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H.I. No. 2: Copyright Not Intended: Difference between revisions
fixed minor formatting error in transcript
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'''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,-
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'''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.
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'''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.
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'''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:'''
'''Grey:''' -starring Alicia Silverstone.
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'''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
'''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:'''
'''Grey:'''
'''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-
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'''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.
'''Brady:''' Oh, how good are they?
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'''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.
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'''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.
'''
'''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,-
'''
'''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-
'''
'''Brady:''' -if you see them once, I'm sorry I know this isn't about Star Wars, but-
'''
'''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,-
'''
'''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-
'''
'''Grey:''' -of the original three movies within his household. So,-
'''
'''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.
'''
'''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.
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'''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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