Fighting a losing battle against copyright

[almostwitty]

 

So… on the night when David Cameron finally became Prime Minister, HyperHam and I had the following conversation:

HH: “Why is Mrs Cameron standing at the back, pregnant and far away from her husband?”
AW: “Well, we’re living in Tory times now.”

To me, this was so amazingly funny and of-the-moment, that I immediately posted it on Twitter and Facebook. After all, what’s a joke if it’s not instantly shared to as many people as possible?

While a couple of friends graciously shared the joke with credit, another friend of mine reposted the joke without attributing it towards me. Indeed, when I pointed out that I wrote the joke, she deleted the comment, and then we had a slight disagreement before she decided to delete the joke to begin with. But she genuinely thought she was in the right to just copy a joke without any form of attribution.

Record companies and artists everywhere bemoan how we now live in an age where people copy works without even thinking of paying for it. But at least we all know a song by Lady GaGa is by Lady GaGa. How soon is it going to be before people can’t even be bothered to acknowledge that someone else wrote that song or book or joke?

Mirrored from almost witty.

Comments

[actionreplay.livejournal.com]

I don't approve of the actions of record companies but copyright law is there for a reason. A lot of people don't understand the concept of intellectual property at all. Including the idiots in the Pirate Party.

[actionreplay.livejournal.com]

actually it's likely that Samantha does NOT want to be seen as the "PM's wife" but "Samantha Cameron, of Smythson" and so deliberately does not want to be centre stage.

[almostwitty]

In which case, she shouldn't have taken his surname. ;)

[actionreplay.livejournal.com]

yeah...... but she IS a Tory.

[anivair.livejournal.com]

I have no problem with anything I post on facebook or anywhere else online being cut and pasted with no attribution. If I wrote a two sentence funny, I don't need credit. I just like that it was funny.

[almostwitty]

But unlike you, I dream of fame, if not fortune ;)

[ravenna-blue.livejournal.com]

But part of the drawbacks to the current facebook/lj/tweetiverse culture is that stuff you type is posted all over the place. If you want your jokes copywrited, or you intellectual property safeguarded, musing in the internet isn't always the best way.

Maybe you could put a disclaimer on your blog/tweeter stating this is your intellectual property and would prefer being given credit.

[offensive-mango.livejournal.com]

The world stole my joke about Paula Radcliffe/Hitler, but I feel ok about it since it was somewhat time-sensitive and wouldn't really make sense now.

[almostwitty]

What was that joke?

[offensive-mango.livejournal.com]

It was:

Q. What's the difference between Hitler and Paula Radcliffe?
A. Hitler was willing to finish a race.

[almostwitty]

That's just taking the piss.

[offensive-mango.livejournal.com]

Ha ha. Not that one; the one where she stopped running the marathon because she knew she wasn't going to win. Later she said she was ill, whateverrrr.

[almostwitty]

HyperHam, darling - your alter-ego on the public blog.

Do keep up, luv ;)

[twisted-times.livejournal.com]

I have an ambivalent attitude to copyright. I'm all in favour of people being given due credit and, in the case of those people who make (or try to make) a living from their work, being paid for what they've produced, just as you'd pay a carpenter for a bookcase or an Accountant for the time they've spent sorting out your submissions to the Inland Revenue.

I work for a company that does digital delivery of music, so copyright and the DRM that comes with most of the music we deliver, is an essential part of the business model we have. Personally, I don't think that most artists or their managers are savvy enough, or assertive enough, or have enough clout, to be able to negotiate a percentage of the takings come to them from the sale of music (whether physical or digital), merchandise or tickets as they probably deserve to get. The only possible exception is U2, who have, so rumour goes, negotiated a percentage that comes to them from revenues well above that garnered by "lesser" musical acts signed to different labels. C'est la vie.

While music labels say that a lot of the cut they take from signed artists is ploughed back into advertising current acts as well as finding and developing new talent, I still think that they make obscene amounts of money and that more should go back to the performing artists and songwriters. Most people in the music business don't make enough money to live off it alone; those who download music without paying for it don't help that situation at all. I make it a point of buying music and merchandise for bands I like if I can do so.

[twisted-times.livejournal.com]

Oops, should have added to the end of the first sentence, "I feel that copyright (and the enforcing of it) is a necessary evil so that artists can triumph."

D'oh! Editing fail! ><

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

This has happened to my friend davywavy a million times. But the BBC did it.

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

IMHO that's not a matter of intellectual property rights, but good manners.