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H.I. No. 2: Copyright Not Intended: Difference between revisions
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'''Brady:''' Right.
'''Grey:''' Um, which might not be the impression that everybody gets from my videos based on the comments.
'''Brady:''' Definitely, definitely not. That-
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'''Grey:''' [chuckles] Well, when you start- when you start having to do a lot of these things, you find a way to do it faster.
'''Brady:''' That- we should do that as a podcast one day, "Grey's efficiencies", 'cause you've told me about other ones in the past that you do, that I completely love, so, we must make a note of that, but anyway,-
'''Grey:''' I imagine that will either be the most awesome or the most boring episode ever. But,-
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'''Brady:''' -is to say "I'm using this under fair use".
'''Grey:''' Ah, yeah, as though those words themselves are just the magic incantation that makes it fair use.
'''Brady:''' Yeah, exactly, and also, you know, "a word like fair means it must be fair",-
'''Grey:''' Right.
'''Brady:''' -I think- I think that is something people are really exploiting in an unfair way, and it's- and again I don't think, you know, I think fair use has become the new way of saying "well I couldn't possibly have made this myself", or "I couldn't have shot this myself, or obtained this myself, and therefore, once I reach the point where I can't do it myself, it is fair for me to take it from someone else".
'''Grey:''' Yeah.
'''Brady:''' And I don't think that's what fair use means. Or, the other thing I think people started doing is, because, you know, some of us are in a position where we've managed to create a piece of footage or something that is nice or exceptional, people think "gee I'd love to use that in one of my videos, that would- that would help make me successful; I will build my video around that, and then call that-
'''Grey:''' Right.
'''Brady:''' -fair use". You know, this is obviously the case for, you know, people like Destin and- and myself to an extent when we- when you start using high-speed cameras, uh-
'''Grey:''' Oh yeah, yeah, some of- some of the stuff that you guys have made,- I mean that- that's some serious equipment to get those shots, uh-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -they don't just- they don't just happen.
'''Brady:''' Yeah, and- but then someone will just take this and say "well, I'm using this under fair use", when clearly they're just using it because, you know, they think it's in their interest to have something exceptional in their video, and you know, this is- I think people are being really naughty with fair use these days, uh, and you know, I'm not a lawyer either, and I certainly don't want to get into an argument with the sort of people who hide behind fair use, because they tend to be quite difficult people from my experience, but-
'''Grey:''' Yeah.
'''Brady:''' -but I do think this fair use thing is be- is being a bit silly, and I- uh- I mean- I have used things under fair use, and I think there's a way to do it, and a way not to do it, and some people are, uh, are-
'''Grey:''' Yeah.
'''Brady:''' -are doing it in the way not to do it.
'''Grey:''' Yeah, I mean- I- I'm- I just- I just pulled up the uh, the sort of the guidelines for fair use the United States, you know, and there's- there's a bunch of things, and again ''not a lawyer'', um, but the- the- the ones that I think are the most relevant here, or, um, is you know, whether or not the person who's using your material is doing it commercially. That's a- that's an immediate count against it possibly being fair use, right?
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' Are you running ads on your channel using somebody else's stuff? Well guess what, you're gonna have a way harder time proving that that's fair use.
'''Brady:''' Hmm.
'''Grey:''' Um, but the one that I think is really relevant is, um, again this is for the US courts,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -is whether or not the other person's use affects the market for the original material.
'''Brady:''' Hmm.
'''Grey:''' And so I think that this example is,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -like what happens to me where sometimes I see organizations use a section of my video,
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -right? And maybe, a couple, you know, seconds of my video would be totally fair use, but if you take the core explanation part, and play that, right? That's an argument for saying like, you have just appropriated the reason people would watch the thing in the first place.
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' Or, they're like, with some of those slow-motion videos that are amazing, right? The bideo- the video that you made is built around that slow-motion part, and so if somebody else uses that, that sounds a whole lot like, it doesn't matter if it's only a two second clip, if it's the heart of what the original thing was, that strongly counts against it possibly being fair use.
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' Um, so I- you know, I try to- when I use stuff I try really hard to keep those guidelines in mind, and it's like in that copyright video, I have a- a single note, you know, the opening note from Star Wars,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -and I look through the guidelines, and it's like: Okay, I am using it for commercial, which counts against me, but there is- there is no- there is no Court in the United States who was ever going to argue that somebody watched my copyright video, and didn't feel the need to watch Star Wars,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -because the opening note was in it,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -right? I have not replaced or- or stolen the value from Star Wars by using that opening note. But, even still, like, I- I've- I thought even very long and hard about even doing that. Um, but, yeah it's- ultimately with the fair use stuff what makes it so hard is that there- there isn't a solid guideline that you can use, like the- the ultimate arbiters is a court, um, you know, a court of law and, that's- that's just uncomfortable for everybody.
'''Brady:''' Yeah, and- and also- yeah, and, you know- and who wants to get lawyers involved, I mean,-
'''Grey:''' Yeah.
'''Brady:''' -it's pretty easy stealing stuff from YouTube, isn't it? 'Cause you know, we haven't got much money, we don't- we can't be employing lawyers; I don't often see them stealing, like, you know, game seven of the World Series and putting that up on YouTube as fair use,-
'''Grey:''' Right.
'''Brady:''' -'cause they know they're going to get it in the neck, but they-
'''Grey:''' Right.
'''Brady:''' -uh, they'll- they'll pinch it from people who they know won't take them on.
'''Grey:''' Yeah. I- I will-
'''Brady:''' It's frustrating.
'''Grey:''' Yeah, it- it is frustrating. Um... yeah I- I was just going to say very quickly that the- the worst (I will not name specific names for various reasons) but the worst, worst I have found at stealing my stuff, are newspapers, by far.
'''Brady:''' Ohh...
'''Grey:''' So the online editions-
'''Brady:''' Ohh...
'''Grey:''' -of newspapers-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -are that- are the- the most shameless takers of YouTube content, like, I- I cannot believe how shameless they are sometimes. Um,-
'''Brady:''' They are unbelievable, and they've got a nice little set of tricks they use too, like, every time.
'''Grey:''' Yeah.
'''Brady:''' Like, the whole- I love- one of my favorites is they'll, uh, take the video, like, put it into their own player so they can commercially exploit it, put up on their newspaper-
'''Grey:''' Right.
'''Brady:''' -and, you know, and, you know, within that 24 hours that you contact them and say "what the heck are you doing?",-
'''Grey:''' Mm-hmm.
'''Brady:''' -you know, "at the very least could you embed the YouTube- my YouTube video, so that at least the- you know, if you want to showcase the video you don't need to put on your player",-
'''Grey:''' Yep.
'''Brady:''' -and they'll be like "oh, sorry, sorry it was a mixup", they always say-
'''Grey:''' Right,-
'''Brady:''' -it was a mixup.
'''Grey:''' -it's a mix of every time.
'''Brady:''' ''Every time''. It- I've got- like- it's happened dozens of times.
'''Grey:''' [chuckles] Yeah,-
'''Brady:''' It's always a mix-up, "we meant to put the embed- embedded YouTube video in,-
'''Grey:''' Right.
'''Brady:''' -we'll replace it now", so they take out their version in the player, and replace it with your YouTube version, but of course by then it's no longer on the front page of the- of the website and all the impressions have happened and all the traffic has gone away, and oh,-
'''Grey:''' Yeah that's exactly it. They know the first 24 hours are the ones that are the valuable ones,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -and so they'll just delay and delay until they can see the traffic has dropped off, and, you know, then- then they'll replace it if you're lucky. Um, but yeah news- newspapers are by far the worst, and my- my guess- here- here's my guess about this: Is that- I think they're under, just tremendous financial constraints because of changing technology,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -but they also don't have the same kind of oversight that a TV news organization would have.
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' Right? I think a TV news organization would have enough infrastructure to say "listen guys let's not risk this", you know, "we're- we're in the video industry world, this is a bigger problem" and so I think newspapers are at this interesting crux where they're just,- they're under a lot of pressure, and maybe don't have the same kind of oversight as- as video news would, but, anyway, that's just- I always like to complain about the news if I possibly can, and-
'''Brady:''' Oh no...
'''Grey:''' -newspapers, you know, [laughs] they're not exactly- they're not earning my love, with the way they treat YouTubers.
'''Brady:''' Another You- another YouTuber who's a- who we both know who I won't name, uh, but, he- he's had that happen to him a lot as well, and he, um, he's starting to get a bit more hard about it, and then writing to the papers and saying, "yeah, okay buddy, thanks for replacing it but that's not good enough; you need to pay me a fee for what you just did", and he's had some success with that, and they've started to say "aw, okay", so I think they kind of- maybe they're realizing, but it's- it's scandalous, and the lies, and the- anyway I'm not going to sit here and-
'''Grey:''' [chuckles]
'''Brady:''' -I mean, I used to work for a tabloid newspaper, and, you know, I'm- I'm not going to sit here in whinge about newspapers.
'''Grey:''' [chuckles] No, we will, eventually we'll talk about the news,-
'''Brady:''' We will, yeah, we will eventually [inaudible]
'''Grey:''' and then you can let it all pour out, let it all pour out.
'''Brady:''' They're very naughty, they're very naughty, there very naughty about it, and they're very, um, sparing in their, um, giving of, you know, links or credit as well, you know.
'''Grey:''' Yeah, yeah.
'''Brady:''' I had one, I had one video that was, um- oh, I could say what video it was, it was the one where I went into the- the Bank of England gold bullion vault. Uh, and obviously that was- that's not an- a thing you see every day,-
'''Grey:''' Right.
'''Brady:''' So, a few people wanted to use it, and I had one newspaper contact me and say "can we use the video in an article", uh, "and we want to put it in our own player" and I said "well, no can you please use the YouTube player so that if people watch it, you know-"
'''Grey:''' Mm-hmm.
'''Brady:''' "-they're going to watch the same video anyway" and they were like "oh, okay, we'll think about it", and because I'd specifically told-
'''Grey:''' Let me guess... [chuckles]
'''Brady:''' [chuckles] -I'd specifically told them they couldn't put it in their player, and it was in- in a conversation, so they couldn't go back on that, and instead I think they must have taken... ten, fifteen screengrabs-
'''Grey:''' Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yep.
'''Brady:''' -from it and just made a huge picture gallery-
'''Grey:''' Mm.
'''Brady:''' -of all the pictures from it. It's like, yeaugh! Goodness sake! So naughty. Anyway...
'''Grey:''' [chuckles] Okay, so, while- while we've been complaining about all- all of these- these things, I will-
'''Brady:''' [chuckles] We are a couple of grumpy old men-
'''Grey:''' Right, right.
'''Brady:''' -now we should probably stop.
'''Grey:''' Right, now we are. If anyone has still survived listening through-
'''Brady:''' [giggles]
'''Grey:''' -the complaints of YouTubers, right? First world YouTuber problems-
'''Brady:''' Heh-heh, yeah.
'''Grey:''' -that are copyright issues.
'''Brady:''' Yeah, exactly.
'''Grey:''' [chuckling] Um, I- I would just go- I would go back to um, one- one of the- the little notes that I wanted to make, is, um, the advantage of allowing copyright to expire. And, you know, you talked about "why should people be able to build on- on George Lucas's stuff?"
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' You know, as an example. And, I think, what- some examples of- of this which is very interesting of like, you can retell stories in much more interesting ways. And, I have- I have two examples that I really like.
'''Brady:''' Okay.
'''Grey:''' The first one- this might be slightly embarrassing, but I'm going to admit it anyway, is the, I think it's 1996 movie called ''Clueless'',-
'''Brady:''' Oh yeah, great movie.
'''Grey:''' -starring Alicia Silverstone.
'''Brady:''' Yeah, I love that film.
'''Grey:''' Um, which is one of those movies when I first saw it, I- you know, I thought this was just the dumbest movie ever made, and for anyone who hasn't seen it, I highly recommend that you do watch it, um, but it is- on the surface, it is basically a movie about the dumbest California Valley girls you've ever seen.
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' Uh, and- and the exploits of their life. Um, however, later on I came to find out that the- that ''Clueless'' is a remake of Jane Austen's ''Emma'', right? That it- it is the exact plot of ''Emma'', just moved to this different setting, and once you know that, I think the movie ''Clueless'' becomes kind of brilliant. Um, I think it's-
'''Brady:''' That's so snobby though, isn't it? That's like, "oh, I- I- I wasn't willing to admit I liked this film, until I realized was based on something old,"
'''Grey:''' Well,-
'''Brady:''' -and famous.
'''Grey:''' yes, I- I- I will totally admit that- that- that does sound terrible.
'''Brady:''' 'Cause I've often heard it said anyway that sort of Jane Austen's stuff was considered reasonably not that highbrow at its time as well, so-
'''Grey:''' Yeah, I've- I've- I've heard that kind of stuff, um,-
'''Brady:''' I don't know if that's-
'''Grey:''' I've heard some-
'''Brady:''' -one of these fallacies...
'''Grey:''' Yeah, I- I don't- I don't know either but, um, I- I've heard similar things, and- and of course, you know, thing- things gain respect through time,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah, yeah.
'''Grey:''' you know, just because it's old, it's- it's sort of awesome. Um,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' Heh-heh, don't get me started on- on Shakespeare.
'''Brady:''' Okay.
'''Grey:''' Um, but,- so I- but,- so this is an example where I think ''Clueless'' is the kind of movie that could be made, right? Because the copyright on ''Emma'' had expired.
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' And, you can do interesting things with that story by moving it to a different setting. And I think that there- there is cultural value in being able to do new things with iconic characters, right? That I think at a certain point, very successful films and very successful books, they become part of the culture, and- and that is also why I'm kind of very much for some eventual limit on copyright. Uh, that- so- that- so that more can be done with these things in the future. Um, and my- a second example that I have which, I only recently discovered and then I had one of these, uh, binge watching sessions is the BBC's remake of ''Sherlock'' the Sherlock Holmes series,-
'''Brady:''' Oh, how good are they?
'''Grey:''' Have you- have you seen them?
'''Brady:''' Oh they- yeah, they're awesome.
'''Grey:''' So I think actually, as we are talking, the season 3 finale is airing on the BBC right now, which I'm looking forward to.
'''Brady:''' Yeah, yeah.
'''Grey:''' But I basically only discovered these about a month ago,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -and I watched the first one, and as- and I was like, I- I can't stop watching now, right? I have to keep watching this. Um, and I- and I've just binge watched the first two and a half seasons available at that point, and uh, it was great, and I think that this is another example of like,- Sherlock Holmes is so much more than the original author ever intended him to be, right? He's- like he is such a part art of the- of like the Anglosphere culture at this point,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' Um, that I- I think that it is fair enough to say that- that his character belongs in the public domain and other people can do things with this kind of story, um-
'''Brady:''' I mean ''Sherlock'' might not be the best example because I know there's lots of clever, nuanced nods to the Conan Doyle books, but, is this not just a case- again and I know ''Sherlock's'' not the best example but I'll- I'll run with it, is this not a case of someone, you know, some clever story tellers and good actors and good directors making a brilliant piece of film,-
'''Grey:''' Mm-hmm.
'''Brady:''' -something that's compelling, but then just appropriating a famous name and brand that has worked its way into culture to help sell their product, I mean, you could- you could make a bunch of rip-roaring detective films just like that about, you know, a guy and his assistant,-
'''Grey:''' Mm-hmm.
'''Brady:''' -that would- that would on the surface be just as good, but less people would watch it because it hasn't got an iconic name like Sherlock and things like that, so, in some ways I see what you're saying, they've built- you're building on things, and you're building on things in culture,-
'''Grey:''' Mm-hmm.
'''Brady:''' -but in other ways I think they're just being- they're being a bit lazy. They're making something good, but then they're appealing to our culture which doesn't like anything unless it's already famous, and stamping that on it in much the same way, when you make a science documentary on the BBC, no matter what the topic is you're like "well we can't do this unless it's someone who's already famous presenting it" they're just stamping fame on things because our culture is so obsessed with fame.
'''Grey:''' [sighs sharply] Ach, I- I think- I think that's- that's getting off into a different argument slightly about-
'''Brady:''' [giggles]
'''Grey:''' -about fame, right?
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' and- and also I think the, um, you know, there's some great- there's some great charts about the number of sequels, right? That have been made in movies recently, and- and this- this similar kind of idea, right? That people want to buy what they already know.
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' And, my- my opinion on the bad sequels thing is like, I don't care how many bad sequels are made, I only care about the good sequels, because-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -I don't have to watch the bad sequels.
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' Um, and, my opinion is that, yeah, there's a bunch of stuff that's made that people watch it because it's Sherlock Holmes, and now I have another great Sherlock Holmes example,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -which is the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movie,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -right? Which I watched, only because it was a Sherlock Holmes movie.
'''Brady:''' Yeah, I started to watch it for that reason and I had to stop after about,-
'''Grey:''' Yeah.
'''Brady:''' -twenty minutes, but yeah.
'''Grey:''' There's no reason I would have watched that movie if it was not a Sherlock Holmes movie. And it's like I- I found it moderately enjoyable, but they would have not gotten my money if it was not for a Sherlock Holmes name on it, right?
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' Because I've read the Sherlock Holmes stories, like- and I'm interested in this, and so I wanted to see that interpretation, which, I was like "ah, it's okay" but, you know, I didn't watch the second one. Um,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -but, to me the- the BBC Sherlock is- is like the shining example of what you can do and I think that those- those stories are great. They're made better because it's Sherlock Holmes, because you can see like what changes have they made to these characters, or what have they kept the same,-
'''Brady:''' Hmm.
'''Grey:''' -you know, what's different now that they've moved it into a modern setting.
'''Brady:''' Yeah, that's a fair point.
'''Grey:''' I think it gains value from contrast with the originals,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -that it wouldn't have if it was a standalone piece.
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' Um, and so that's why I- I- I think it's- it's great that people can do this, and, although it will- it would never happen I would love it if there was um, you know, if like, say the copyright limit was, uh, sixty years, that when I was older, I could watch somebody redo the original Star Wars movies.
'''Brady:''' Eh...
'''Grey:''' I- I- I think that- like- there is room for them to be redone in an awesome way. Um, but with current copyright lasting forever, that will never happen, you know, and- and that that will never be able to occur.
'''Brady:''' Yeah. So we just have to put up with how George Lucas himself made his new films.
'''Grey:''' [chuckles] Yeah, and again, that- this is why George Lucas is always like the easy one to pick on, right?
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' Because he made new Star Wars movies and they have been generally- they have been generally panned. And here- here's the thing, right?
'''Brady:''' "Generally panned." That was a very uh,-
'''Grey:''' [chuckling]
'''Brady:''' -diplomatic statement.
'''Grey:''' Yeah. Gen- um, but- but here's the thing, it's like I- I don't hold any grudges against him, and- and here's one of the other things with- going back to like what allows us to make our- our living, the control over the distribution, this Star Wars comes up for a very particular reason in copyright debates, and it's- it's partly because the power of the control of the distribution is what has allowed George Lucas to basically prevent showings of the original Star Wars movies as they first aired.
'''Brady:''' Yes.
'''Grey:''' Right, and this- this again is like could not be a more first world kind of problem.
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' But if you are a person who kind of cares about the cultural history of the world, you know, if you're looking at movies for example, Star Wars is undoubtedly a moment in that cultural history.
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' But you cannot get the original versions of those Star Wars.
'''Brady:''' It's very naughty, it's very naughty of him, isn't it.
'''Grey:''' Yeah, and I think that's where a lot of the resentment comes from, is- is people are saying, you know, nobody begrudges making those new movies, it's like "oh god", you know, or I think nobody rational does.
'''Brady:''' I- I begrudge it a little bit.
'''Grey:''' [chuckles] I- I would say, I hold no- I hold no ill will in my heart for the making of those movies. Like, he- this is the same thing, they just- they in my mind just fall into the category of the bad things. I don't have to watch the bad things, I saw them once, I will never see them again. Um, but what I-
'''Brady:''' Yeah, but do you know, I've been watching- but it- but-
'''Grey:''' [chuckles]
'''Brady:''' -if you see them once, I'm sorry I know this isn't about Star Wars, but-
'''Grey:''' [giggles]
'''Brady:''' -I've- I've been watching the originals again lately because they're on telly and I love them, so I watched them, and things that happen in the originals now kept giving me flashbacks to those subsequent prequels,
'''Grey:''' [chuckles]
'''Brady:''' -and it was tainting the originals for me because I was thinking, aw...
'''Grey:''' They just- they just don't exist. Um,-
'''Brady:''' Hmm, okay... anyway go on. Yeah, sorry.
'''Grey:''' [chuckles] I- I- I will just, also not related but, one of my podcasting heroes, a guy called John Siracusa, who I adore,-
'''Brady:''' Hmm.
'''Grey:''' -he is a huge Star Wars nerd, and he has kids, and what I love is that he is simply denying the existence-
'''Brady:''' [giggles]
'''Grey:''' -of the original three movies within his household. So,-
'''Brady:''' [giggling] They'll find out one day.
'''Grey:''' Right? They will.
'''Brady:''' They'll find out.
'''Grey:''' He- he- they- he knows that they will, but his strategy apparently is to have his kids exist long enough without ever having seen them that they will be able to distinguish between the good originals-
'''Brady:''' Right.
'''Grey:''' -and the terrible prequels.
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' Because I ran across this in my students enough where- where kids who saw them in similar time frames were not necessarily able to distinguish ones from the other, which is horrifying to me.
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' Um, but, anyway, we're- we're getting derailed.
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' [chuckles] So, what I would say is- is like, that- that is one of the problems, is that this power of the control of distribution in this one particular case has- has led to some cultural problems.
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' And- and that's- that is- that is the reason why I picked George Lucas as an example in- in my video is because this is such a fundamental problem it's like, if there were limited copyright, there would be hope of the original format of the movies entering back into- into the world. And this is one of the reasons why Congress has extended copyright protections is because their argument is, it gives the creators uh, encouragement to preserve their original works for longer. And there's some interesting data that says that's not actually the case, that what happens is the original works just get lost over longer periods of time, um, but in this particular case with George Lucas, it's also very obvious that the original work gets distorted and, you know, it is increasingly hard to try and find "as it aired in 1977" versions of the original movie. Um, I, personally, have never seen ''this thing'', but I have ''heard'' that on the Internet, you might be able to find somewhere a thing called "the Star Wars despecialized editions", where superfans have taken the current Star Wars movies and tried to make them as close as possible-
'''Brady:''' [chuckles]
'''Grey:''' -to the original cinematic releases as they hap- again, I- I would not know of where to acquire such a thing, because it would obviously be copyright infringement,-
'''Brady:''' Exactly,-
'''Grey:''' -um, and it would-
'''Brady:''' -and we frown upon that as creators ourselves.
'''Grey:''' As a creator myself, I could never condone such an action for such an incredibly important historical thing that I personally love, you know, so I will- I will take the high road here, but I'm just like, ''throwing it out there'' that there exists this thing called the Star Wars despecialized edition.
'''Brady:''' I'll tell you something else,-
'''Grey:''' Yeah,
'''Brady:''' -I mean obviously- I'm imagining you've seen um, ''People vs. George Lucas'', the film.
'''Grey:''' I actually have not.
'''Brady:''' Well, I highly, highly recommend that,-
'''Grey:''' It's on my list, it's on my list.
'''Brady:''' -considering what we just discussed, I can't recommend that highly enough, but also for people out there who are probably like Grey and I and spend way too much time reading Wikipedia articles,-
'''Grey:''' [chuckles]
'''Brady:''' -reading of the story of the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination-
'''Grey:''' Oh yeah, yeah.
'''Brady:''' is, is also very interesting when it comes to, you know, copyright and ownership of material and things like that. That's a really interesting story. We'll- I'm sure we won't go into it now, but if- if- if I after this podcast, people want to go and read something, that's a good read as well.
'''Grey:''' Yeah.
'''Brady:''' Let me ask you a final question,-
'''Grey:''' Yeah.
'''Brady:''' -because obviously we've been going forever here, if you were going to make another copyright video then,-
'''Grey:''' [chuckles]
'''Brady:''' -or remake your original, one of course you would preserve the original for the archives, but-
'''Grey:''' [chuckling] I don't know I would.
'''Brady:''' -is there anything you'd do differently? Is there anything you'd say differently, or do you- do you think you pretty much have the same position?
'''Grey:''' [sighs] I- I- I was thinking about that earlier today, and I don't know that the argument that I want to be made can be made within the context of the- of the kinds of videos I put on YouTube. A coherent argument for limited copyright is hard to make, because I- I- I think that it is a- it is a real gray area of- of law. It requires a large amount of time, and it's also a topic that there is no clearly correct answer. Um, and as a- as a- as a little example I just want to throw into to put that point, there's a thought process that I learned what I was doing physics, uh, back at University, and it's this question of- of in certain situations, take the problem to infinity, and take the problem to zero.
'''Brady:''' Hmm.
'''Grey:''' And so say, you know, "what would a world be like if we had infinite copyright?", if Congress just said "oh, the heck with these extensions, we're just literally going to make it forever".
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' You know, or we have a world where Congress says, you know, "no copyright, at all;"-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -"zero". And when I think of those two worlds, if I had to pick, I'd pick the world with the infinite copyright.
'''Brady:''' Right.
'''Grey:''' I think there would be- there would be problems with that, but I think that is preferable to a world with zero copyright protection. Um, and so that- that- that is kind of one of the ways that- that gets me to this "I am for limited copyright protection, I am NOT for no copyright protection". Um, but I- I'll put a link in the, uh, the blog post for this, uh, episode, but there's- there is a very very interesting TED talk by a woman talking about the fashion industry, and how in the United States at least, fashion designs do not have copyright protection at all, so, the fashion industry is a world where there is ''zero'' copyright.
'''Brady:''' Hmm.
'''Grey:''' And, uh, she makes a very convincing argument that this is nothing but beneficial to the fashion world, because, it encourages tremendous turnover of styles, right? That if one company comes out with a particular style of dress, there's a delay in time before other companies can come out with it too, simply because of ramping up manufacturing capabilities,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -um, but it means that everybody has to keep generating new things much more quickly, and this is- this leads into my like, well, it's hard to have a definitive opinion, because, I am convinced that the fashion industry is better off without having copyright protection. And I think there's some very specific reasons why that's the case,-
'''Brady:''' Yeah.
'''Grey:''' -but I don't- I don't think that same argument applies in other creative fields, so it's a- it's a very complicated- very complicated issue.
'''Brady:''' I think, if nothing else, we have shown that it is complicated.
'''Grey:''' [chuckles] Yes.
'''Brady:''' And, as always, it has been a pleasure.
'''Grey:''' All right, I will,-
'''Brady:''' Catch you next time?
'''Grey:''' Yeah, catch you next time, all right, thanks.
'''Brady:''' All right, we got- we got a few things to discuss for next time all ready; I'm making some notes.
'''Grey:''' Oh good.
'''Brady:''' It was good talking to you mate, catch you later.
'''Grey:''' Good, all right, take care man, bye.
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