BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

Mine, I tell you, mine…

3 comments on Mine, I tell you, mine…

Mine, I tell you, mine… all mine!
: I’ve put up a new copyright notice, just to irritate the copyright mob.

: Just for the record, since I am baiting these folks, I’ll repeat here what I said in a comment below: I don’t defend Disney (having covered entertainment and come up against them at their control-freak worst). I also don’t necessarily defend the exact number of years now given to copyright.

But I do defend copyright holders against the arch language I’m reading everywhere: That by holding onto their creations, they are thieves. Bullshit. Creation itself is generous. Creation deserves compensation. Creation has value. Authors are copyright holders, too. They are not thieves.

3 responses to “Mine, I tell you, mine…”

  1. Justin Katz Avatar
    Justin Katz

    Jeff,
    Love the copyright notice. It brought to mind an old Bugs & Daffy cartoon, the one with “open says-a-me.”

  2. Anil Avatar
    Anil

    That by holding onto their creations, they are thieves.
    Who’s saying that? I call straw-man bullshit on that one.

  3. Charles Compton Avatar
    Charles Compton

    With the exception of Internet debates over Napster, I’ve rarely run across anyone who thinks reasonable copyright protection is a bad idea.
    Definitions of “reasonable” vary widely, of course. “Author’s life plus 50 years” would have kept all of Mark Twain’s works out of the public domain until 1960.
    But I think what annoys some people about Disney is their heavy-handedness, a kind of “shark in the goldfish pond.” (I know, sharks don’t have hands. Luckily, mixed metaphors are not copyright.)
    Several of my years in the broadcast news industry were spent in Florida, where I covered stories such as “Disney has elderly couple arrested.” It seems that selling the unused portion of a three-day Disney World pass is AGAINST FLORIDA STATE LAW. How can this be? It seems that Disney World is the single largest generator of sales tax revenue in Florida, resulting in — how to put it — an extremely pliable state legislature.
    “Disney orders cartoon character murals painted out” from the walls of a day-care center. Yes, the children cried. Even Charles Shultz never stooped that low.
    If this decision is Disney-driven, as it appears to be, it’s no surprise that support for it is half-hearted.