eyrieowl writes "J.R.R.'s heirs are suing for royalties on the LoTR films. Apparently they haven't gotten any money due to some creative accounting. Peter Jackson ought to understand...he had to sue the studio for much the same reason.
As for The Hobbit? FTFA: 'Tolkien's family and a British charity they head, the Tolkien Trust, seek more than $220 million in compensation...[and]...the option to terminate further rights to the author's work.'"
Unfortunately, you aren't a Hobbit, and this kind of stuff is so common it has it's own name and Wikipedia entry. Look up Hollywood Accounting [wikipedia.org]. It's pretty simple and extremely sleazy. Remember that profits are simply income minus expenses. If you make $100,000 but it costs you $40,000 in expenses, you have $60,000 in profits.
Most movie earnings are reported in gross sales. Profits are slim, on purpose.
Let's say you are a Hollywood producer.
1) Make a deal with somebody to "share the profits" by using their idea. 2) Produce the movie by hiring sub-contractor "companies" that happen to have you has the CEO. These "companies" are very expensive, and payed based on gross sales. 3) Movie gets produced, makes record sales. 4) The "companies" previously hired are payed based on the sales numbers, leaving no money left to call a "profit". 5) ??? 6) Screwed partner makes nothing because there are no profits to share.
Brought to you by the same people who are so deeply concerned that someone might copy a movie without paying for it. Of course, the whole industry in Hollywood started out dodging Edison's patent royalties.
The rights were sold 40 years ago, per the article. At the time, the Tolkien estate did not exist- the author himself was alive to negotiate the conditions under which his works would be used. So, it is your opinion that Tolkien was 'naive' to not have spelled out in detail who would be entitled to what percentage of the DVD sales revenue when he negotiated the deal in 1969?
If anything, it looks like he did pretty well for an agreement made in 1969 by trying to require a percentage of the gross, but he did permit certain expenses to be deducted which were then gamed by Hollywood accounting.
"extended copyright might kill another production"
No, its the greedy, self serving, money grabbing, Narcissistic, control freaks who so often seek powerful jobs in big companies like Time Warner who are to blame (as usual). Their Narcissistic self interest at the expense of others forces people to finally take action against this kind of unfair treatment. They have tried for years to get some kind of fairness out of Time Warner.
Agreed, it should have been in the public domain when I bought my copy of the trilogy in 1970.
They're building one of those "Habitat Houses" down the street from me, and I wondered to my daughter if all the workers had tattoos of hobbits on them.
They're building one of those "Habitat Houses" down the street from me, and I wondered to my daughter if all the workers had tattoos of hobbits on them.
These books should be public domain by now. God damn extended copyright might kill another production.
I agree the books should be in the public domain. But let's be honest here -- it's the usual movie production studio douchebaggery that is going to kill this production, not copyright. You know damn well they aren't thinking "Gee if only there were reasonable terms for copyright we wouldn't have to deal with the estate!" No, they are fully on board with life + infinite arithmetic progression copyright terms, they just want to twist the rules so they're the only ones who benefit. They've made their bed, and now they are trying to weasel their way out of sleeping in it.
Well, fuck them I say. I'd rather everyone who was contractually owed money for those movies gets it even if in my ideal universe they wouldn't be owed anything, rather than let the fuckers responsible for the current situation get away with this shit.
Under what bizarro universe does the public have more right to an author's work than the author (or their estate)?
The one where the rights of private property and public good are balanced. The one where the rights of personal works and public culture coexist.
Also, the one established in the FUCKING CONSTITUTION, where Congress is given the duty (emphasis mine) "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".
Notice also that it explicitly says authors and inventors, and not the estates thereof, but that is a side issue. What is important is that the time be Limited. Unless you want to get a shovel and go excavate Ugg the fucking Caveman and pay him back royalties for your use of fire and the wheel. Pelts only.
It still amazes me how respondents in this forum think that there is some level on which it's acceptable to STEAL.
I don't, which is why I'm arguing that the studio needs to pay the estate the money that they are owed.
Under what bizarro universe does the public have more right to an author's work than the author (or their estate)?
In the bizarro universe where the purpose of copyrights was to promote the arts and thus enrich our culture, and its protections were for a limited time only with the express purpose of enriching the public domain. So, basically, the bizarre universe of the United States prior the year 1976.
For two hundred years, copyright served the purpose I describe and not the one you describe. This notion that an author's work is supposed to provide a life-long revenue stream for their children and their children's children is a recent invention, and contrary to the purpose of copyright, which is to encourage more works to be written. What has Christopher Tolkien done other than package up his dad's work? Maybe if he was operating under the same laws that his dad did when he wrote his books, then he'd have had to produce something of his own.
Sorry, I just don't buy that argument under any circumstance.
Okay, but the only reason author's have any right to an unnatural monopoly is because we, the people, agreed to compromise with them. The argument was the one that ruled the day from the authoring of our Constitution through to the Sonny Bono Copyright Act.
The discussion here seems centered on whether the studio should get the spoils or the public.
What a silly thing to say in a reply to my post where I argued that the "spoils" should go to the estate as contractually required. I think copyright law should be changed to match its original purpose, but that doesn't mean I think the movie studios, the very ones who lobbied for these ridiculous copyright laws, should be exempt from them! So basically it sounds like you missed my whole point. And I'm not the only one making this point. So pay more attention to the discussion, maybe?
Under what bizarro universe does the public have more right to an author's work than the author (or their estate)?
Please understand that when the government enforces a private monopoly, the taxpayers incur direct costs. The "private monopoly" in this case is the author's sole distribution right over his work. The enforcement of that right means that real tax dollars get spent on investigations into copyright infringement violations, as well as the imposition of legal consequences.
So, that means that if you are an author, the rest of us (even those who do not buy copies of your work) are paying out-of-pocket to enforce your monopoly on your behalf.
What do we get in return for this? The privilege of being able to pay even more money if we want to experience your work? Do you really think this is balanced?
The reason why copyright law has a term limit is to try and strike this (otherwise missing) balance. In return for spending our money to protect your private monopoly for a period of years, we eventually get your work for free, in the public domain. Thus, you have your incentive to create secured (in the form of a protected period of sole distribution rights), and we get a ROI on all the tax money we spent to give you that (specifically, the work for free, eventually).
The problem that frustrates many posters on Slashdot is that the term of copyright is now so long that it is no longer balanced. In response to this perceived injustice, many people feel justified in dishonoring the private monopoly, and obtaining the work for free.
Whether or not they actually are justified is a debate in which I am presently remaining silent (though I won't deny an obvious bias). However, I will state that the current copyright law is not at all balanced, and the public good is getting the losing end of the deal. There is clearly an injustice being perpetuated by copyright holders and lobbies at the present time.
As an aside, copyright infringement is illegal and (arguably) immoral. However, it is not theft. Theft is generally defined in terms of the harm done to the victim, rather than the benefit to the perpetrator. Finding an un-owned object and claiming it for one's self is not theft, even though one got something without paying for it. However, depriving the rightful owner of access to his property is theft, and that wording is often used in legal proceedings involving theft.
In the case of copyright infringement, the rightful owner still has full access and full control over his own work. You have a duplicate of the work, but since you haven't deprived the owner of the work, you have not "stolen" it. You have merely copied it.
To use the ever-popular car analogy...if I see your car on your driveway, and I build myself a separate car just like it....you still have your car. I have not stolen it. Though my copy of it might still be illegal.
But don't take my word for it. The supreme court already ruled that copyright infringement is not theft. Read all about it. [wikipedia.org]
These books should be public domain by now. God damn extended copyright might kill another production.
(before film is made) "Darned copyrights are keeping us from making a film!" (after the film is made) "People are violating our film's copyright and should be punished!"
These books should be public domain by now.
God damn extended copyright might kill another production.
The irony being that the movie companies are the big $$$ behind the ridiculous copyright extensions that are preventing them from not having to go through the JRR descendants to make movies.
I guess the next copyright legislature will make book copyright shorter than music or movie copyright.
Yet, I'm sure you saw all 3 LOTR movies in the theater at least once as you'll probably see the Hobbit (not to mention other movies made by that studio) which will allow them to continue their screwing over of people who may or may not deserve a cut in the money.
The reason for reducing the copyright times are just because it would enable derivative works. Kind of how Disney took "Cinderella" or other stories in the public domain and made money and new stories out of them.
The hypocrisy comes in when they refuse to ever give stuff back to the public domain.
The people being screwed in this case isn't the heirs to Tolkien it's us. They shouldn't get any money after so many years. They are the true "leeches". That doesn't help or develops our civilization or culture.
Well, is that strictly true? Children of Huron was published a good deal more recently than that. In fact, IIRC, four times as many books have been published by JRRT since he died than when he was alive. Not to mention the audio tapes (which include JRRT reading from his work and singing Elvish poetry that doesn't otherwise survive).
This is all new material. Yes, technically it was all written before JRRT died, but not one scrap of it would have been released if there was no incentive by either Christopher Tolkien OR (more importantly) the publishing house to publish it.
This new material included such gems as The Silmarilian, one of the all-time greatest works of JRRT, and the one he put the most effort into. That was never published in his lifetime. Not because it was no good, but because the publisher didn't realize the market for High Fantasy was as extensive as it proved to be. The other material, likewise, was often not held back by the author, it was held back by the publishers.
I'm not saying extended copyrights are always good, but there ARE special circumstances where they are valuable.
Another example would be the repair and restoration of crates upon crates of Hemmingway material that was left, abandoned, in his house after his death. Most of it is damaged by fungus and rot, but it is salvageable. The costs for the repairs are all being covered by the value of the material being salvaged.
These are exceptional circumstances, you won't find anything remotely similar in the majority of cases, but the exceptions SHOULD be covered by law no less than the general rule.
Fourteen years, renewable once, from date of first publication would cover everything you complain about.
BTW, the Silmarillion was not delayed until Tolkien's death due to lack of demand. Ballantine (who sold LOTR in the US) would have loved to publish it while Tolkien was still alive. Tolkien didn't authorize it. Lin Carter (in charge of Ballantine's fantasy fiction line at the time) told me (a long time ago, at a science fiction con), that he thought Tolkien simply didn't want to stop fiddling with it and changing the form, that he thought Tolkien really didn't have anything else he wanted to do.
I wouldn't say defending. I would be perfectly happy to have EITHER the extended forever copyright abolished OR the studio execs tossed in the clink. The simple fact is that they are demanding to have their cake and then cheating (by doing everything they claim others wrongly do to them) in order to try to eat it too.
In fact, I don't think the studio should have had to contract with the estate at all. However, I also believe that many of their works should now be public domain. Given the way they've bought twisted IP laws, I have no sympathy for them however. I hope they end up having to cough up treble damages and more. Perhaps they should be penalized at the same ratio as a p2p file sharer is.
Actually, Chris did a goodly amount of work recompiling the whole Middle Earth saga from notes, he tried to fill in unfinished stories of his father. He did try to clarify inconsistencies, add stories, and overall maintain the work that was left behind.
No, he wasn't responsible for the work that these movies is based on directly... But he did become the de facto caretaker of the fictional setting.
...on the one hand, the studios are greedy schmucks out to screw everyone all around.
OTOH, the next of kin should not be in the picture here. These are works that should be in the public domain now for a variety of reasons. The worthless relatives should not have the ability to interfere with any of the greedy schmucks. The fact that a charity is involved is just a nice red herring to confuse things.
Imagine if the Bard's estate could screw around with people like this.
...on the one hand, the studios are greedy schmucks out to screw everyone all around.
Remember that these "greedy schmucks" are the ones lobbying and influencing the law. You, I, the Slashdot community, we do not. But we are tax paying constituents. The only time we influence this is when we vote--and let's face it, it's not a voting issue.
When Sonny Bono and Walt Disney effectively controlled the government into changing these laws, they were done selfishly. Nowhere were we represented. To say that Senator Bono acted with only his constituents in mind is a joke.
So suddenly the double edged sword is coming back to cut one of the prime promoters today of these laws. Historically these term limits of enforceable copyright have only gotten longer. And their implications for the internet and digital media has been more than encumbering. I'm not saying these laws don't help the big companies and artists make more money. I'm only saying that it's getting to a ridiculous point. Time Warner/New Line Cinema might take it so hard from the Tolkien family that they realize their lost future profits 50 years from now is a small price to pay compared to all the material they could have in public domain to make movies and derivative works from.
Lastly, was anyone ever wondering why there was no Lord of the Rings movies officially for so long? It's because the Tolkein family was just looking for someone to get screwed by. They probably saw through all the other scams.
Hopefully this is a wake up call to those who have extended copyright for far too long. It will only start hurting themselves and actually inhibiting/endangering their profession.
Once you're dead, your work should hit the public domain. Copyright was not enacted so your works could be locked up forever, it was enacted so you could reap the rewards of your creativity when you needed it, like, you know, when you're alive.
A bit of an exaggeration but correct in essentials. Author's life plus 15 years to take care of any family left behind in the event of the author's death was the original duration of US copyright. The problem was that a loophole was left allowing Congress the power to modify it. Fast forward 200+ years to now and you can see what has happened. Disney is a big example. Walter Elias Disney died in 1966. Under the original terms, copyrights to all his works would have expired in 1981 but here we are in 2009 an
While I generally agree with that, I understand that having the works immediately available in the public domain could very well place undue hardship on the creator's family should the death be sudden and unexpected. "Normal" people have life insurance policies generally tuned to their income to provide for that, but in the case of a a professional "creator" of works, quantifying that income can be tricky, and I don't think the loss of rights should be immediate to the family of the creator if one exists.
Also, my utter lack of faith in humanity says that particularly unscrupulous individuals would "arrange" things so that an author who didn't want to sell the rights to their work would have the creator killed and poof! Public domain now for me to create my crappy movie and destroy the work. While I wish I could believe that people would never sink so low, this IS an article about movie studios trying to claim a major film trilogy made NO money at all. If they thought they could get away with it and make money, I don't doubt that some of them would do it.
I can see a 20 year period after death being reasonable as any children they had should be grown capable of self-support by then and the incentive of making a derivative work of something 20 years old will often lose its allure unless it's a seminal work of culture in which case that's EXACTLY the compact society has made with the creator...we get the stuff back to inspire the next generation of creators. The current system we have is simply abusive of society as a whole though.
There's no way to avoid this sort of comparison. If I cited any example of a bad law that should not be enforced, and it was just as serious as our bad copyright laws, most people would have no opinion on that law. and of the few who did, roughly half of the people would argue that it was a good law (especially here). Just try it. Is tougher sentencing for crack cocaine than regular cocaine about proportional to copyright law? How about occasional abuse of eminent domain clauses? Raising the drinking age to 21 and including members of the armed forces on post? You have to compare the abysmal but quite limited injustice that is current copyright law to something more serious, something that affected hundreds of millions and literally cost lives, broke governments, or caused wars, or you can't make a critical comparison at all.
I sincerely hope that it is not commonly held opinion that the Bible is "written about him [Adam]." He is the first human that the Bible describes, and mention is made of him also in the Christian Greek scriptures, but the Bible is about much more than simply Adam.
You don't have to make it "punishable by death," just flipping make it ILLEGAL! I'm so tired of hearing about a-hole musician managers like Klein ripping off artists and swindling them out of song rights, talent agents taking their pounds of flesh from artists and athletes, and trusted personal financial advisors diverting funds from their clients to their own coffers. Just make it clearly ILLEGAL. Draw strong outlines around what compensation these people are allowed to make while in the service of their clients. Create template contracts that uninitiated people can use to protect themselves. As it stands, you need a lawyer and an accountant to make sure your lawyer and accountant aren't fucking you!
I think we're talking about two different things. You're arguing about unfair contracts. What the article is talking about (I believe) is out-and-out fraud regarding how much money is earned for a given movie.
Under the contract, New Line was to pay a percentage of all gross receipts, after deducting 2.6 times the production costs, plus advertising expenses in excess of a certain amount, according to Eskenazi. (from TFA)
Nowadays it seems as though even the average slashdotter knows you take a portion of gross, because nothing involving MPAA or RIAA related-companies ever clears a 'net profit' (wink wink).
It looks like Tolkien & co where less saavy 40 years ago, and essentially signed up to get screwed. I hope the movies were profitable enough that they can still clear some money for the family, but 2.6 times production costs of those movies is a hell of a lot, and 'advertising expenses in excess of a certain amount'- especially if that amount was a 1969 dollar amount, and not a percent-well, they could really end up with a contractually dictated 'nothing.'
It looks like Tolkien & co where less saavy 40 years ago, and essentially signed up to get screwed.
Less savvy or just not very forward thinking in terms of technology.
[nerd-speak]
Tolkien pretty much gave away the movie rights because he (and whom else ever in his camp) never thought you could even make a movie out the LOTR. Would you have wanted to see a film adaptation using early 1970's film technology? Not as fun to watch if the Balrog looks Godzilla and the
Nazgûl like some kind of Medieval Mothras, not to mention Treebeard looking worse than he even did in the films, or primitive miniatures making the cities of Middle Earth look like something made of Lego(s).
Technology may have been Saruman's downfall, but it allowed for a pretty cool set of movies.
The MPAA is fighting to make sure the artists and copyright holders get what they are owed? Did they forget or is it just a bunch of BS and you should not feel bad about piracy and ignore them?
The MPAA is fighting to make sure the artists and copyright holders get what they are owed? Did they forget or is it just a bunch of BS and you should not feel bad about piracy and ignore them?
When they say "artists" they mean their accountants.
These people are simply criminals, and deserve to be locked up as such. However Hollywood is famous for making large political contributions, and their boys are in power at the moment. (not that the "other" party did anything about it either)
Hypothetical: 95% of gross goes to subcontractors (run by studios). 5% (as guaranteed amount, i.e. 2 million) goes to people involved. That takes care of everything the movie grosses. There's no money left as profit, so anything based on net profit gets nothing.
If it weren't for the deal that J.R.R. made with Saul Zaentz way back when, we wouldn't have any of the Lord of the Rings movies in the first place. Nor the Lord of the Rings Online game (which I happen to play). Nor any number of other things that may have first turned people on to Tolkien, including the old pen and paper Middle Earth RPG system.
Christopher Tolkien has had control over the rights to things like The Silmarillion, and is notoriously limited in what he'll allow people to do in relation to it. I'd hate to think of what would happen (or more to the point, not happen) if he were able to somehow get back control over The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings also.
Uh, The Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin. There are tons of notes and papers the Tolkien kept while writing his stories. Many of these offer insight into the world of Middle Earth, and would not have been easily accessible if it wasn't for the work of his son. Christopher Tolkien has spent a great deal of time going through his father's work, assembling notes from various sources to try to provide a more detailed history of Middle Earth. While the heirs aren't responsible for the original tale, they have done there share of work to get the story behind the story out and available to the public. Without the background, creating a movie like LotR would be much more difficult. The entire mythos was not well documented within the confines of the books. There were a lot of details that don't fit nicely within story form that were important to the movie. One of the biggest examples is the Elvish language. Much of the language has been put together from his original notes, which have been assembled by Christopher over the years.
This is definitely not a case were the children are sitting around trying to bum money off of their parent's work. I am very thankful for their contributions. Without their work, my knowledge of Tolkien would probably be limited to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
The contract was signed by J.R.R. Tolkien in 1969. Copyright doesn't even enter into the argument. New Line, Time Warner, and MGM are all bound by the original contract, signed by J.R.R. Tolkien. As the Inheritor of his estate, Chris Tokien has the right, along with the Tolkien Trust, to enforce the terms of the contract through civil action.
I hate to make this sound angry, but it has nothing to do with Chris Tolkien, other than he's the one who inherited the money. J.R.R. Tolkien sold a product for a specific fee, partly up front, and partly to be paid later. The studio is now using fraudulent accounting techniques to avoid paying the "later" part. If J.R.R. Tolkien were still alive, he would be the one suing. Hes not, but the contract is still binding, so his estate is suing.
Copyright doesn't even show up in this equation. Nor does whether his heirs added anything to the mythos (which he has through his clean up and publishing of all the remaining Tolkien works and notes.)
This is just simple, every day, contract law.
Disclaimer: IANAL, and this is my opinions, based on reading TFA.
Threatening Hobbit Production... (Score:5, Funny)
You know, if I were a Hobbit, I wouldn't let any lawsuit threaten my Hobbit-producing activities...
Re:Threatening Hobbit Production... (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, you aren't a Hobbit, and this kind of stuff is so common it has it's own name and Wikipedia entry. Look up Hollywood Accounting [wikipedia.org]. It's pretty simple and extremely sleazy. Remember that profits are simply income minus expenses. If you make $100,000 but it costs you $40,000 in expenses, you have $60,000 in profits.
Most movie earnings are reported in gross sales. Profits are slim, on purpose.
Let's say you are a Hollywood producer.
1) Make a deal with somebody to "share the profits" by using their idea.
2) Produce the movie by hiring sub-contractor "companies" that happen to have you has the CEO. These "companies" are very expensive, and payed based on gross sales.
3) Movie gets produced, makes record sales.
4) The "companies" previously hired are payed based on the sales numbers, leaving no money left to call a "profit".
5) ???
6) Screwed partner makes nothing because there are no profits to share.
Parent
Re:Threatening Hobbit Production... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Threatening Hobbit Production... (Score:5, Insightful)
Brought to you by the same people who are so deeply concerned that someone might copy a movie without paying for it. Of course, the whole industry in Hollywood started out dodging Edison's patent royalties.
Parent
Re:Threatening Hobbit Production... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
The agreement was made 40 years ago. (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything, it looks like he did pretty well for an agreement made in 1969 by trying to require a percentage of the gross, but he did permit certain expenses to be deducted which were then gamed by Hollywood accounting.
Parent
Ob. Futurama (Score:5, Funny)
Leegola: What else can we slay? Is that a hobbit over there?
Titanius Anglesmith: No, that's a hobo and a rabbit. But they're making a hobbit.
Parent
Damn leeches (Score:4, Insightful)
These books should be public domain by now.
God damn extended copyright might kill another production.
Ob. quote:
"Is that a Hobbit over there?"
"No, it's a hobo and a rabbit, but they're making a hobbit."
Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Interesting)
No, its the greedy, self serving, money grabbing, Narcissistic, control freaks who so often seek powerful jobs in big companies like Time Warner who are to blame (as usual). Their Narcissistic self interest at the expense of others forces people to finally take action against this kind of unfair treatment. They have tried for years to get some kind of fairness out of Time Warner.
Parent
Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Funny)
Agreed, it should have been in the public domain when I bought my copy of the trilogy in 1970.
They're building one of those "Habitat Houses" down the street from me, and I wondered to my daughter if all the workers had tattoos of hobbits on them.
"Why?" she asked.
"Hobbit tat for humanity".
Ok, I'll get my coat...
Parent
Re:Damn leeches (Score:4, Funny)
David "Dangermouse" Morgan-Mar, is that you? [irregularwebcomic.net]
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Re:Damn leeches (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course the criminal movie business would just wait for stories to expire copyright, and make a mint off of them afterwards.
Like Disney and the Brothers Grimm?
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Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
These books should be public domain by now.
God damn extended copyright might kill another production.
I agree the books should be in the public domain. But let's be honest here -- it's the usual movie production studio douchebaggery that is going to kill this production, not copyright. You know damn well they aren't thinking "Gee if only there were reasonable terms for copyright we wouldn't have to deal with the estate!" No, they are fully on board with life + infinite arithmetic progression copyright terms, they just want to twist the rules so they're the only ones who benefit. They've made their bed, and now they are trying to weasel their way out of sleeping in it.
Well, fuck them I say. I'd rather everyone who was contractually owed money for those movies gets it even if in my ideal universe they wouldn't be owed anything, rather than let the fuckers responsible for the current situation get away with this shit.
Parent
Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
The one where the rights of private property and public good are balanced. The one where the rights of personal works and public culture coexist. Also, the one established in the FUCKING CONSTITUTION, where Congress is given the duty (emphasis mine) "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" .
Notice also that it explicitly says authors and inventors, and not the estates thereof, but that is a side issue. What is important is that the time be Limited. Unless you want to get a shovel and go excavate Ugg the fucking Caveman and pay him back royalties for your use of fire and the wheel. Pelts only.
Parent
Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
It still amazes me how respondents in this forum think that there is some level on which it's acceptable to STEAL.
I don't, which is why I'm arguing that the studio needs to pay the estate the money that they are owed.
Under what bizarro universe does the public have more right to an author's work than the author (or their estate)?
In the bizarro universe where the purpose of copyrights was to promote the arts and thus enrich our culture, and its protections were for a limited time only with the express purpose of enriching the public domain. So, basically, the bizarre universe of the United States prior the year 1976.
For two hundred years, copyright served the purpose I describe and not the one you describe. This notion that an author's work is supposed to provide a life-long revenue stream for their children and their children's children is a recent invention, and contrary to the purpose of copyright, which is to encourage more works to be written. What has Christopher Tolkien done other than package up his dad's work? Maybe if he was operating under the same laws that his dad did when he wrote his books, then he'd have had to produce something of his own.
Sorry, I just don't buy that argument under any circumstance.
Okay, but the only reason author's have any right to an unnatural monopoly is because we, the people, agreed to compromise with them. The argument was the one that ruled the day from the authoring of our Constitution through to the Sonny Bono Copyright Act.
The discussion here seems centered on whether the studio should get the spoils or the public.
What a silly thing to say in a reply to my post where I argued that the "spoils" should go to the estate as contractually required. I think copyright law should be changed to match its original purpose, but that doesn't mean I think the movie studios, the very ones who lobbied for these ridiculous copyright laws, should be exempt from them! So basically it sounds like you missed my whole point. And I'm not the only one making this point. So pay more attention to the discussion, maybe?
Parent
Simple economics (Score:4, Insightful)
Under what bizarro universe does the public have more right to an author's work than the author (or their estate)?
Please understand that when the government enforces a private monopoly, the taxpayers incur direct costs. The "private monopoly" in this case is the author's sole distribution right over his work. The enforcement of that right means that real tax dollars get spent on investigations into copyright infringement violations, as well as the imposition of legal consequences.
So, that means that if you are an author, the rest of us (even those who do not buy copies of your work) are paying out-of-pocket to enforce your monopoly on your behalf.
What do we get in return for this? The privilege of being able to pay even more money if we want to experience your work? Do you really think this is balanced?
The reason why copyright law has a term limit is to try and strike this (otherwise missing) balance. In return for spending our money to protect your private monopoly for a period of years, we eventually get your work for free, in the public domain. Thus, you have your incentive to create secured (in the form of a protected period of sole distribution rights), and we get a ROI on all the tax money we spent to give you that (specifically, the work for free, eventually).
The problem that frustrates many posters on Slashdot is that the term of copyright is now so long that it is no longer balanced. In response to this perceived injustice, many people feel justified in dishonoring the private monopoly, and obtaining the work for free.
Whether or not they actually are justified is a debate in which I am presently remaining silent (though I won't deny an obvious bias). However, I will state that the current copyright law is not at all balanced, and the public good is getting the losing end of the deal. There is clearly an injustice being perpetuated by copyright holders and lobbies at the present time.
As an aside, copyright infringement is illegal and (arguably) immoral. However, it is not theft. Theft is generally defined in terms of the harm done to the victim, rather than the benefit to the perpetrator. Finding an un-owned object and claiming it for one's self is not theft, even though one got something without paying for it. However, depriving the rightful owner of access to his property is theft, and that wording is often used in legal proceedings involving theft.
In the case of copyright infringement, the rightful owner still has full access and full control over his own work. You have a duplicate of the work, but since you haven't deprived the owner of the work, you have not "stolen" it. You have merely copied it.
To use the ever-popular car analogy...if I see your car on your driveway, and I build myself a separate car just like it....you still have your car. I have not stolen it. Though my copy of it might still be illegal.
But don't take my word for it. The supreme court already ruled that copyright infringement is not theft. Read all about it. [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Damn leeches (Score:4, Insightful)
These books should be public domain by now.
God damn extended copyright might kill another production.
(before film is made) "Darned copyrights are keeping us from making a film!"
(after the film is made) "People are violating our film's copyright and should be punished!"
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Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
These books should be public domain by now. God damn extended copyright might kill another production.
The irony being that the movie companies are the big $$$ behind the ridiculous copyright extensions that are preventing them from not having to go through the JRR descendants to make movies.
I guess the next copyright legislature will make book copyright shorter than music or movie copyright.
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Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
If they didn't have extended copyright, they wouldn't have needed a contract to begin with. That's what he's saying.
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Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet, I'm sure you saw all 3 LOTR movies in the theater at least once as you'll probably see the Hobbit (not to mention other movies made by that studio) which will allow them to continue their screwing over of people who may or may not deserve a cut in the money.
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Re:Damn leeches (Score:4, Insightful)
What work did the Christopher and Priscilla Tolkien do on this film exactly?
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Re:Damn leeches (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say the hypocrisy of RIAA is astounding.
The reason for reducing the copyright times are just because it would enable derivative works. Kind of how Disney took "Cinderella" or other stories in the public domain and made money and new stories out of them.
The hypocrisy comes in when they refuse to ever give stuff back to the public domain.
The people being screwed in this case isn't the heirs to Tolkien it's us. They shouldn't get any money after so many years. They are the true "leeches". That doesn't help or develops our civilization or culture.
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Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because there would be NO ONE to screw if not for artificially long copyright periods.
The man is dead. He's been dead since 1973. You know... 36 years. The last book was published in 1955. 54 years.
Copyrights are not going to incent him to write any more books.
Copyrights as currently implemented primarily benefit corporations. Not human beings who are dead long before the copyrights run out.
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Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, is that strictly true? Children of Huron was published a good deal more recently than that. In fact, IIRC, four times as many books have been published by JRRT since he died than when he was alive. Not to mention the audio tapes (which include JRRT reading from his work and singing Elvish poetry that doesn't otherwise survive).
This is all new material. Yes, technically it was all written before JRRT died, but not one scrap of it would have been released if there was no incentive by either Christopher Tolkien OR (more importantly) the publishing house to publish it.
This new material included such gems as The Silmarilian, one of the all-time greatest works of JRRT, and the one he put the most effort into. That was never published in his lifetime. Not because it was no good, but because the publisher didn't realize the market for High Fantasy was as extensive as it proved to be. The other material, likewise, was often not held back by the author, it was held back by the publishers.
I'm not saying extended copyrights are always good, but there ARE special circumstances where they are valuable.
Another example would be the repair and restoration of crates upon crates of Hemmingway material that was left, abandoned, in his house after his death. Most of it is damaged by fungus and rot, but it is salvageable. The costs for the repairs are all being covered by the value of the material being salvaged.
These are exceptional circumstances, you won't find anything remotely similar in the majority of cases, but the exceptions SHOULD be covered by law no less than the general rule.
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Re:Damn leeches (Score:4, Informative)
Fourteen years, renewable once, from date of first publication would cover everything you complain about.
BTW, the Silmarillion was not delayed until Tolkien's death due to lack of demand. Ballantine (who sold LOTR in the US) would have loved to publish it while Tolkien was still alive. Tolkien didn't authorize it. Lin Carter (in charge of Ballantine's fantasy fiction line at the time) told me (a long time ago, at a science fiction con), that he thought Tolkien simply didn't want to stop fiddling with it and changing the form, that he thought Tolkien really didn't have anything else he wanted to do.
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Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't say defending. I would be perfectly happy to have EITHER the extended forever copyright abolished OR the studio execs tossed in the clink. The simple fact is that they are demanding to have their cake and then cheating (by doing everything they claim others wrongly do to them) in order to try to eat it too.
In fact, I don't think the studio should have had to contract with the estate at all. However, I also believe that many of their works should now be public domain. Given the way they've bought twisted IP laws, I have no sympathy for them however. I hope they end up having to cough up treble damages and more. Perhaps they should be penalized at the same ratio as a p2p file sharer is.
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Re:Damn leeches (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, Chris did a goodly amount of work recompiling the whole Middle Earth saga from notes, he tried to fill in unfinished stories of his father. He did try to clarify inconsistencies, add stories, and overall maintain the work that was left behind.
No, he wasn't responsible for the work that these movies is based on directly... But he did become the de facto caretaker of the fictional setting.
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Bad news all around (Score:5, Insightful)
...on the one hand, the studios are greedy schmucks out to screw everyone all around.
OTOH, the next of kin should not be in the picture here. These are works
that should be in the public domain now for a variety of reasons. The
worthless relatives should not have the ability to interfere with any of
the greedy schmucks. The fact that a charity is involved is just a nice
red herring to confuse things.
Imagine if the Bard's estate could screw around with people like this.
That's the direction we are headed.
Re:Bad news all around (Score:5, Funny)
Imagine if the Bard's estate could screw around with people like this.
Oh, man... the implications... I bet none of the Bard's Tale games would have ever been released!
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Something Good Could Come of It (Score:5, Insightful)
...on the one hand, the studios are greedy schmucks out to screw everyone all around.
Remember that these "greedy schmucks" are the ones lobbying and influencing the law. You, I, the Slashdot community, we do not. But we are tax paying constituents. The only time we influence this is when we vote--and let's face it, it's not a voting issue.
When Sonny Bono and Walt Disney effectively controlled the government into changing these laws, they were done selfishly. Nowhere were we represented. To say that Senator Bono acted with only his constituents in mind is a joke.
So suddenly the double edged sword is coming back to cut one of the prime promoters today of these laws. Historically these term limits of enforceable copyright have only gotten longer. And their implications for the internet and digital media has been more than encumbering. I'm not saying these laws don't help the big companies and artists make more money. I'm only saying that it's getting to a ridiculous point. Time Warner/New Line Cinema might take it so hard from the Tolkien family that they realize their lost future profits 50 years from now is a small price to pay compared to all the material they could have in public domain to make movies and derivative works from.
Lastly, was anyone ever wondering why there was no Lord of the Rings movies officially for so long? It's because the Tolkein family was just looking for someone to get screwed by. They probably saw through all the other scams.
Hopefully this is a wake up call to those who have extended copyright for far too long. It will only start hurting themselves and actually inhibiting/endangering their profession.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bad news all around (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, my utter lack of faith in humanity says that particularly unscrupulous individuals would "arrange" things so that an author who didn't want to sell the rights to their work would have the creator killed and poof! Public domain now for me to create my crappy movie and destroy the work. While I wish I could believe that people would never sink so low, this IS an article about movie studios trying to claim a major film trilogy made NO money at all. If they thought they could get away with it and make money, I don't doubt that some of them would do it.
I can see a 20 year period after death being reasonable as any children they had should be grown capable of self-support by then and the incentive of making a derivative work of something 20 years old will often lose its allure unless it's a seminal work of culture in which case that's EXACTLY the compact society has made with the creator...we get the stuff back to inspire the next generation of creators. The current system we have is simply abusive of society as a whole though.
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Re:Bad news all around (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no way to avoid this sort of comparison. If I cited any example of a bad law that should not be enforced, and it was just as serious as our bad copyright laws, most people would have no opinion on that law. and of the few who did, roughly half of the people would argue that it was a good law (especially here). Just try it. Is tougher sentencing for crack cocaine than regular cocaine about proportional to copyright law? How about occasional abuse of eminent domain clauses? Raising the drinking age to 21 and including members of the armed forces on post? You have to compare the abysmal but quite limited injustice that is current copyright law to something more serious, something that affected hundreds of millions and literally cost lives, broke governments, or caused wars, or you can't make a critical comparison at all.
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Re:Bad news all around (Score:4, Informative)
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Thought experiment (Score:5, Insightful)
This is going to sound wacky, but I really just want to think it through.
What if we made the kind of fraud that's apparently exercised by music and movie studio accountants, punishable by death?
How would that play out in society and culture?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It wouldn't work.
A jury is not going to want to punish you unless you are "one of the little people".
PR flacks will make sure that the white collar criminals maintain a well manicured reputation.
Ultimately, the little guy will end up the one on the hook for the new draconian punishment. ...something sounds familiar here.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't have to make it "punishable by death," just flipping make it ILLEGAL! I'm so tired of hearing about a-hole musician managers like Klein ripping off artists and swindling them out of song rights, talent agents taking their pounds of flesh from artists and athletes, and trusted personal financial advisors diverting funds from their clients to their own coffers. Just make it clearly ILLEGAL. Draw strong outlines around what compensation these people are allowed to make while in the service of their clients. Create template contracts that uninitiated people can use to protect themselves. As it stands, you need a lawyer and an accountant to make sure your lawyer and accountant aren't fucking you!
I think we're talking about two different things. You're arguing about unfair contracts. What the article is talking about (I believe) is out-and-out fraud regarding how much money is earned for a given movie.
They crossed up their net and gross reciepts... (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like the deal was done maybe 40 years ago:
Under the contract, New Line was to pay a percentage of all gross receipts, after deducting 2.6 times the production costs, plus advertising expenses in excess of a certain amount, according to Eskenazi. (from TFA)
Nowadays it seems as though even the average slashdotter knows you take a portion of gross, because nothing involving MPAA or RIAA related-companies ever clears a 'net profit' (wink wink).
It looks like Tolkien & co where less saavy 40 years ago, and essentially signed up to get screwed. I hope the movies were profitable enough that they can still clear some money for the family, but 2.6 times production costs of those movies is a hell of a lot, and 'advertising expenses in excess of a certain amount'- especially if that amount was a 1969 dollar amount, and not a percent-well, they could really end up with a contractually dictated 'nothing.'
Re:They crossed up their net and gross reciepts... (Score:5, Insightful)
It looks like Tolkien & co where less saavy 40 years ago, and essentially signed up to get screwed.
Less savvy or just not very forward thinking in terms of technology.
[nerd-speak]
Tolkien pretty much gave away the movie rights because he (and whom else ever in his camp) never thought you could even make a movie out the LOTR. Would you have wanted to see a film adaptation using early 1970's film technology? Not as fun to watch if the Balrog looks Godzilla and the Nazgûl like some kind of Medieval Mothras, not to mention Treebeard looking worse than he even did in the films, or primitive miniatures making the cities of Middle Earth look like something made of Lego(s).
Technology may have been Saruman's downfall, but it allowed for a pretty cool set of movies.
[/nerd-speak]
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but but the MPAA is for the artists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:but but the MPAA is for the artists? (Score:5, Insightful)
The MPAA is fighting to make sure the artists and copyright holders get what they are owed? Did they forget or is it just a bunch of BS and you should not feel bad about piracy and ignore them?
When they say "artists" they mean their accountants.
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Dragon magazine... (Score:3, Funny)
Dragon Magazine had a cartoon bit about this ... apparently they weren't even allowed to use the word "ring" anymore...
"Hey, someone get the phone - its been circular metal band-ing off the hook!"
This is common in Hollywood (Score:5, Insightful)
These people are simply criminals, and deserve to be locked up as such. However Hollywood is famous for making large political contributions, and their boys are in power at the moment. (not that the "other" party did anything about it either)
Re:this is common in hollywood (Score:4, Informative)
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I'd normally side with the family, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
If it weren't for the deal that J.R.R. made with Saul Zaentz way back when, we wouldn't have any of the Lord of the Rings movies in the first place. Nor the Lord of the Rings Online game (which I happen to play). Nor any number of other things that may have first turned people on to Tolkien, including the old pen and paper Middle Earth RPG system.
Christopher Tolkien has had control over the rights to things like The Silmarillion, and is notoriously limited in what he'll allow people to do in relation to it. I'd hate to think of what would happen (or more to the point, not happen) if he were able to somehow get back control over The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings also.
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
Re:Read this elsewhere (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Then explain this (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, The Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin. There are tons of notes and papers the Tolkien kept while writing his stories. Many of these offer insight into the world of Middle Earth, and would not have been easily accessible if it wasn't for the work of his son. Christopher Tolkien has spent a great deal of time going through his father's work, assembling notes from various sources to try to provide a more detailed history of Middle Earth. While the heirs aren't responsible for the original tale, they have done there share of work to get the story behind the story out and available to the public. Without the background, creating a movie like LotR would be much more difficult. The entire mythos was not well documented within the confines of the books. There were a lot of details that don't fit nicely within story form that were important to the movie. One of the biggest examples is the Elvish language. Much of the language has been put together from his original notes, which have been assembled by Christopher over the years.
This is definitely not a case were the children are sitting around trying to bum money off of their parent's work. I am very thankful for their contributions. Without their work, my knowledge of Tolkien would probably be limited to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
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Re:Then explain this (Score:5, Informative)
The contract was signed by J.R.R. Tolkien in 1969. Copyright doesn't even enter into the argument. New Line, Time Warner, and MGM are all bound by the original contract, signed by J.R.R. Tolkien. As the Inheritor of his estate, Chris Tokien has the right, along with the Tolkien Trust, to enforce the terms of the contract through civil action.
I hate to make this sound angry, but it has nothing to do with Chris Tolkien, other than he's the one who inherited the money. J.R.R. Tolkien sold a product for a specific fee, partly up front, and partly to be paid later. The studio is now using fraudulent accounting techniques to avoid paying the "later" part. If J.R.R. Tolkien were still alive, he would be the one suing. Hes not, but the contract is still binding, so his estate is suing.
Copyright doesn't even show up in this equation. Nor does whether his heirs added anything to the mythos (which he has through his clean up and publishing of all the remaining Tolkien works and notes.)
This is just simple, every day, contract law.
Disclaimer: IANAL, and this is my opinions, based on reading TFA.
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