copyright eternal, or, mark helprin either loses his mind or gets provocative
May 21, 2007
...Once the state has dipped its enormous beak into the stream of your wealth and possessions they are allowed to flow from one generation to the next. Though they may be divided and diminished by inflation, imperfect investment, a proliferation of descendants and the government taking its share, they are not simply expropriated.
That is, unless you own a copyright. Were I tomorrow to write the great American novel (again?), 70 years after my death the rights to it, though taxed at inheritance, would be stripped from my children and grandchildren. To the claim that this provision strikes malefactors of great wealth, one might ask, first, where the heirs of Sylvia Plath berth their 200-foot yachts. And, second, why, when such a stiff penalty is not applied to the owners of Rockefeller Center or Wal-Mart, it is brought to bear against legions of harmless drudges who, other than a handful of literary plutocrats (manufacturers, really), are destined by the nature of things to be no more financially secure than a seal in the Central Park Zoo....
It's a stunningly badly argued piece; if it weren't for its headline, it would be unclear precisely what he's arguing for.
In general, he seems to be arguing that intellectual property rights -- including, probably, copyrights, patents and trademarks -- should all be protected in the same way that real property rights are. To be sure, he sets up a few straw men in his argument; for example, I can't recall that anyone has precisely argued that because something is trashy, it should automatically lose its legal protections, but he defends that side premise as though someone has done so.
He also draws parallels between real and intellectual property, stating that you're allowed to keep real property more or less intact (taxes aside), while intellectual property rights lapse after set amounts of time. I confess, while I think there's something wrong with that argument, I'm not entirely sure what it is or how to express it.
In any event, it may well be true that the distinction between intellectual property rights and real property rights lies in the fact that when this country started, there were relatively little of the former being generated, while many people had very recent, very unpleasant memories of having their rights to their real property violated. It would make sense that the protections afforded to real property would be stronger. That said, it's worth noting that, apart from noting that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation (eminent domain), the Constitution is rather profoundly silent about the disposition of real property. If it were not a direct government taking -- and the lapse of intellectual property rights would probably not be such, since the government doesn't profit directly in any way -- then it might be entirely Constitutional for the government to say, "Your rights to all real property cease at your death, and your property and effects must be distributed and sold in some fashion." The government could even then step in and purchase everything you own without offending the Constitution, as long as the compensation was "just".
It's also worth noting that, absent a constitutional amendment, you actually couldn't extend copyright eternally. The Constitution does, after all, say "for limited times". While it's possible to make the argument that life + 90 years is "limited", even this individual-rights-hostile Supreme Court might have problems with the idea that "limited" means Eternal.
Questions, Comments, &c over here
Posted by iain at 11:10 AM
no football wives
May 15, 2007
ABC has axed plans for an American version of Footballers' Wives due to potential conflicts with the National Football League. The network and its parent company Disney, which also owns sports network ESPN, carry extensive coverage of NFL games. It is understood that Disney and the NFL raised concerns that Football Wives, as the US version would have been called, would not sit well with NFL coverage on ABC.
Shed Productions is now understood to be shopping the show to other US broadcasters.
You know, what baffles me about this whole extravaganza is that Disney has owned both ESPN and ABC for some years now. Disney owned ESPN back when they were broadcasting Playmakers, a soapy drama about football players that sent the NFL into fits, and which the NFL essentially forced ESPN to cancel.
BRISTOL, Conn. (AP) — ESPN canceled Playmakers after one season Wednesday, ending a show that drew criticism from the National Football League and some players. The show focused on a fictional team and featured plots that included drug use, marital infidelity, racism and homophobia.
ESPN is paying the NFL $4.8 billion over eight seasons for the rights to Sunday night games. League commissioner Paul Tagliabue had expressed concerns that Playmakers was one-dimensional and perpetuated racial stereotypes. "Many considerations went into this decision, not the least of which was the reaction from a longtime and valued partner," said Mark Shapiro, ESPN's vice president of programming and production said.
Playmakers garnered critical praise and was watched by an average of 2 million people each week, five times the ratings the network drew for that time slot the previous year. The show also drew criticism from current players, with Tampa Bay defensive tackle Warren Sapp refusing to do interviews with ESPN. But by the end of the season players reportedly approached the network to inquire about roles on the show.
Football Wives was based on the British series Footballers' Wives, with UK soccer transposed into American football. Footballers' Wives has had storylines dealing with adultery, bisexuality, homophobia, drug use, racism, sexual harrassment and murder.
Sound familiar?
From the NFL point of view, the problem with Playmakers and Football Wives was not, and wouldn't be, the unrealism. The problem would be that they were entirely too real. After all, we've had two NFL players go to jail this year alone for repeat offenses; Ricky Williams is about to be denied re-entry into the NFL after failing Yet Another Test (for pot, again, of course). We've had players coming out of the closet after their career, and clearly stating that the homophobia was so virulent that they never even conceived of coming out while they played. One player's wife accused him not only of adultery, but of committing it with his best (male) friend, although she later withdrew that accusation. There's even been a murder, although the player who died committed no crime and was in no way to blame. The problem with Playmakers, and the problem with Football Wives is that they would have taken these scandals -- Ripped from the headlines, as the "Law and Order" shows like to put it -- and presented them to us for our delectation, in a nicely cheesy format, just as the NFL was hoping to sweep everything under the rug and present to us its nice corporate face, squeaky clean, new enforcement policies in place to maintain cleanliness, all is right with the world. Can't have some stupid soap opera reminding people that NFL players are human and screw up really badly at times. No sir, just can't have that.
You really wonder what made any division of Disney think that they could possibly get away with it.
I wish Shed Productions great good luck in shipping this to other networks. Every single US network is currently in bed with the NFL in one way or another, either directly or indirectly. NBC has Sunday Night Football, ESPN has Monday Night Football, Fox and CBS have the NFC and AFC games respectively. That leaves just the CW, which is an oddball sibling of CBS, and don't think that the NFL wouldn't point that out, and MyNetworkTV, which nobody watches. On top of that, "Football Wives" would almost certainly skew both too old and too male to match any of the CW's other shows. The only option reasonably open would be to take it to cable. Of those, the only one of the most watched channels that's both nonsports and non-children's programming is TNT -- which, through CW's tenuous attachment to Warner Brothers through the dearly departed WB (Warner) and UPN (Viacom/Paramount) netlets, is also an oddball sibling to CBS. Even so, TNT may be distant enough that the NFL would ignore it; that said, the content is well out of TNT's original series wheelhouse. Maybe they're looking to expand their reach.
Even if it does manage to find its way onto a cable channel somewhere, the question remains: what on earth was Disney thinking?
Posted by iain at 04:34 PM
sci-fi and anime
May 7, 2007
In an attempt to lure younger viewers and expand the reach of its brand, Sci Fi Channel is launching Ani-Monday, a two-hour late-night block of anime programming. Set to premiere June 11, the slate will put the network in direct competition with Cartoon Network's late-night ratings powerhouse Adult Swim, which programs anime as well. Running from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., the block will include acquired series, movies and shorts.
The content comes from Manga, one of three major U.S. anime distributors and a unit of Starz Media, which produces Sci Fi's live-action original Painkiller Jane, among other network shows.
Sci Fi, which signed a one-year deal with Starz, is aiming to better reach an 18- to 34-year-old male audience and convert those new viewers into fans of Sci Fi's other content. If successful, the move would lower the network's median age (currently about 45) and hopefully attract more advertising from young male-targeting categories, like movies and electronics. Sci Fi would then likely work the formula across other nights....
OK, so here's what I don't get about this:
Cartoon Network/Adult Swim has complained long and hard that with the sole, solitary exception of Inuyasha, People Will Not Watch Anime. Yet they complain when they don't get it. To be sure, I think at least a little of it is the scheduling -- Saturday nights is a horrendous time to try to woo the young adult audience, considerably worse even than Friday night, which is bad enough. And I do think that Sci Fi will probably do better programming on Monday nights -- albeit not necessarily better during the summer, but then again, they probably have almost no late night viewers during the summer.
I am mildly surprised that Sci Fi managed to yank the contract for Ghost in the Shell away from Adult Swim; that had seemed to be one of their anime staples, even if people weren't watching it all that much. (... Well, I was! Really!)
...The network recently got approval from parent company NBC Universal to start a business division, which is producing Sci Fi-branded comic books in partnership with Virgin Comics. Sci Fi is also considering feature films, videogames and mobile products. “This is part of a whole initiative to target a youth audience and figure out how we start to transform the Sci Fi brand away from just being a TV cable brand and more into a lifestyle brand that can move into other levels,” says Executive VP/GM Dave Howe....
Yeah ... well. Good luck with that. Seriously, the concept of Sci-Fi as a "lifestyle brand", whatever that may be, kind of doesn't work. I mean, when I think of "lifestyle brand", I think Martha Stewart or something like that. (Although, come to think of it, a Sci-Fi themed cooking show would be fascinating, for the geekly disaster factor if nothing else.)
Ah, well. I just want it to survive long enough for me to get my GitS fix. That'll do me. (Unless they decide to be both retro and edgy and do something like Cyber City Oedo, which has more cursing per second than any series I've ever seen. Even the guys on The Shield would think, "You people need to clean your language up a little.")
Posted by iain at 05:31 PM