Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

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I think the biggest mistake is the assumption that if others were allowed to use your creation in their works, you would suffer in some way, that it would be taking money and/or fame from the original artist. I think it couldn't be further from the truth.

For instance, look at Dmitri Glukhovsky and his Metro books - be basically allowed anyone to write any books placed within the same universe, still using the "Metro" logo and characters. Dozens of other books appeared, telling the tales of other metro systems elsewhere in the world and how they've dealt with the apocalypse - but the point is, all those other books have only increased the popularity of the original, and expanded it.

The other good example, weirdly, was always Star Wars books - especially pre-Disney star wars was very lenient with what stories could be told, and unless it was just straight up smut it would be allowed - as a result, star wars fans had hundreds(thousands?) Of books telling stories with their favourite characters and new ones but taking place in the universe they loved. Yes Lucas took a cut, but in general you could just write a book about Han Solo and it would be fine.

That's how copyright should work. Why not let other people tell stories with Pooh and the rest?

I totally and wholeheartedly agree with you.

Here is the but: imagine someone were to publish a story set in your universe where suddenly the nazis took over and everyone liked it.

This is an extreme point, but it's one reason not to allow everyone to use your trademark without prior asking. Because maybe you're not okay with that AND suddenly your a bit famous works are in the same pot with something you wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole aaaand your sales go down.

Today's outrage culture could cancel you, even if you did nothing wrong.

In a better universe I am all with you and I personally would feel honored and flattered if other people would use my created worlds for their works

> aaaand your sales go down.

Whatever valid arguments might exist to restrict speech through copyright, sales going down is not one of them. Otherwise you could lawfully prohibit negative reviews.

Sales going down by someone using your original world/characters in a way that is then deemed unpopular is definitely restricted/not possible in a world with enforceable Copyright.

And that was my point, not sales going down on their own.

Negative reviews have nothing to do with someone else being able to take e.g. James Bond and making him a homosexual or taking Conan the Barbarian and making him a woman or a sidekick etc.

Drastic or even small changes can always be unpopular and affect the whole franchise. If said franchise is no longer under your control alone, this is an argument pro copyright from the viewpoint of a creator.

The point is that sales don’t factor into it in the first place. An infringing work could increase sales, and the copyright holder would still have just the same rights. Think of anime fansubs—which effectively brought Japanese anime to mainstream popularity in the west, yet are still heavily cracked down upon by license holders, and always have been.

Yes, it could. That is why you, as the copyright holder, have the final say in the matter and may take the risk or not.

Think about e.g. Warcraft. It was supposed to be a Warhammer game. The license was "revoked", so they spun up their own story/world and created a successful franchise.

The thing is, I totally am opposed to copyright and patents, yet I can see where they are coming from and I can see reasons for them.

I think that's throwing the baby out with the bathwater - what could happen should stop us? I mean, sure, but I somehow don't think this is a real problem.

Going back to my example - among those thousands of star wars books, there are some which are incredibly bad nowadays, sexist, racist, or just pure trash that came and went. I suspect its impact on the actual Star Wars the franchise was zero.

>>Today's outrage culture could cancel you, even if you did nothing wrong.

Maybe, but I don't want to live in a world where worrying about it restricts my choices. If someone wrote a book where the Pooh is now a dictator running a fascist hundred mile forest, and it somehow sold a million copies......then I'm going to laugh at the idiots calling for the original to be cancelled. They shouldn't be given any authority over this, outrage on twitter is cheap.

"what could happen should stop us" this is the base assumption for a lot of laws and compliance bullshit. So apparently, yes.

Also, you don't want to live in such a culture. That is fine. You may create something beautiful and then "donate" it to the public domain.

The choice is yours entirely.

Again, as a consumer I totally understand where you're coming from. As a producer I would think differently (that's simply empathy though, I am not a successful producer)

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