven't changed. The appeal is in the style of expression, and character art, connects closely with fashion, exhibiting many of the same trends.
One follows marks as a way to support creators who are of note, but all can make a shoe, or a dress, shirt, pants, etc... Clothing hasn't changed much either, with the core value being in the style of expression, if that analogy helps some.
Compare and contrast the US Comic Book scene, and the amount of content to explore and identify with is drab by comparison to what people in Asia experience. One very notable difference is participation across all ages, with adult themed stories created right along with more tepid, standard offerings, where here, participation drops off dramatically once people grow / become outside the bounds of the managed franchises.
Love TED talks. They are almost always very intriguing and challenging.
IMHO, there is a parallel here with software patents. The demand for software solutions is not unlike the demand for stories and stylized clothing. It's HUGE and growing. If we restrict it, we may well lose a lot of potential. The EU currently does not do software patents, where the US and some other places do. Very interesting fault lines have formed.
I think it's interesting that a kid can go make some clothes with no worries, but not be able to write code with no worries in the same fashion...
It's simply a matter of their business model, and not any protections they may have. The fact that fashion might be lightly protected has much more to do with the sheer market numbers and the speed at which the market changes. If you can rely on selling a million pairs of pants (what we call trousers in the US for you UK folks who think "pants" means underwear) in three months why bother patenting or copyright the design? Your competition can't gear up fast enough to copy you.
I haven't seed the TED video (sometimes they go on FOREVER), but trademark protection is very handy to rely on. It never expires (unless you don't protect it, which can simply be through form letters a non-attorney can send out), and is cheap by comparison. Copyrights are relatively weak. They're almost as expensive as a patent to litigate, but have minimal returns unless you can prove many, many distinct instances of infringement. Copyrights are the one protection that has criminal penalties, but if a company wants its own resolution they have to file a civil suit. If it goes to trial they usually pay more than the award.
The fashion and garment industry patents things all the time, but they're processes not the finished product. This makes sense, as fashion is finite but the machines used to create the garments can be used year over year.
-- Gordon
"moving forward" is what fashion models are told to keep doing once they are placed on the runway and their curtain is raised. If they are well trained, they will continue moving forward until they get to the end of the runway, at which point the little bud in their ear tells them to stop, turn around, and keep moving forward once again. Never ever ask a fashion model to walk backwards.
No, you really should see the talk, it apears to be different from what we thought;
No, they are only 18 minutes, and I have yet to see one that I wanted shorter, ALL of them needed to be longer so far (somebody understand creating the perfect pop-tune must be under 3 minutes ans 20 seconds)
No, its REALLY different from what we thought. You gotta watch the vid!
Some folks say Stan Lee is a scourge upon us all
In my more younger days in college I asked a bunch of Kids what they did about Free Films songs ect...
most are guilty of a long list of infractions .
I did the math and a whole lot of thinking .
Its Price point ....... I asked them If I was able to cap DVDs at 3 USD per disk would they buy . not Copy.
most ) 80%) said Yes. The iones who said NO were more for rage againts " the man" and were not going to pay no matter how low
Now I have NO clue the profit margin on DVD presses and the costs but I see it 2 ways .
Charge a ton and a Sell a few and have the situation we are in now . Or do sheer sales .
It works for the 5 $ Walmart BIn ,. I see no reason not to use this biz model on all DVDs . Yes the movie investment recovery will take longer but you will have the sales to make up for it in the long run ... EG I bought Logans run a few weeks ago ... that Flim is OLD ! ( well not as old as citizen kane )
Its just like Prohabition . Jeez you would think people would learn from history .
Ill cite a example of how some one is doing it RIGHT !
South park . love them or hate them the writers are on the ball! and have it right ! . latest is only on TV but all the re runs are on there site FREE and are not to packed with ads !. //
Me I dont own any torrenting SW or partake in that whole mess....... I have the "financial means" to dive in that walmart bin and the local good will here has a Wonderfull collection .. Good thing I like older films .. 7 Years or more .
Heck I just watched avatar for the 1st time .
Peter
Several years ago the cost of producing a CD in volume (10K or more) was less than $0.50 each. By now I am pretty sure a CD or DVD costs less than that to produce. Music CD's and video DVD's are grossly over priced in relation to the cost of production and most of that is due to the ridiculous salaries and profit margins in the music and movie industries.
The same is true for music, books, computer software and so on. Cost per copy is irrelevant and far outweighed by the cost of making the first print from which all others are copied.
I just Cited a 1st hand study I did . data from the people whom are Doing the crime .
Cause . DVDs are now cheap
effect . FAR less piracy
How is this not a solution to the problem ?
SO the ROI is Longer ... Tuff luck for Hollywood .
I suspect Kwinn is right on ,,,,,,
With respect, you did not make any such citation. What you did was say " I asked a bunch of Kids". Hardly rigorous.
I don't disagree with you though. The observation that reducing the price of copies of works results in less copyright violation of those works may wel be true. After all, if the price were zero, just click on a download link, then the copyright violations would also be zero:)
However the cost the media, DVD,CD, whatever is still irrelevant. The distribution costs, having dropped almost to zero, obviously don't figure much in the economics of the movie, music and other "content" creation industries.
Also I make this observation: Your implication is that piracy is a problem and our goal is to fix that. I take a very different view.
My view is that the copyright system has become far too onerous and it is causing actual damage to the progress of "science and the useful arts" whilst locking up our culture and holding it to ransom. Under the circumstances I am very happy to see kids "pirating" all they can. I would almost go as far as to say that it is the duty of all of us to copy and distribute as much as possible. Think of it as civil disobedience and a stand for our rights.
For a quick introduction to why I might feel this way, a position that has been growing in my mind since the early 1980's. I will cite the short paper: "Infringement Nation: Copyright Reform and the Law/Norm Gap" by John Tehranian of the Southwestern Law School:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1029151
Very interesting paper.
C.W.
when I talk about priceing . Yes zero is Zero . but if no DVDs are sold how can the studios pay for the new films ....
We need to strike a more reasonable price point that is all ....... what is resonable . Well let the market * aka the consumers * decide ! . Its simple to mesure . the torrrrents willl slow down .
as for the $$$ needed for new films. Well I guess they are not going to be as fancy ? lower budget . who knows . but the ball is in the hands of the creators .
Sell at a narrow margin or take a HUGE loss . Pick your poison MPAA .
and Realy tick off the PIPA SOPA loyasts !?
While Iam all for wagging a finger at the messed up system ..( I agree with you its OUTRAGEOUS! !.. the fact is .; as we darn near saw with PIPA and SOPA .
the" Powers to be" are armed and dangerous !
the DCMA is a Joke . it was made in a panic ! .
get this you can Copy a DVD ! as fair use . but you cant Break DeCSS . * BTW you catn Really copy a DVD unless you DO DeCSS. but that is the catch .
My Proff in English 202 many moons ago wanted to use a 30 Sec clip from the matrix to describe "platos cave allegory" . He had me use a college cam with GENLOCK to sync the TV we were filming to not show black bars . .. BTW we got that hint FROM the DCMA site ! .. how pathetic.
If the Big boys want roylitys then they need to set up a system where ANY one can licence a song for a viideo . I mean I have a few where I would gladly pay 10 USD a Year to use Song X on a video . and have it tie to my pay pal Ect , so its automatic . If universial can do it for a "real " film why not a person like me ! .
Heck you can do it on a computer and its automatesd .
@jimmysmith - you really should watch the TED video, and read the paper heater cited (at least the abstract). These present facts (observed trends) that directly negate your statements. In fact, just as Prohibition in the 1930's had zero affect on alcohol consumption in this country, and had the additional effect of funding petty crime and transforming it into organized crime; modern copyright and patent laws are having a similar effect today. Your use of "good", "important", and "clear" disputable in the face of these facts.
So, given that we like to have books, and movies and music and software how on earth do we support the creators of such things? How do we do it in a fair way that provides a living for those working on such creations without turning all citizens into criminals?
I'm not sure I'm even close to having an answer to those questions. However some things are clearly wrong with the way we do it now. For example:
1) A lot of music I might like to listen to is simply not available for purchase anywhere, anyhow, anymore. Luckily for me I can find it in "the cloud" whenever I want. Often I only need to hit YouTube. Instantly I am participating in copyright infringement and become a criminal. This all seems wrong to me. Those master tapes and such are probably sitting in archives of one music company or another basically rotting away. I start to feel that it is my right, even my duty, to save them.
2) The same can be said of a lot of old movies where the original films are literally rotting away in vaults. They will not be allowed out until their copyright term is over at which point they will be unusable.
I could go on but a lot of my concerns are covered in the paper I linked to if you are interested.
For an awful long time the average citizen was not concerned with copyright laws. Naturally because, few of them created anything and the means of copying: printing presses, record stamping factories, film reproduction, were expensive and out of reach to them.
This is the first time that such possibilities have been put in the hand of the average man. And that is why it's the first time that the Law/Norm gap discussed in the paper has become every ones concern.
Let's look at films since they're the handy whipping boy. The MPAA represents all but one of the big Hollywood studios, but virtually none of the films made by independent studios and production companies in the US and elsewhere. MPAA-represented studios make about 250 movies per year, out of about 8,000 worldwide. Each of those Hollywood movies now costs about $60 million on average to make, though for the 10-20 blockbuster films out each year that typical cost is closer to $140-160 million. You can build a small town for that.
To think it should only cost $2 for a 50 cent DVD is the same as a movie theater letting you see the latest Bond flick for only 35 cents, because it costs just pennies to show it to you. The movie didn't just make itself, and while there are some executives making tons of money, isn't that the same in any industry? The vast bulk of those involved in the production work for their weekly paycheck.
Someone mentioned not being able to get old songs or movies despite how cheap it is to make them available digitally. While that's lamentable, the problem is really in permissions and licensing. The older a film, the more "owners" its had as it's passed from one studio to the next, and one buyout from another. The legal contracts for many of these films is in limbo, and always will be, because there's no clear ownership to approve releasing it on home video or digital download.
It's not a matter of just taking a film and putting on video -- no standard releasing contract allows for that. Every medium is considered distinct. By the late 1940s and early 1950s they started to add provisions for showing films on TV, but TV is not home video, which is not digital downloads, etc. Only the very latest movies have contract language that specifies electronic rights.
A few years ago I worked for a big Hollywood outfit that wanted to get into the business of restoring and releasing old TV shows and movies, and we came up with a plan to do this with a mass economy. This firm even had many of the old films and tapes in its vault. But the project was shelved, literally, when the studios admitted they could not reliably determine the distribution status of many of their properties, and that each and every stake holder would have to approve of the new distribution -- could even include authors and the estates of authors who wrote the book that the play was based on that the movie was based on. It would take an army of lawyers to determine the copyright and ownership status for even minor films with limited appeal, so with regret they passed on the plan.
There's a now famous example of how easy it is to get sued for even a simple overlooking of rights. When Natalie Cole released her duet version of Unforgettable, made from her father's master tapes, the record company somehow forgot about Nelson Riddle, the person who arranged and orchestrated Nat King Cole's version -- the version just about everybody knows. Riddle was denied credit and any residuals, which might have been contractually due.
Exactly, I take that to mean that these works sit in the vaults whilst no one knows who owns them anymore. Not only does that prevent release for video or digital download but also any kind of release what so ever. In that situation there is no value in the companies keeping this junk in the basements and they might as well burn it as to pay for it's storage space.
An appalling situation that calls for some Robin Hood to break into those vaults and get the stuff out of their.
Simple ..... longer R.O.I .. so avatar takes 3 years to pay off VS 4 weeks . ' SO what . you pay the Crew there wages and the studio will just recover the money at a slower pace ...... of all industry's they have huge coffers so a ROI buffer is not a big deal for them ....
Technicly they allreaddy buffer the flim ! Its not like a flim is made in a week and the paycheks are cut day after release .
they Still pay the cast .crew upfront .just the producers just Eat the bill a tad longer ..
In the end after 5 Years the amount income is more or less the same as now TONS more will buy the film and pay some thing. VS nothing and torrent .....
If 9/10 people paid 5 USD per AVATAR . that is 45 USD ..
but if only 2/10 pay you make 40 USD ... Oh look there you make more not hosing us .
and its not a black and white number ,, its a curve . We want the Q point . the MPAA wants full saturation .
heck 9.99 a Media is OK for some Great films ... Put to pay 1/4 the price of the Bluray player for one item of content is just ridiculous
"not hosing us"...who is getting hosed? You, we, us, whoever, have no right whatsoever to the works created by private entities using private funding.
They are free to charge whatever they want, if we choose to pay that price fine, but we have zero, none, zilch, zippo right to steal it.
The argument of the longer payoff is irrelevent, the copyright holder can choose whatever payoff period they want.
Money is a time dependent value, at some point it makes more sense to just invest the money if the rate of return from product sales is less than the rate of growth while invested.
I agree there are issues with the law swinging to far in favor of copyright holders, to the point where we basically are all violating copyright in "normal" day to day activity like mentioned in the paper that Heater linked, but that does not give the right to steal others works.
It is a shame that some works become lost or are no longer accessible due to copyright issues, not sure what the answer is for that.
C.W.
Maybe it's a generational thing. Maybe the younger people think that if they can download it for free, it belongs to them because it's now on their hard drive. I find this trend to be a bit disturbing. And I sometimes wonder if the trend is responsible for the lack of any real creativity coming out of the music industry, for example. Gangnam style? seriously? Just look at this book that has recently been on the best seller lists, "How to Steal Like an Artist." It's a simple-minded piece of Smile that, to sum it up, seems to promote the idea that "Heck, it's all been done before, so go ahead and steal the ideas of other people." I read this piece of Smile and couldn't believe it even got published let alone became a best seller. So in an age when true creators have incredible access to knowledge and technology and devices for genuinely creating things new, suddenly we're attracted to a back-alley idea that we've got to steal? and if we do steal, then it's okay because all the other creators stole too? What a bunch of Smile! Surely this is just the lazy basturds way to trying to appear like a creator when, in reality, you're just a lazy basturd, Kleon. But we're all told it's all sooo hip to be creative and all, right? Maybe this idiotic attitude is just spillover from all those countries that have made fortunes stealing patented technology or violating copyright laws - beats me. But this attitude might be partially responsible for why there are no more revolutions taking place in art and music anymore. Is technological stagnation next? If somebody can steal my stuff under a banner of "It's okay because you stole it from somebody else," then where does that leave people like me in the future? Makes me wonder.
And the dude who wrote this book, you wouldn't believe what kind of "artist" he actually is. He creates "poetry" by blacking out newspapers and leaving his "profound" messages intact from the words printed there.
There, I've stolen some of his Smile and presented it here. Million dollars, please.
We tried!
For this company I consulted with, the cleaning, restoration, and transfer fees would have meant tens of millions per year, and the studios know the value of the materials, too. But some of it is simply untouchable. Or at best, difficult to decipher, because in some cases no one has the original contracts any more. They're somewhere, but it costs $$$ just to dig them up.
One interesting item came up, revolving around whether or not the old commercials in some of the TV shows on 16mm could get clearance. Believe it or not, some of the firms (cigarette companies mostly) indicated they would not provide a license, and the commercial would have to be stripped. As was a custom on the 1950s, the star of the show often stepped out of character and promoted the sponsor's product. It would have been awkward to just cut away, and then come back.
Some of these are winding up on Internet Archive, and supposedly under public domain, but clearances are actually questionable. In several of the (absolutely hilarious) Jack Benny clips I've seen they sing songs that are still copyrighted, and require mechanical rights clearances.
WOAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hold on there buddy ......
1st. I have never supported piracy.
2ed . they can choose youe are right ! .... But as in Life every choice has a effect .. sadly one effect of Over priced media ...is that people are going to steal .
there is NO way around it !
I can Choose to charge 100 USD a hour to build a product . but people will hire some one else .
does the word COMPROMISE not exist in any one vocabulary !
In one side of the ring . we have Heater . and for the record I do have to agree with hard to find songs ! ..
And others whom are for the polar opposite and support the Idea of overcharging for a product ..... Thus Leads to TOREENT baby ! Cause the can !
( you cant torrent a coach purse )
\ If heater has his way . PIPA would be the least of our issues ....
If Mr CEO has his way ..... they can turn a obese profit for the time frame . Yet so many whom cant afford it will just steal it ...]
No one "" wins"
Me I ask to meet in the middle like any sane person would do ...... Find a point both the films and the end users can bear ...
perhaps we cant go to 5 dollars a DVD , but Ill bet they can do better then we have now ! ....
If it took
Ya know in many other industry Like lets say toasters ..
You over charge for a Cuisinart .. People will Only buy Kitchen aid until Cuisinart gets a clue and re price points there toaster . Or cant from too low profit margins and they FOLD !
The RIAA and MPAA are such a monopoly that there is NO competitor !
heck look at the cell service industry how neck and neck plans are !
Ill Bet my Life that if Universal were to try to Compeat with Warner Bros . a DVD would be 3.99 ....
This and the other comments don't make sense. Avatar cost a quarter of a billion dollars to make, and if it had bombed would have ruined 20th Century Fox, bringing down several guarantors at the same time. The people who put up the money for this type of film have done so for several years before the film is ever released. Can you calculate the business interest alone on a quarter billion dollars, carried 2-3 years? What investor wants to wait an additional three years to *maybe* get their money back? Films generally need to double their production cost to be considered financial viable, and until they do, interest on the money borrowed keeps accruing.
Take John Carter (please!). Cost something like $250M to make, and only grossed about $280M (remember, grossed, so Disney got much less than that after exhibition and distribution costs factored in), according to Wikipedia. Green Lantern was another expensive bomb. So they need an Avengers or Transformers every once in a while to make up the difference.
People who decry that a DVD costs too much have absolutely no clue what a quarter of a billion dollars is. And besides, it doesn't cost too much. These days it's about the same price as two movie tickets. And you get to keep the movie afterwards.
so I guess I Win ! . They made NO sale and they will continue to have people steal there stuff..
as this is the status quo I guess this is Ok to the film people .... Meh
I have to disagree with your statement that the cost of making the physical CD/DVD is irrelevant. That cost along with other recurring costs as marketing, distribution, warehousing, etc. are relevant, as is the up front cost of producing the music, book, computer software and so on. Once that up front cost is recovered along with a reasonable profit should it not be removed from the price of a CD or DVD?
How is that up front cost any different from the up front cost of designing and producing a prototype in the electronics or computer business? Does anyone in our industry expect to make an eternal ongoing profit from a single design?
The entertainment industry is the only one that expects to make endless profit from an initial investment, and seems to have enough influence over our elected representatives to continue to do so.
BTW, do you know that every time you buy a blank CD or DVD a portion of what you pay for it goes to the entertainment industry? Be sure to thank your representative for that.
I didn't say that you support piracy, but you are justifying it in a "shouldn't have worn that dress" kind of way.
The motion picture and music industries are not stupid, the price point is where it needs to be to make the profit that they desire.
Due to piracy the honest people pay a higher price, it's always that way. Shrinkage in a store is paid for by the honest folks the same way.
There is a percentage of people that will steal, does not matter what you charge, any fee is too much when you feel "entitled" to other peoples labor.
I know a guy that has some rental properties, one of them is occupied by a woman on *many* social assistance programs.
She was telling him the other day that everything should be free to poor people like herself.
Using water as an example he discussed how it takes workers to drill wells, install water lines, run treatment plants, etc., he asked how those people should be paid.
She told him that "God made some that like to work, others that don't, and those that do should work to support those that don't."
She then proceeded to tell him he should probably get back to work, how he maintained his composure I do not know...
C.W.
this ! is the nail on the head