I have marked this post as outdated! There may be a better review out already, or this review / opinion piece no longer reflects my views as of present day. You may still read it, although if there is a newer version I recommend reading that instead!
UPDATE 2021-03-06: This post is very outdated and does not align well with what I am trying to convey anymore. I might update this at some point in the future but I currently have no interest in doing so. So yeah, this article is representing my position on copyright as of 2020-10-20.
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This page is also very much work in progress. That means this page might be missing some information, have unfinished sentences or paragraphs about certain things and etc. I'll try to keep it updated as much as possible.
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This article misses a lot of references. This was done amidst copyright concerns, which is, quite ironic, considering what this article is about ;) Please search up for things on your prefered search engine. I am sorry that you have to do that, but I am taking no risks.
This is your one, and only warning.
Yes, you read that correctly, I dislike copyright. Despite my repository using MIT License which requires copyright notice preservation, I hate copyright, however, only to a certain degree. A really, really certain degree. It's great in a sense that, the original works which you or someone else might create, are protected and secured by a law. This is where copyright abuse comes in...
"But Red!" I can hear you asking. "It's not really abuse, technically or actually! It's all well and legal, therefore it cannot be classified as an abuse!". And... You'd be somewhat right. It's not illegal, however, is it ethical? Is it really ethical, when copyrighted deviations are so overprotected, that borderline looking just a little bit funny at a copyrighted work can cause a lawsuit? Is it really fair, when perfectly fine uses of fair use can be thrown away by a plaintiff because "but muh copywite!"? Is it fun, when you want to show appreciation to a show, a piece of art, a piece of music, or else by doing your own derived work, only to be slapped by owners of that thing with a "but ouw copywite!!11"? Just, imagine for a moment that you like a certain piece of work, and you want to make your own variation of it. You put effort in, you waste your own time, you try to perfect it... And then your fellow buddies in suits knock on your door and ask you to seize whatever you are doing. Would it be easy for you to just void all the effort you have put into a project, that you liked for so long? Don't think so.
But that's my derived work? But that's my interpretation of that piece material? But that's my effort I put in? But that's my appreciation to original owners for creating something so good, that I had to create my own derived version because of it? Just because it's their right, does not mean it is rightfully so.
I know that it's "their right!". I am very aware. But don't you think that's a little too much rights they are getting? Why don't end user get an equal amount of rights?
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeexactly. You know what that means, right? Maybe... Just, maybe... non-owners in the eyes of copyright law don't have enough rights? The amount of rights owners and users get are massively disproportionate. Pretty much doing anything with a copyrighted work is often illegal and copyright owners are in the full right to do whatever they see fit with a user. Even fair use is sometimes slacking in terms of protection towards users!
Let me reiterate: I know and I am very well aware that users don't have as much rights as owners do. However, the point of this page is, do owners really deserve that much rights compared to standard users?
First off, no. I am a dude who wants a law to be better, to be equal to both copyright owners and users. This blog entry is not because I want copyright law completely gone. Just, no. I want users to have more rights as compared to owners, because at the current moment, copyright owners get simply too much rights, perhaps way too much than they'd like. Second, "copyright" is in no way "simple law", quite the contrary, it's complex, hard to understand and not simple or straightforward at all. This is why people get lawyers in order to help them resolve copyright issues, because no non-lawyer human being will be able to understand what the actual hell this law is.
Tom Scott made a pretty good video regarding that. However I have a slight gripe with it... Seriously, copyright retention shortening only by a few tens of years? Yeah, no, sorry, it's not that simple, it won't fix the other leaky mess within the copyright law, such as ownership abuse. (He also denied changes towards Fair Use law, justifying it by "content creators and art is wild and it's gonna be too complex for fair use to be written like that" or something among those lines. I disagree. But that's mainly because I have more liberal takes as compared to Tom's conservatism.) For that, copyright law needs to be rewritten in a way, which grants owners and users equal rights as to what can be done with copyrighted work and whatnot. Because, at the current moment, the amount of rights owners and users get are massively disproportionate.
Indeed, a lot of laws can sometimes be outright BS. A lot of laws sometimes don't even make sense, maybe in theory, but not in practice. They can be really harsh, punishing and unfair towards everyone. As an example, allegedly (!) there is a law in Germany that makes any public domain usage illegal, and authors must retain their copyright and stand their ground. This is not only disrespectful towards every public domain work, but to every beginner gamedev, content creator or an artist who needs may not have resources to get certain material for their projects. No offense, Germany, but you need to chill the hell out.
However, "deal with it?"... Yeah, uh, no, sorry. I want this world to be an overall better place, where laws actually make sense and are fair to both parties. I do not want to sit in silence, just taking it all in for eternity. If a law is unfair, I'll call it what it is - unfair. How about we stop just complying with something broken, and let higher-ups know, that some things need updating? Most of the laws were written back in 20th and even earlier centuries. If you have a functioning brain, you might realize that... it was hella long ago! And, as a consequence, a lot of things changed since then. We adapt laws to modern standards in order for them to function properly. So why copyright law should be any different?.
True. We indeed have a Fair Use law which supposedly evens out amount of rights copyright owners get and amount of rights end users get. However, it became largely outdated, and not up to speed with modern standards. It's definitions of what is considered "fair use" are extremely vague, and does not entitle end users with proper amount of rights compared to what copyright owners get. The only thing we have there as a defense is "criticism". And even then, it doesn't always work like it should.
In any case, let's take a look at how exactly the law is abused.
If any of you were following the news for the last 5 years, you might have heard of a situation that has happened between a Youtuber Supmatto and a gaming publisher which owns a gaming company. To cut long story short, Supmatto reports on something that has happened publicly on a public platform, a certain game publisher did not like that, sends private investigators to Supmatto's house, intimidates him and eventually gets his channel terminated from Youtube. Later, it is all justified by a simple comment from their game company they own. Search it up, it's like a 3rd result on DDG.
Nobody knows. Most likely, he was intimidated to be forcebly up on a NDA, hence we haven't heard from him since. It's scary to think what big corporations can do these days, and after all that, just get away with it scott-free.
In the March of 2020, news broke out that the same game publisher was up to the same stuff again. This time, they have started a suit against a game modder, who wanted to enhance one of publishers' games. In the legal document they have filed to court, they have stated multiple things about a modder, to which modder has denied such accusations. Furthermore, news articles who have reported on the situation also mentioned a comment from the modder which explained how the game publisher employees harassed him, and his family, all because he did a mod for a videogame of theirs. I'd like to mention that, as it turns out, in USA, this is perfectly legal.
AFAIK, this game publisher already had some clashing between this same game modder before. I don't think I need to mention how their other interaction went by.
You see, if you've been paying attention, it is, apparently, perfectly legal to "harass" an individual, or their family, over a video game modification. All because it's a "necessary action" to "protect" their IP. This is unacceptable, no matter how you look at it. Legal? Yeah. Ethical? Moral? No, not a single bit lmao.
Copyright law should not grant you a pass to harass individuals over your IP. And after all that, be let away scott-free. Copyright law should also not punish you for a work modification in good faith. You know how many good mods out there with the companies which don't take them out? Good faith modifications should be legal.
But that's just scratching the surface.
A few weeks ago, an extension developer got hit by a lawsuit which demanded for their website to be removed from an extension. I should note that that extension bypassed those annoying "compliance" shorteners, which make you wait a few seconds, sometimes solve captcha to proceed, while force fist-feeding you scam advertisements towards things like gambling,pyramid schemes,get-rich-quick schemes and etc. Annoying, right? Well, this is no longer possible.
Extension developer lost came to an agreement with them, and had to remove such bypass rule from an extension. Why the hell bypassing copyrighted pages is considered a copyright violation??? As I think about it, I knew that copyright system was broken... But not THIS much!?
Apparently, modifying a product that you have bought yourself on your own money to own the product is illegal. According to Japanese video game developer and publisher, modifying their product once you own a copy of it is illegal. That's right fellas, you borderline violate copyright law when you pick up a simple tool such a screwdriver! What now? Touching the product wrong way will spark a new wave of lawsuits, ala "copyright violation"? Though I probably should not give them ideas...
Indeed, public domain is amazing. However, if you actually read this page and not skimmed over it, allegedyly (!) there is a law in Germany which makes public domain uses illegal. In the world where public domain is considered a norm, it is allegedly (!!) outlawed in Germany.
Still, using public domain material alone won't get you that far. What should be done, is copyright law should be rewritten, where both parties (end user and owners) get equal amount of rights on what they can do with their work. Right now, it's overprotecting owners, and not giving users much choice.
Did you know that to record a song cover, you need at least 2 licenses? Yes! You need 2 licenses to perform a cover of your favourite song. One is for the melody itself, so you can use it. And the second is for a "cover license", which only then grants you an ability to cover the song to your liking. I don't think I should really mention that licenses aren't cheap, do I? Why the hell do you need a license, in order to do transformative work?! I don't understand the current "melody" licensing either. Because it licenses the entire note arrangement itself regardless of where it is played. No, not a specific sound / instrument with a certain melody played on it, the darn note arrangement. Don't get me wrong, it is fine to retain copyright for melody. But pressing rights when that melody has been transformed to something else? Sorry, no.
Almost forgot to mention, things like TV show and movie licenses... Aren't actually universal. There isn't a unifying license standard which would make publishers obide, and issue 1 unifying license for all countries that opt into obiding it. This is why your favourite show on your favourite streaming service isn't available in your country. That's because publishers are greedy punks, who try to get maximum profit from companies who provide streaming services, by making them pay for multiple licenses in multiple countries despite already owning a license for the same content they paid for broadcasting a show in a first country they got license for. So next time, when a new good show isn't available in your region, blame greedy publishers and copyright holders for that, instead of your streaming service provider. While sure, they can buy more licenses, the entire "licensing" thing is fundementally flawed.
While I understand that licensing is a (sometimes necessary) key, in order for publishers / copyright holders and service providers / end users to have a good relationship and a fair share of either revenue, or a fair use of the products. However, as you can see, that has been abused as well. Because of that, I have stopped associating licensing with a "right to use a product / service", and started associating it with "method of getting as much money as possible". 1 License is fine, 50 of them isn't.
Last time a copyright law in US has been updated was 1998. To put it into perspective, as of 2020: that was 22 years ago. I don't really know how about you, but I think it's time for an upgrade. 1998 Might seem recent enough, but trust me, this is pretty outdated. In 1998, things were still developing, and technology was just making its progress. We are now past that period, and more-or-less settled with something... for now. Latest DMCA revision is outdated, and is not suited well for modern standards.
Since latest revision was in 1998, Fair Use has became outdated as well. It only adheres to standards of late 90s, and early technology adoption, which, call me out if you will, but I think we are long past that. Fair Use needs an update, which would grant consumers / end users with more rights, regarding with copyright protected products or services. Right now, only uses for (un)Fair Use are either criticism, or something "transformative".
Dang, I don't know. Ask court about that, given you have money, time and patience for everything ;)
Right now, at least on YouTube, copyright holders can claim 100% of your revenue, if you dare to show or play 1 second of their music or work. I think we can at least agree that, while legal, is not a fair revenue split for a content creator and copyright holder. Content creators and copyright holders should be able to split their revenue on what they earn on their work. While 50/50 split for revenue made within a timeframe of the copyrighted work being shown sounds reasonable, I am pretty sure major companies / corporations would beg to differ :)
I know what you might be thinking. It might look like I am defending channels and their revenue, who are blindly reuploading the music, in order to "promote" it. And to that I say: Hell. No. They are, at best, with me being overtly generous, maybe deserve like... 2%? In the best case scenario, and if they put something into a video, maybe like audio visualizer or something. But no more than 2%. I am sorry, but for that you have to talk directly with publishers regarding promotion and revenue arrangements. Spoiler: they won't license you anything if you have 100 subscriber YouTube channel with basic audio visualizers.
According to copyright law, modding your game is actually illegal, because it violates the rights of copyright holders to whom the game content or code belongs to. You heard that right, your mod which can fix the game, because developers have been neglient with the game and instead of fixing themselves they did nothing, is in fact illegal and you can be sued for it.
OK, I do understand multiplayer games, they rely on good experience within the playerbase. But is it really cheater's fault for cheating in your game? No, I mean, he does most likely suck at the game, so he resorts to low-end things like that. But, first off, as a big company, can't you, like, develop a good anti-cheat? Second, is it really worth and ethical to screw over players who play singleplayer games because of that? Maybe we should define that, if a certain game utilizes concurrent, active, communicative users online, then it abides to "no-modifying" law. If a game does not contain that, maybe that portion of it should be exempt from being illegal to modify? Just my 2c.
Not so long ago I learned that syncing your favorite music with some form of video output may actually be technically illegal. Here I present you: The "Sync License"! Without it, doing any form of music syncing with the video output of things, such as audio visualizers may actually be illegal without a proper license to accompany it. Not much to say about it, the name speaks for itself. However, it does also go into the "copyright sucks" pile as well, since it's another backbone restriction for content creators to deviate from the original content. Can't even sync something up without a license, jesus.
Thank you for taking your time to read this article. I should probably re-iterate (again) that this is still work in progress and might have a lot of missing information, unfinished thoughts and other stuff that might not be considered complete or "cooked" enough. I will update this page from time to time, adding new stuff, removing old stuff and other housekeeping types-of-things. But for now, I think I conveyed the main thought.
To summarize:
I would like to once again, apologize, because I barely linked anything in this article. However, please do understand that I did that over copyright concerns. Now, can we please fix copyright in a way, where I don't have to fear linking information over a broken law, hm? :-)
There is currently no comments, as I'm still exploring the options I have for a good comment system.