Prufrock wrote:Was promoted today at work.  I'm now the Senior Editor in charge of N. and S. America.  My management also stated that they want me to take over Management of the Document Finalization Team in the Future.  More money for me means I will be able to challenge BlackMoor, Stratochap and Malc in the auctions for the really rare stuff.  I will not win but Jeff will have to fork out more money (that makes me feel better about my losses).

Martin

Right on Martin, congrats

Holywood Lawyers are taking legal action against a pub in England called The Hobbit.....

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/now--gandalf-- ... ction.html

Do they not realise that Tolkien is part of England's heritage?
I can't quite see how the US view copyright and ownership of IP at this level of a country's national heritage.
Can they also go through Stratford and London and start claiming copyright and trademork over Shakespeare and The Queen?
Does the use of the Vatican in The Godfather and Mission Impossible now make The Vatican US property as far as US business is concerned?
What happens if Holywood make a film with a pub in it called the Red Lion and it's a runaway success?

Reading into the story, it appears as though the US film studio claims it owns copyright over The Hobbit, and under US Law that gives them ownership of the term and the right to enforce that copyright anywhere in the world. Is that really true? Are you allowed to copyright other people's IP in the US if that IP has become public domain property? Could a US corporation start copyrighting Shakespeare and Burns because copyright has lapsed in the country of origin? And will this type of copyright law not logically lead to the US claiming ownership over all creative works ever created in the world after their respective copyright terms lapse?

mbassoc2003 wrote:Holywood Lawyers are taking legal action against a pub in England called The Hobbit.....

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/now--gandalf-- ... ction.html

Do they not realise that Tolkien is part of England's heritage?
I can't quite see how the US view copyright and ownership of IP at this level of a country's national heritage.
Can they also go through Stratford and London and start claiming copyright and trademork over Shakespeare and The Queen?
Does the use of the Vatican in The Godfather and Mission Impossible now make The Vatican US property as far as US business is concerned?
What happens if Holywood make a film with a pub in it called the Red Lion and it's a runaway success?

Reading into the story, it appears as though the US film studio claims it owns copyright over The Hobbit, and under US Law that gives them ownership of the term and the right to enforce that copyright anywhere in the world. Is that really true? Are you allowed to copyright other people's IP in the US if that IP has become public domain property? Could a US corporation start copyrighting Shakespeare and Burns because copyright has lapsed in the country of origin? And will this type of copyright law not logically lead to the US claiming ownership over all creative works ever created in the world after their respective copyright terms lapse?

The Saul Zaentz company owns Middle-Earth Enterprises (formerly Tolkien Enterprises) which includes the following:

Middle-earth Enterprises owns exclusive worldwide rights to motion picture, merchandising, stage and other rights in certain literary works of J.R.R. Tolkien including The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. We have produced and licensed films, stage productions and merchandise based on these Tolkien works for more than thirty-five years.

So if the Tolkien Estate sold these rights to Saul Zaentz at some point, they can do whatever they want with it....include try and sue a small pub in England thats been called 'The Hobbit' for twenty some odd years.  Ridiculous?  Yes....but who ever said Hollywood wasnt ridiculous.  Of course all the pub owner has to do is take down any material that showcases artwork or pictures from the movie and they should be fine.  Put up some decent John Howe, Alan Lee or Ted Naismith artwork instead (after getting permission of course) and wag their middle finger at Middle-Earth Enterprises.

So IP can be extended inperpetuity now, well beyond the creator's death?
Does that mean that nothing ever created ever becomes part of a nation's heritage, and everything created is not considered a comodity to be bought ans sold by the corporation with the most money?
Surely the logical extension of that system is that the richest country on the planet eventually owns everything ever created by any other country on the planet?
That system seems a bit fucked up to me. You shouldn't be able to buy and sell a nations heritage, and I'd be willing to bet if China became so rich they could buy out disney, and they tried to do so, The USA would change the copyright laws to say that US heritage could not be owned or bought by a foreign country.

JasonZavoda wrote:

mbassoc2003 wrote:So IP can be extended inperpetuity now, well beyond the creator's death?
Does that mean that nothing ever created ever becomes part of a nation's heritage, and everything created is not considered a comodity to be bought ans sold by the corporation with the most money?
Surely the logical extension of that system is that the richest country on the planet eventually owns everything ever created by any other country on the planet?
That system seems a bit fucked up to me. You shouldn't be able to buy and sell a nations heritage, and I'd be willing to bet if China became so rich they could buy out disney, and they tried to do so, The USA would change the copyright laws to say that US heritage could not be owned or bought by a foreign country.

Copyright law comes from the end of a gun. That's from Mickey's little red book.

Don't get me started. We went around on this a couple months ago on another thread. The thing to remember is that Disney drives the bus, we are the ones that get run over, that simple.

Mike B.

Either way, is it right for a country's citizens (the UK) to sell it's heritage (Tolkien) to another country's investor? Or for another country's investors to exploit that? We did it with The Beatles too. Should country's not defend their own national heritage rather than go selling them off to the highest bidder? Or is it all fair game in a capitalist democracy, and fuck a country's identity, history and heritage? Was not defense of America's heritage (the mouse) not one of the arguments put forward in favour of the changes to US copyright law?

Would the US permit Messrs Disney to sell the Walt Disney Corp's IP to China.com, or would US citizens complain if every business or individual using Flagg's Uncle Sam image had to pay a license fee to Business Tycoon in Beiging who happenned upon the original and acquired the rights to the image under his country's copyright laws and found that his money could enforce his claims on foreign soils? Or would the US tell them to GTF and leave their country's heritage alone? Can you take copyright and IP enforcement too far?

Busman wrote:Doesn't the owner of the IP have the right to do with as they wish? Including sell to a foreigner? Or would you advocate government get involved in IP discussions about what is or is not nationally relevant? I certainly wouldn't. National defense? Sure. Creative license? umm... no thanks.

I'd suggest that's exactly what the US would do if what the majority of it's people percieved as their 'heritage' were sold to a foreigner and then lisenced it back to them for profit. The logical extension of the premise of free access to all to buy and sell their creative output to any, and at any point, is that the country with the highest revenue has the ability to remove the ownership of creative output, both past and present, from all other nations. I just think it is incumbent on those inheriting IP to not put their own personal desire for money above the interests of their responsibilities to the IP creator, or to the nations heritage as a whole. I think the nations' interest as a whole should be considered in matters of selling one's heritage, and I doubt Tolkien would have ever wanter a US business running around the UK countryside suing people in his name.

The US copyright laws are pretty corrupt now. They seem to be more about reinforcing the US corporate greed, and less about protecting the creative results of those who choose to use the right side of their brain for a living. Let's face it, Monsanto claim ownership of every grown product within their current target crop markets grown anywhere on the planet. They believe that every single ear of corn, for example, no matter who, where or how it is grown, is their property and should be paid for and licensed from them. This is US copyright law taken to the extremes of capitalism. Pure greed when one revenue stream uses its buying power and influence in an attempt to corrupt and enslave all others. It is akin to copyrighting the letter 'e' and then requiring every written or spoken word in any language to have license fees paid to the US, or releasing a bio-tag into the water supply, and them reading that tag in a lake in Australia and claiming Australian's were illegaly drinking, storing and using US water without paying water charges. But I'm sure Monsanto started small, with little lawsuits against little people who had no means of defending theselves and just forcing everyone they threatenned to pay up the 'small license fees' lest they lose their entire livelyhoods to the biug American Corporation with all the money to sink them. They certainly didn't start out by saying, "We own all grain everywhere in the world and everyone must now pay us money."

I think this is more a case of greed and ignorance by the Holywood corporation, than it is about protecting or respecting Tolkien, and culturally it is a little bit of the American Dream that jars with polite English Society. That said, the pub concerned it not the most polite you'll encounter on that road, or at least it wasn't. Maybe the natives have brushed up on their English in that pert of town.

mbassoc2003 wrote:I think this is more a case of greed and ignorance by the Holywood corporation, than it is about protecting or respecting Tolkien, and culturally it is a little bit of the American Dream that jars with polite English Society. That said, the pub concerned it not the most polite you'll encounter on that road, or at least it wasn't. Maybe the natives have brushed up on their English in that pert of town.

It's neither of those things. It's protecting their copyrights/TMs as required or losing them. If you own a TM and it's shown that you knew about an infringement but didn't pursue it, then when another infringement comes along and you want to protect against it, your case is weakened, because you don't get to pick and chose. They HAD to do what they did, or risk letting their TMs move one step closer to Public Domain.

Busman wrote:Doesn't the owner of the IP have the right to do with as they wish? Including sell to a foreigner? Or would you advocate government get involved in IP discussions about what is or is not nationally relevant? I certainly wouldn't. National defense? Sure. Creative license? umm... no thanks.

Sure, but IP is something which only exists as defined by government regulation. Legislatures/constitutional conventions had to "get involved in IP discussions about what is or is not nationally relevant" regarding "creative license." IP law argued from a perspective of lassiez-faire capitalism is contradictory.

Your no-thanks argument should logically bring you to reject the idea of IP entirely. It's the equivalent of saying "keep your government hands off my Medicare!"