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IP, Part Three: A Copyright for Everyone! · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
0:27
Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
0:31
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Uh, let's hear it for our
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Speaker 1: super producer, mister Max Copyright Williams.
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Speaker 2: I mean it was the only one. It was the
0:41
Speaker 2: only possible nickname wise for this episode.
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Speaker 3: I actually do have a copyright on myself. Yeah, but
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Speaker 3: I mean granted, we all get copyrights as soon as
0:48
Speaker 3: we create something.
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Speaker 4: But we'll get to that later.
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Speaker 2: Right, that's old. Yes, of course you put it out there.
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Speaker 2: Technically it's copywritten, but there's also, like you know, caveats today,
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Speaker 2: oh so many.
1:00
Speaker 1: And it reminds me of our conversation on the Daily
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Speaker 1: Zeitgeist about stuff like the poor Man's copyright. As we'll see,
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Speaker 1: having a copyright and defending a copyright can be a
1:13
Speaker 1: little complicated. Oh, we've got to introduce ourselves. That's mister
1:17
Speaker 1: Noel Brown. Hi, you're Ben Bolan. That's me, and we
1:21
Speaker 1: are continuing our series on IP, the short term for
1:27
Speaker 1: intellectual property.
1:29
Speaker 2: I p U P. We all pee for intellectual property.
1:33
Speaker 2: And as we said off here, I P first, I
1:36
Speaker 2: poop second. Yes, of course Max.
1:40
Speaker 4: Does the too hump camell have a too hump p.
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Speaker 2: I don't understand.
1:47
Speaker 4: It's a reference to uh, everyone poops.
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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and then the less the much less popular
1:53
Speaker 2: book Nobody Poops but you. Yeah, that's a family guy.
1:57
Speaker 2: It's the one family guy joke. I remember.
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Speaker 1: I think they called it like a Catholic children's book
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Speaker 1: or something.
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Speaker 3: Oh, well, we're Catholic. He's like, oh, so you're a
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Speaker 3: horrible child and that is tent of sin protruding from
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Speaker 3: your body or something like that.
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Speaker 2: I gotta tell you this has nothing to do with anything,
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Speaker 2: but talking about camels reminds me of a weird prejudice
2:16
Speaker 2: or discriminatory thought that I've I've been trying to fix
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Speaker 2: it in my own head for years, But I just
2:22
Speaker 2: think the two hump Bactrian camels are so much cooler
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Speaker 2: than the one hump camels. Yeah, I mean it's the
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Speaker 2: classic camel. You want the two hump or else. I mean,
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Speaker 2: it's like a built in saddle.
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Speaker 1: I'm never gonna get over this. I'll have to start
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Speaker 1: hanging out with some one hump camel.
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Speaker 2: Remember when we were in the Middle East at that
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Speaker 2: market and they had camel rides, was that a one
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Speaker 2: hump or two hump had to have been a two hump.
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Speaker 2: You can't write a one hump, you'd fall right off.
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Speaker 2: You could write a one hump, you'd have to fit
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Speaker 2: it with a special sound. Yeah, that would be a copy.
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Speaker 1: And maybe you could try to copyright some of these ideas.
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Speaker 2: Oooh see, but that would be more of a patent,
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Speaker 2: wouldn't it. It would do.
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Speaker 1: Check out our earlier episodes on this subject. So in
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Speaker 1: our previous episodes we had talked about like you were saying,
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Speaker 1: Noel Pattens and all other sorts of intellectual property. But
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Speaker 1: now we're going with something our research associate Max calls
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Speaker 1: the comic sands of intellectual property copyright.
3:21
Speaker 2: I think I get it. So we're gonna pull a
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Speaker 2: lot today from the very official copyright dot gov. Not
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Speaker 2: an org, not a commra on that. It's a gov.
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Speaker 2: It means used to mean something. Sure it, Sure did it,
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Speaker 2: Sure did. So if we go to this source, copyright
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Speaker 2: dot gov, which is pretty canonical for our purposes today,
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Speaker 2: we'll see you. We'll see it.
3:49
Speaker 1: Even think of a copyright as a genre or type
3:53
Speaker 1: of intellectual property. The concept is that as soon as
3:58
Speaker 1: you fick a creative work or original work in a
4:03
Speaker 1: tangible form of expression medium, right, yeah, medium, then your
4:08
Speaker 1: work is protected under copyright law in the This is
4:12
Speaker 1: by the way, this just applies to the United States.
4:15
Speaker 1: Things get stickier when you travel around the globe. But no,
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Speaker 1: what is original work for this?
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Speaker 2: Something that's a creative work that an individual produces from
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Speaker 2: their mind. Place. That could include paintings, photographs, musical compositions,
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Speaker 2: original recordings, which is its own issue because there's lots
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Speaker 2: of different stakeholders. And musical recording because you've also got
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Speaker 2: the writing, you've got the actual property, the masters, all
4:45
Speaker 2: that stuff. We'll get into that. That's one of my
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Speaker 2: particular nerddoms. Computer programs, software, video games, books, poems, any
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Speaker 2: kind of blog posts would technically fall under this. Films,
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Speaker 2: architectural works and the plans thereof right, plays, sonnets, I
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Speaker 2: guess that falls under poetry, illustrations, you know, comic books.
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Speaker 1: It's pretty much creative acts, right, and a tangible form
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Speaker 1: of expression is It's a well intentioned it's a well
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Speaker 1: intentioned distinction, but it can also get a little sticky
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Speaker 1: when we're talking about the nature of something being tangible,
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Speaker 1: like dance, Is it choreographed dance, something you could copyright.
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Speaker 2: I was gonna ask, and I think, well, that's a
5:34
Speaker 2: good question, because you do often hear about choreography being
5:39
Speaker 2: lifted or borrowed or stolen. I actually saw a thing
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Speaker 2: yesterday on Instagram where it was some digital you know,
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Speaker 2: kind of independent digital creator showing some sort of animatic
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Speaker 2: that they had made and published online of a fight scene,
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Speaker 2: like a lightsaber ish type fight scene, and then the
5:56
Speaker 2: ab frame of a I believe a Marvel movie that
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Speaker 2: lifted every aspect including camera angles of that original work,
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Speaker 2: which that yeah, I don't I have to dig deeper
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Speaker 2: into that, but I was gonna ask the same thing.
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Speaker 2: Can you copyright like a funny walk I've seen, I've
6:14
Speaker 2: seen a video the video you're talking about, or something
6:18
Speaker 2: very much like it. Okay, it happens. Yeah, it happens frequently.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's complex to stage a choreographed fight safely,
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Speaker 1: add in a way that still looks real.
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Speaker 2: And carries the story.
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Speaker 1: It may be a situation where the stunt coordinator or
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Speaker 1: the person responsible for choreographing the fight just uses their
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Speaker 1: own stuff sometimes, but in the video you're referencing, it
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Speaker 1: did look clearly like a lift.
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Speaker 2: This was a person who had made the original thing saying,
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Speaker 2: hey look at this.
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Speaker 1: At these they said, I didn't make the second version
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Speaker 1: of this, so I took it. I do want to
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Speaker 1: point out that copyright dot gov does one more, very
6:57
Speaker 1: unusual thing for dot gov website. They have an exclamation
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Speaker 1: mark in their definition. They say architectural works, plays, and
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Speaker 1: so much more.
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Speaker 2: Gosh, how much more? A copyright duck of enlighten us.
7:11
Speaker 2: Copyrights can be either original, meaning that they're created independently
7:16
Speaker 2: by a unique human author. Boy a boy, We're gonna
7:20
Speaker 2: start getting into some real interesting territory with AI, Like
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Speaker 2: can someone copyright an AI work they have prompted into existence?
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Speaker 2: That's all another question for another day. And have a
7:30
Speaker 2: minimal degree of creativity that definitely describe AI work. Look,
7:35
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to poo poo all AI work. And
7:37
Speaker 2: then there's an interesting AI artwork, weird kind of use
7:40
Speaker 2: of the technology yet there, But boy a boy, is
7:42
Speaker 2: a lot of it hack or it can be fixed?
7:44
Speaker 2: And what does that mean exactly?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, So before we get to that, let's go to
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Speaker 1: a minimal degree of creativity. Just please, for an example,
7:53
Speaker 1: let's say like, I used to have a lot of
7:55
Speaker 1: technical writing gigs. So let's say you are a technical
7:58
Speaker 1: writer and you're not crafting some philosophical exploration of the
8:04
Speaker 1: nature of the soul, but instead you're like, here are
8:07
Speaker 1: the requirements for this sort of request for funding prosentural writing. Right, Yeah,
8:14
Speaker 1: that's a good way to put it. And so that
8:16
Speaker 1: would still qualify as a copyright. But to your question
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Speaker 1: about something being fixed, that means that it is captured
8:26
Speaker 1: in some way with the approval of the author the
8:31
Speaker 1: creator in a quote sufficiently permanent medium such that the
8:35
Speaker 1: work can be perceived, reproduced, or communicated for more than
8:39
Speaker 1: a short time, so it's no longer ephemeral.
8:41
Speaker 2: And this gets into an interesting place back to the
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Speaker 2: music nerdom with like tapers, people that follow bands around
8:50
Speaker 2: in tape concerts. A lot of jam type bands, you know,
8:52
Speaker 2: the Fish and the Grateful Dead and the Liking Gizzard
8:56
Speaker 2: and the Lizard Wizard. They are all about tapers, and
9:00
Speaker 2: they do not pursue any kind of you know, recompence
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Speaker 2: for people putting these recordings out. King Gizzard in particular
9:10
Speaker 2: actually releases the masters of their albums, their original creative works,
9:15
Speaker 2: and allows individuals to press them in unique and creative ways,
9:20
Speaker 2: and they don't ask for a dime of that. They
9:22
Speaker 2: just ask for a copy of the work of the
9:24
Speaker 2: thing so they can add it to their like crazy
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Speaker 2: archive of like versions of their albums.
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Speaker 1: And they also so we're Gizzard fans, folks, they also
9:34
Speaker 1: have done something really smart there. You could say it's
9:38
Speaker 1: just creativity welcoming more creativity, but it also is huge
9:44
Speaker 1: for growing their fandom. It's a great way to good will. Yeah,
9:49
Speaker 1: it's a great way to pull in new listeners. It's
9:52
Speaker 1: brilliant move. But this is the thing what makes copyrights
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Speaker 1: different from say other kinds of IP, like a pat
10:00
Speaker 1: and it's because you get back to copyright dot gov.
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Speaker 1: Everyone is a copyright owner, ridiculous historians. You're listening now.
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Speaker 1: If you ever made anything original, you kind of have
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Speaker 1: a copyright. It just goes back to you, know how
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Speaker 1: you defend it, Like if you take a photograph, you
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Speaker 1: write a nifty little poem, you record a new song,
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Speaker 1: you're the author of it. And ma's with the comic
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Speaker 1: Sands analogy. I want to shout out your your allusion
10:32
Speaker 1: to that excellent McSweeney's article which is all about fonts fighting.
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Speaker 4: You're welcome. I wrote that all for I wrote that
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Speaker 4: specifically for you, Ben.
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Speaker 2: For all the font heads out there, for all the fun.
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Speaker 2: We got our gizzard heads, and we gizz heads and
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Speaker 2: we got our font heads. So a trademark, right, is
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Speaker 2: a brand right. It's like a a company name, you know,
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Speaker 2: or the name of a product for example. There is
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Speaker 2: a certain similarity to that with regards to copyright. Whereas,
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Speaker 2: if you're the first one to use a trademark, I
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Speaker 2: believe you got a little bit of skin in the game.
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Speaker 2: If you can prove that you used it first in
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Speaker 2: a certain region, then you do have a little bit
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Speaker 2: of an argument for shutting somebody else down from using it,
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Speaker 2: just by virtue of being first to market with that thing. Similarly,
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Speaker 2: with the creative work, if you can show through timestamps
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Speaker 2: of original source files, for example, or a digital photograph
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Speaker 2: for example, that has embedded metadata on it, the shows
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Speaker 2: you did it before X person that claims it, there's
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Speaker 2: your argument as well. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, So in the world of writing, one thing you
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Speaker 1: hear a lot about is the poor band's copyright, because
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Speaker 1: putting it in the post through an official government institution
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Speaker 1: gets you that stamp right, it proves that you have
11:52
Speaker 1: done this thing by this point in time. But as
11:55
Speaker 1: we've said before, oh for a.
11:58
Speaker 2: Thing that maybe isn't it so digital? Literally are showing
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Speaker 2: that you mailed this. There is then a record and
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Speaker 2: a postmark that dates it in time, and you can
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Speaker 2: use that as your argument.
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Speaker 1: So I'm if I maybe don't trust my publisher entirely,
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Speaker 1: then I print something out, I mail it somewhere so
12:17
Speaker 1: I can say, you know, HarperCollins or whatever, I made
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Speaker 1: this thing, not whatever story you're claiming. Of course, HarperCollins would.
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Speaker 2: Not do that, probably not, And that would be particularly
12:30
Speaker 2: important if you were super old school and maybe you
12:32
Speaker 2: only did your writing on a typewriter. Right as a
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Speaker 2: post center, I emphasized writer. It's just fine to emphasize
12:38
Speaker 2: the wrong word. But if you were doing it electronically,
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Speaker 2: you would obviously have that timestamp and wouldn't necessarily need
12:45
Speaker 2: to send it to the post. I believe those two
12:47
Speaker 2: things accomplish the same task, right, yeah, yeah, And everything.
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Speaker 1: We're describing is an attempt to again secure some sort
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Speaker 1: of confirmation or authentication of the time in which a
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Speaker 1: thing was created, registering a work, officially getting the copyright
13:07
Speaker 1: through the system isn't mandatory, but for things made in
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Speaker 1: the US, registration or refusal of registration is necessary if
13:18
Speaker 1: you want to enforce the rights of the copyright in
13:22
Speaker 1: court through litigation. This means like, if you register correctly
13:27
Speaker 1: on time and don't do the poor man's copyright, folks,
13:29
Speaker 1: it gets sticky in court. If you register correctly on time,
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Speaker 1: then you have the right to sue people to get
13:38
Speaker 1: some compensation, to ask for damages from the court, to
13:43
Speaker 1: get the offending party to pay your attorney fees in
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Speaker 1: case of a lawsuit. You're essentially taking out insurance. You're
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Speaker 1: paying a little bit of protection money just in case someone.
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Speaker 2: Comes for you later. Yeah, and you really hit on
13:59
Speaker 2: an important point there, Ben is. A copyright is not
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Speaker 2: a blanket protection from litigation. It just is your argument
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Speaker 2: in court that hopefully you know, will give you the
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Speaker 2: upper hand. In the same way that we've talked about
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Speaker 2: things like fair use. You can technically use a copywritten
14:19
Speaker 2: work legally if it's transformative or if it falls under
14:23
Speaker 2: these certain educational educational whatever, But that doesn't mean that
14:27
Speaker 2: the copyright owner isn't going to come after you and
14:30
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to defend your fair use in court,
14:33
Speaker 2: which could well be expensive, and you could well lose.
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Speaker 1: Without being without being two in the weeds here folks
14:40
Speaker 1: peak behind the curtain. We have, over the course of
14:44
Speaker 1: our careers, separately and together, dealt with issues like this firsthand.
14:49
Speaker 1: One time, writing a show called Stuff of Genius, I
14:54
Speaker 1: got in trouble with the creators of the Frisbee. They
14:58
Speaker 1: were surprisingly whimsical about.
15:01
Speaker 2: It, you know, for kids, right.
15:02
Speaker 1: And then we got you got to call a flying
15:05
Speaker 1: disc unless you have Frisbee's permission, turns.
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Speaker 2: Out so, and that is a that is a trademark.
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Speaker 1: Issue, right, And we got into another issue. Well, we
15:16
Speaker 1: got in front of an issue here on our own
15:19
Speaker 1: dear ridiculous history when we loved having the law and
15:23
Speaker 1: Order sound c after we said Casey on the case
15:28
Speaker 1: referring to our pala casey pegram h. And then we realized, uh,
15:34
Speaker 1: there could be some litigation involved because they're very protective
15:39
Speaker 1: of that specific even though it's so short that specific sound.
15:42
Speaker 2: Bump, Oh dick Wolf, don't play now, he will come
15:46
Speaker 2: for you. There's a term that's about to pop up
15:54
Speaker 2: phono record, which I really dig It sounds as our
15:58
Speaker 2: glorious President would say, it's an old fashioned word PHONEO record,
16:02
Speaker 2: it's an old fat it's a but beautiful word, and
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Speaker 2: it means, of course recording. But a lot of especially
16:07
Speaker 2: in the last maybe twenty now, this is much longer
16:10
Speaker 2: than that. There are a lot of copyrights, and it
16:14
Speaker 2: almost falls under copyright and trademark when you have a
16:16
Speaker 2: sound like you're talking about ben like, for example, the
16:20
Speaker 2: McDonald's jingle, or any little tiny audio id for perhaps
16:25
Speaker 2: for a radio station or for a brand, that's both
16:28
Speaker 2: a trademark and a copyright.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and what are the craziest versions of this that
16:34
Speaker 1: I remember hearing about? Oh gosh, earlier this year, I
16:38
Speaker 1: was on the road when I heard about this. Apparently,
16:41
Speaker 1: you guys, the dude who goes to wrestling matches and says,
16:46
Speaker 1: let's get ready to rumble, he's not going to do
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Speaker 1: the voice. He owns it and he is super plugged
16:52
Speaker 1: into anybody else using it.
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Speaker 2: Well, if that's like your one thing, I mean, I look,
16:56
Speaker 2: no shade on the guy. Maybe he's an excellent painter
16:59
Speaker 2: or something in his probably life, but you know that's
17:01
Speaker 2: his bread and butter, and he's of course going to
17:03
Speaker 2: defend that if if he was lucky enough and smart
17:07
Speaker 2: enough to lock that down, he did. Yeah, he super
17:10
Speaker 2: dups locked it down.
17:11
Speaker 1: You also, if you have a copyright registered here in
17:15
Speaker 1: the United States, you have the right to make what
17:19
Speaker 1: we call derivative works based on your original work. So
17:23
Speaker 1: let's say you have a you have a song called
17:27
Speaker 1: third Man case idea, and then you decide you're going
17:31
Speaker 1: to make a salsa version or a merengue version, because
17:34
Speaker 1: why not. You could totally do that because you own
17:37
Speaker 1: the original thing. You can also distribute copies or as
17:40
Speaker 1: we said, phono records of the work to the public,
17:44
Speaker 1: so you can sell it to people. You can also
17:47
Speaker 1: sell the copyright itself or rent it out or grant
17:52
Speaker 1: limited permission for people to use your thing.
17:56
Speaker 2: Like technically you are not supposed to what's the word
18:01
Speaker 2: I'm looking for present, Let's say a copy written work,
18:05
Speaker 2: you know, for money. Like if you're if you own
18:08
Speaker 2: a cinema, for example, and you're showing films and you
18:11
Speaker 2: aren't paying the copyright, you're gonna get shut down. Or
18:14
Speaker 2: even if you're like doing it in a public square
18:16
Speaker 2: and charging admission, or I think even if you're not
18:19
Speaker 2: charging in mission MM hm.
18:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, people have gotten in trouble before for things like
18:25
Speaker 1: private gatherings sometimes where you just you know, we all
18:29
Speaker 1: know the classic fall and summer move. You wait till
18:32
Speaker 1: the weather's nice, you get a big blank wall or heck,
18:36
Speaker 1: a bedsheet of work, and then you have a projector
18:39
Speaker 1: get a movie night in the backyard. People have gotten
18:41
Speaker 1: in trouble for that, even though it is so unreservedly wholesome, right,
18:46
Speaker 1: And it's also pretty rare that someone would come after
18:49
Speaker 1: you for something like that. Just because it's rare, it
18:51
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Yeah, it has happened, for sure.
18:54
Speaker 1: And the copyright Your copyright rights also include things like
19:00
Speaker 1: for I mean the work publicly.
19:01
Speaker 2: That's what I was That's the word I was looking for, Ben.
19:03
Speaker 2: This performance Yeah, yes, technically a projecting something is a
19:08
Speaker 2: is a kind of performance.
19:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you had a really curmudgeonly copyright owner or
19:16
Speaker 1: a real go getter lawyer. Right, So that could be
19:19
Speaker 1: anything for musical performance to a play, to choreography, literary recitation.
19:25
Speaker 1: And I like how copyright dot Gov even points out pantomime.
19:32
Speaker 2: I did not know. I was not aware of the
19:35
Speaker 2: wide world of mime law. Memory, Oh, mime law. It's
19:40
Speaker 2: only only second to bird law. And yeah, I mean
19:42
Speaker 2: I think I've expressed a little bit of confusion about
19:44
Speaker 2: this at the top. But choreography and pantomime their own
19:48
Speaker 2: their own category. Individual movements, dance steps themselves are not
19:53
Speaker 2: copyrightable as in one particular aspect. But when you chain
19:57
Speaker 2: them together and you make it into a a you know,
20:01
Speaker 2: a unique combination of them, then it becomes a copyrightable.
20:05
Speaker 1: Okay, so you can't own put your left foot in,
20:10
Speaker 1: but you can own hokey pokey, that's right. And you
20:14
Speaker 1: can't own the color blue, but you can own a
20:19
Speaker 1: work that incorporates the color blue and involves unique combinations
20:24
Speaker 1: of like, you know, other colors, like the IBM logo
20:27
Speaker 1: sure beating example.
20:28
Speaker 2: So you can also display the work publicly. These are
20:31
Speaker 2: basic things. They make sense. That's the what of the copyright.
20:36
Speaker 2: Oh and just really quickly, I'm sorry I'm hung up
20:37
Speaker 2: on this, but I was just I found an article
20:39
Speaker 2: on Copyright Alliance, which is a dot org. And here's
20:42
Speaker 2: just a little clarification around the movement aspects. Here are
20:45
Speaker 2: some things that are not copyrightable. Yoga positions, a celebratory
20:50
Speaker 2: end zone dance move or athletic victory gesture, ballroom folk line,
20:55
Speaker 2: square and swing dances or general exercise routines. And here's
21:00
Speaker 2: the funny one. And I wonder if there's some wiggle
21:02
Speaker 2: room here skateboarding or snowboarding tricks. But what if you
21:05
Speaker 2: had one that was like had never been done before,
21:07
Speaker 2: Like surely there's some way to at the very least
21:10
Speaker 2: like trademark. Maybe that's more of a trademark thing where
21:12
Speaker 2: you're calling it the thing and it's associated with a
21:14
Speaker 2: particular skate or snowboarder.
21:16
Speaker 1: Right like you're Tony Hawk. You make some amazing new
21:20
Speaker 1: trick and somebody you can own for that. But it's
21:25
Speaker 1: also it's kind of a dick move to stop other
21:27
Speaker 1: skateboarders from trying that because they're aspiring. It's it's flattery
21:32
Speaker 1: for them to want to learn from you. It's uh,
21:35
Speaker 1: it's interesting too because I would pause it, fellow ridiculous
21:39
Speaker 1: historians that in each of those cases that we heard
21:43
Speaker 1: read off on that list from the Alliance, we see
21:46
Speaker 1: a little bit of history. Someone definitely tried to copyright
21:51
Speaker 1: an end zone dance. Someone definitely tried to copyright aligne dance.
21:55
Speaker 1: That's why it's that's why there are there's such specificity
22:01
Speaker 1: of language here. It reminds me of walking into stores
22:06
Speaker 1: and seeing a really specific warning SIGDN, like you see
22:10
Speaker 1: no shirt, no shoes, no service, and you're like, who
22:14
Speaker 1: just walked in here in their underwear? And how often
22:17
Speaker 1: did it happen? Because it had to happen often enough
22:20
Speaker 1: for somebody to look at their coworker and say, crap,
22:24
Speaker 1: we need a sign.
22:25
Speaker 2: Max did it? Max did it? Max is an underwear guy, Yeah,
22:27
Speaker 2: he's for sure. It also reminds me of the scene
22:29
Speaker 2: in Wayne's World where Wayne starts playing a thing that
22:32
Speaker 2: sounds nothing like stairway to Heaven, by the way, and
22:34
Speaker 2: then that gets our shop attendant them down, shut them down,
22:37
Speaker 2: points to the sign that says no stairway to Heaven.
22:39
Speaker 2: But I was also thinking it'd be funny to have
22:41
Speaker 2: a no showboating rule for stores that like don't allow
22:45
Speaker 2: you to do you know, peacocky end zone dances, you
22:49
Speaker 2: know while I'm in the store or music stores.
22:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, or I want to find the most specific law
22:57
Speaker 1: or warning sign in his store has an incredibly crazy
23:02
Speaker 1: story behind it, you know, like no misbehaving horses. No
23:08
Speaker 1: lama spitting after six pm.
23:11
Speaker 2: Well, that reminds me of an episode that I'm certain
23:13
Speaker 2: we did just about odd laws still in the monks
23:16
Speaker 2: in certain states. That sounds like, you know, that would qualify.
23:20
Speaker 1: The reason I'm harping on the history here is because
23:24
Speaker 1: what we do. We talked about the what of the
23:27
Speaker 1: copyright and you can probably already see some of the
23:30
Speaker 1: some of the sticky wickets, but we also want to
23:32
Speaker 1: talk about the when. When did this become a thing?
23:35
Speaker 1: How did we get in this real situation. It might
23:38
Speaker 1: surprise some of us in the audience tonight to realize
23:42
Speaker 1: that yet trademarks might date all the way back to
23:45
Speaker 1: the Medieval Age in Western Europe, but copyright as a
23:49
Speaker 1: concept is way more recent.
23:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. According to the Intellectual Property Rights Office direct quote
23:56
Speaker 2: from them, the world's first copyright law is the Statute
23:59
Speaker 2: of and an Act that in England in seventeen ten.
24:02
Speaker 2: This act introduced for the first time the concept of
24:05
Speaker 2: the author of a work being the owner of its
24:07
Speaker 2: copyright and laid out fixed terms of protection. This is
24:11
Speaker 2: a long one, BM, but I think worth reading. You
24:13
Speaker 2: want to want to pick it.
24:14
Speaker 1: Up, sure, Following this Act, copyrighted works were required to
24:18
Speaker 1: be deposited at specific copyright libraries and registered at the
24:24
Speaker 1: Stationer's Hall. So what this means to pause here, is
24:28
Speaker 1: that your copyright has to go through a very specific system,
24:34
Speaker 1: and if a version of your thing is not deposited
24:38
Speaker 1: at these specialized libraries, then it is not copyrighted. Even
24:43
Speaker 1: if you wrote it, it doesn't matter.
24:44
Speaker 2: But in those days there was no automatic copyright protection
24:48
Speaker 2: for unpublished works, which we've talked about today doesn't necessarily
24:52
Speaker 2: have to have been published and just needs to have
24:54
Speaker 2: been committed to a medium. Continuing from Intellectual Property Rights Office,
24:59
Speaker 2: legislation based on the Statute of ann gradually appeared in
25:02
Speaker 2: other countries, such as the Copyright Act of seventeen ninety
25:04
Speaker 2: in the United States, but copyright legislation remained uncoordinated at
25:08
Speaker 2: an international level until the nineteenth century.
25:12
Speaker 1: And one bully Boy bonus points for the founding fathers
25:17
Speaker 1: of the US, they talk about this in the Constitution
25:21
Speaker 1: in Article one, section eight. That's the same part of
25:25
Speaker 1: the text that we mentioned in previous episodes that establishes
25:29
Speaker 1: the rules of the legal road for patents and trademarks.
25:33
Speaker 1: So let's go the Burn Convention of not Bernie Sanders
25:37
Speaker 1: reference ber Ee. In eighteen eighty six, the Burn Convention
25:43
Speaker 1: is introduced, and it's kind of coordinating everybody together at
25:49
Speaker 1: an increasingly connected world. So the Burn Convention is this
25:54
Speaker 1: just it's an agreement to say, hey, different countries have
25:59
Speaker 1: some being like a copyright for their domestic population, so
26:05
Speaker 1: let's all just respect the copyright like a German copyright
26:09
Speaker 1: should still carry o.
26:11
Speaker 2: The credits should transfer to France as well. Yeah, exactly.
26:14
Speaker 2: Let's simplify this a little bit. It does away with
26:16
Speaker 2: the need to register those works independently in separate countries.
26:21
Speaker 2: It also has been the Burned Convention adopted by almost
26:25
Speaker 2: all the nations of the world. So following the US
26:29
Speaker 2: as adoption of the treaty in nineteen eighty eight, wow,
26:33
Speaker 2: the convention now covers almost all major countries, but not
26:37
Speaker 2: all of them, you know what I mean?
26:39
Speaker 1: And being covered on paper is maybe not the same
26:43
Speaker 1: thing as being covered in practice. Like a shout out
26:47
Speaker 1: to the Chinese publishing industry where since we were recently
26:53
Speaker 1: talking about Harry Potter, you might be interested to know, Yeah, definitely,
26:57
Speaker 1: Alice too is dope, you might be interested to know
27:00
Speaker 1: that there are a ton of Harry Potter books published
27:05
Speaker 1: in China, at least from my understanding, that are not
27:10
Speaker 1: written by JK.
27:11
Speaker 2: Rowling. Someone just liked the idea of Harry Potter. Well,
27:14
Speaker 2: and we're here. We'd call that fanfic, and technically that's prosecutable, right,
27:22
Speaker 2: but it usually isn't because it is considered sort of
27:24
Speaker 2: like a niche internet culture thing, and they don't get
27:27
Speaker 2: too much of a Gizzard concert totally. I suppose that's. Yeah,
27:31
Speaker 2: that's fair, but it usually doesn't get enough traction or
27:34
Speaker 2: generate enough revenue that it's worth anybody's time to go
27:36
Speaker 2: after like all these individual fanfic writers. But over there
27:39
Speaker 2: in China it's a little separate issue, isn't it.
27:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, And look, one of the biggest changes that comes
27:46
Speaker 1: about with the Burn Convention was to extend copyright protection
27:51
Speaker 1: to things that hadn't been published two unpublished works and
27:55
Speaker 1: then remove that long standing requirement for registration. That means
28:01
Speaker 1: there's good news, folks. That means that as an individual
28:05
Speaker 1: or is the organization that you're working for, if you,
28:08
Speaker 1: you say, have a job doing podcasts, you automatically own
28:12
Speaker 1: the copyright of any work produced as soon as it
28:16
Speaker 1: is recorded in some way, drawing it, filming it, writing
28:19
Speaker 1: it down. And this is good overall for the creators
28:24
Speaker 1: of original works. It's a system that helps people retain
28:29
Speaker 1: ownership and agency and get compensated for their time. But
28:35
Speaker 1: it's still kind of fragmented as a system globally, so
28:47
Speaker 1: the rules in your neck of the global woods may
28:50
Speaker 1: be very different from those in another place. And one
28:54
Speaker 1: of the things we have to ask about, of course, is,
28:57
Speaker 1: all right, let's say we got a copyright, how long
29:00
Speaker 1: does this bad boy last? The general rule, which is
29:05
Speaker 1: kind of weird, The general rule is that for things
29:09
Speaker 1: created after nineteen seventy eight, copyright protection applies for the
29:15
Speaker 1: life of the creator and then seventy years after that.
29:19
Speaker 2: At which point it enters into the public domain, which
29:22
Speaker 2: we've seen happen for a handful of legacy properties in
29:28
Speaker 2: the last handful of years, like Winnie the Pooh. I
29:31
Speaker 2: believe a version of Mickey Mouse, the Steamboat Willie version
29:35
Speaker 2: of Mickey Mouse, certain songs. I'm trying to think of
29:39
Speaker 2: some big examples, So those are the two that come
29:41
Speaker 2: to mind.
29:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're in my head with the mention of Disney,
29:45
Speaker 1: because Disney has for a long time used its enormous
29:50
Speaker 1: power and heft to conduct legal disputes for protecting especially
29:56
Speaker 1: they're older creations. So the nineteen twenty eight cartoon Steamboat
30:02
Speaker 1: Willie entered public domain in like twenty twenty four.
30:06
Speaker 2: I think that's right.
30:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so do check out do check out all
30:11
Speaker 1: of the the kerfuffle there, and you'll see how seriously
30:15
Speaker 1: companies like Disney take the concept of rights and trademarks
30:19
Speaker 1: and copyrights.
30:21
Speaker 2: Well, in the moment that happened, you started to see
30:23
Speaker 2: a lot of derivative works coming out featuring some of
30:27
Speaker 2: those characters. Like there was a really cool retro kind
30:31
Speaker 2: of shooter video game that came out that I can't
30:34
Speaker 2: remember the name of, but it was basically a Mickey
30:36
Speaker 2: Mouse like run and gun kind of a shooter, first
30:38
Speaker 2: person shooter game. And there was also like a horror
30:41
Speaker 2: movie version of Winnie the Pooh called like Blood and
30:44
Speaker 2: Honey or something like that that came out real quick,
30:47
Speaker 2: like they'd already had it in production waiting for that
30:50
Speaker 2: to drop, and then they like they rushed it out,
30:53
Speaker 2: you know, and it made some noise because of the
30:55
Speaker 2: novelty of it. Yeah, and still when something enters public domain.
31:01
Speaker 2: It's not the end of the game, especially for a
31:03
Speaker 2: company as powerful as Disney, because this is more a
31:06
Speaker 2: trademark thing, but they have a legal leg to stand
31:10
Speaker 2: on if they go back to court and say, hey,
31:13
Speaker 2: our buddy, steamboat Will is in the public domain. But
31:17
Speaker 2: the way it's being used in this instance could lead
31:20
Speaker 2: people to think Disney has officially approved this or endorsed it,
31:25
Speaker 2: or it to Disney product. So if you came out
31:28
Speaker 2: with something called, for example, Steamboat Billy and Steamboat Billy
31:36
Speaker 2: is slapped on things that look like Disney stuff, then
31:41
Speaker 2: you can get in trouble. That's exactly right.
31:43
Speaker 1: It's not the end of the game. But eventually, after
31:46
Speaker 1: a certain amount of time, your copyright is gone. It's
31:50
Speaker 1: in the public domain. And this has led a lot
31:55
Speaker 1: of companies, especially in the entertainment industry, to continue create
32:01
Speaker 1: new copyrighted material. Right you create, That's why they create
32:06
Speaker 1: new distinct versions of Mickey Mouse to sort of section
32:11
Speaker 1: out or block out the time window of copyright. So
32:14
Speaker 1: each of those different Mickeys has a different copyright.
32:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, the different iterations, the different eras, etcetera. And
32:24
Speaker 2: like Disney to your point earlier, ben is the kind
32:27
Speaker 2: of company that can is so powerful that it can
32:30
Speaker 2: almost like affect the law. Yeah, for some time they
32:34
Speaker 2: kept that Steamboat Willie version of Mickey out of the
32:38
Speaker 2: public domainion, and then they were able to extend that
32:40
Speaker 2: much longer than any mere moral would be able to do. Yeah,
32:43
Speaker 2: they were just pushing the time window further and further
32:47
Speaker 2: and probably putting a lot of lawyers' kids through college,
32:51
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So there's a silver lining there,
32:54
Speaker 2: and now the question becomes, Okay, can you use a
32:58
Speaker 2: copyright that is not yours? Kind of Yeah, exactly, you
33:04
Speaker 2: sure can. I'm paraphrasing from copyright dot Gov. It's really
33:09
Speaker 2: important to know that we are all users of copyrights.
33:14
Speaker 2: Every time we consume a piece of media, we are
33:17
Speaker 2: participating in that copyright. We are consuming it, reading books,
33:21
Speaker 2: watching movies, listening to albums, playing video games, you know,
33:24
Speaker 2: using creative software tools, enterprise stuff, whatever we were using. Yeah,
33:31
Speaker 2: we are using copy written works. So even if you're
33:35
Speaker 2: not the owner of a work, you are still able
33:38
Speaker 2: to use it. Yeah, that's the point. I mean, that's like, yeah,
33:42
Speaker 2: we're putting these things out in the world, typically to
33:44
Speaker 2: be consumed by others. We just want to have protection
33:48
Speaker 2: so that nobody can profit from it and you know,
33:51
Speaker 2: take money out of our pockets.
33:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also howgiarize, how would you write a law
33:57
Speaker 1: that didn't have that in there? How would you because
34:00
Speaker 1: essentially you'd be saying, hey, buying a book does not
34:04
Speaker 1: give you the right to read it, you know, so
34:06
Speaker 1: it would you have a.
34:08
Speaker 2: Good point, Ben, That is a really important distinction, right right. Technically,
34:12
Speaker 2: if you didn't pay for it, then you're yeah, then
34:15
Speaker 2: you're a bad kid. But it's also but then there's
34:18
Speaker 2: also like, I don't know, that's that's very interesting because
34:21
Speaker 2: is it technically illegal to read magazines at a bookstore? Like,
34:25
Speaker 2: if you didn't pay for it, are you stealing that
34:28
Speaker 2: copywritten work when you're not compensating the holder?
34:32
Speaker 1: Oh, you would have to be such a busy body
34:35
Speaker 1: the problem. Yeah, I mean that's a man that's an
34:38
Speaker 1: assistant manager having a bad day. So we know that
34:44
Speaker 1: there are exceptions and limitations to the Copyright Act. You
34:48
Speaker 1: can find this listed on copyright dot gov. There are
34:53
Speaker 1: things we've talked about already, like fair use and the
34:55
Speaker 1: first sale doctrine. There are some thankful, some specific rights
35:01
Speaker 1: for archives and libraries. You know, it gets complicated with
35:05
Speaker 1: cable and satellite as well. Let's not even get into
35:09
Speaker 1: televise sports for a moment.
35:11
Speaker 2: Max. That was for you.
35:13
Speaker 1: And we know that there are things that are never
35:17
Speaker 1: protected by copyright, like facts and discoveries. You can patent,
35:23
Speaker 1: you know, a new wonder drug based on scientific research
35:28
Speaker 1: you've done, but you can't patent the scientific truths that
35:33
Speaker 1: you discovered in your research, yes, or like you can
35:36
Speaker 1: patent maybe or I don't know, see what about like
35:38
Speaker 1: naming an element.
35:39
Speaker 2: On the periodic table, or like discovering a new metal
35:43
Speaker 2: for example, that is a naturally occurring thing and you
35:46
Speaker 2: maybe can name it after yourself and register that, but
35:49
Speaker 2: you don't like own the material. Yeah, no, you can't
35:53
Speaker 2: be like the nickel king. You can try. You could
35:58
Speaker 2: hoard your nickels like a smile, you know, start hord
36:02
Speaker 2: Dungeon for pennies too, folks. The last US penny was
36:06
Speaker 2: just was just stamped. No, the last penny dropped. The
36:11
Speaker 2: last penny dropped.
36:12
Speaker 1: Uh and uh I am as as you know, nol,
36:16
Speaker 1: I am beyond excited about that. I think it's great,
36:19
Speaker 1: But uh, I wanted to make space and just send
36:23
Speaker 1: our condolences to anybody who's a fan of those little
36:26
Speaker 1: tourist penny stamper machines.
36:28
Speaker 2: Anybody wants to do a candlelight vigil for pennies, We're
36:31
Speaker 2: here for it.
36:32
Speaker 3: Now.
36:32
Speaker 2: I know, man, you've got, you got, You've got beef
36:34
Speaker 2: with pennies. I don't they make your fingers smell weird.
36:38
Speaker 2: I don't care for him either, and they're when's the
36:40
Speaker 2: last time you spend a penny?
36:42
Speaker 4: Second?
36:43
Speaker 2: Second?
36:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, we should have got rid of them, like decads.
36:47
Speaker 2: It does seem like a bit of a waste of material,
36:49
Speaker 2: So I'm with you guys.
36:50
Speaker 1: Canada was in front of us on that one for sure,
36:54
Speaker 1: so thank you to our northern neighbors. Now, at this point,
36:58
Speaker 1: we know that current all pre nineteen sixty two US
37:03
Speaker 1: works are in the public domain because copyright protection has expired.
37:07
Speaker 1: But again, powerful forces can change the law and push
37:11
Speaker 1: that conversation, so at some point it won't be a
37:16
Speaker 1: surprise when copyright law once again evolves, especially with all
37:21
Speaker 1: the technological breakthroughs we've been talking about in this episode. Nola,
37:27
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty exciting as we're wrapping up here
37:29
Speaker 1: to realize that we're all copyright owners.
37:32
Speaker 2: All copyright owners and users. And if you want a
37:35
Speaker 2: little bit of a nugget of current events information at
37:39
Speaker 2: the end, here the handful of pieces of work that
37:42
Speaker 2: are entering the public domain in twenty twenty six. Coming
37:45
Speaker 2: up are some books William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying
37:49
Speaker 2: and The Incredible Detective Mystery, nor author dashil Hamnet's The
37:54
Speaker 2: Multese Falcon, the book, not the movie. Excellent movie by
37:58
Speaker 2: the way, with Humphrey Bogard, I believe yeah.
38:01
Speaker 1: Also Pluto the Dog Betty Boop. In the year after that,
38:06
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty seven, Virginia Wolf's Lighthouse, the movie Seventh Heaven.
38:11
Speaker 1: I'm excited about this one, the German sci fi film Metropolis,
38:15
Speaker 1: and then a bunch of music that might be familiar
38:18
Speaker 1: to people like Duke Ellington and Bubba Miley's collaboration Black
38:22
Speaker 1: and Tan Fantasy. So we're on the precipice of some
38:26
Speaker 1: really weird and interesting stuff. I wonder what the first
38:30
Speaker 1: few Faulkner derivatives are gonna be. As I Lay frying,
38:34
Speaker 1: as I spray crying, Well.
38:36
Speaker 2: You know, with this kind of boom in noir ish
38:39
Speaker 2: kind of throwbacky stuff like the Knives Out series and
38:43
Speaker 2: you know a lot of that stuff that Ryan Johnson's doing.
38:45
Speaker 2: I could see some real fun spins on Maltice Falcon.
38:50
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, that's so Falcon, which I've started saying
38:54
Speaker 1: it's that it is.
38:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you for
38:59
Speaker 2: two d in folks here.
39:01
Speaker 1: As we're officially in the thick of the holiday season
39:04
Speaker 1: at the end of the year, we can't wait to
39:06
Speaker 1: have more ventures with you through November and throughout December
39:10
Speaker 1: and then on to twenty twenty six.
39:13
Speaker 2: I can't believe we're saying it. We're so close to
39:15
Speaker 2: a new year. Indeed, huge thanks to Alex Williams, who
39:18
Speaker 2: composed our theme. Oh gosh, that Max Williams, who is
39:21
Speaker 2: not only our super producer at Shortinaire, but also our
39:23
Speaker 2: research associate on this episode.
39:25
Speaker 1: Big big thanks to aj Bahamas, Jacobs, doctor Rachel big
39:29
Speaker 1: Spinach Lance and a civil yet cold good day, Sir
39:37
Speaker 1: to Jonathan Strickland ak the Twister.
39:39
Speaker 2: A bit of a boo, biting of the thumb, A
39:42
Speaker 2: bit of a biting of the thumb. We'll see you
39:45
Speaker 2: next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
39:55
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
39:58
Speaker 2: favorite shows.