In the name of procrastination

Love it too much.

Copyright Cat, signing off.

Shameless filler

Long time no blog, and for that I apologise.  I've some fantastic articles in the works, but reality intervened and my poor alter ego has finals to deal with.  Final essay deadlines are within spitting distance, so I'll be back on the blogwagon as soon as I've ensured I don't fail all my classes.  In the meantime, random net-hunting for one of my research papers led me to this, which I thought I'd share:

An Orphaned Work is any creative work of art where the artist or copyright owner has released their copyright, whether on purpose, by passage of time, or by lack of proper registration. In the same way that an orphaned child loses the protection of his or her parents, your creative work can become an orphan for others to use without your permission.

If you don't like to read long articles, you will miss incredibly important information that will affect the rest of your career as an artist. You should at least skip to the end to find the link for a fantastic interview with the Illustrators' Partnership about how you are about to lose ownership of your own artwork.

Currently, you don't have to register your artwork to own the copyright. You own a copyright as soon as you create something. International law also supports this. Right now, registration allows you to sue for damages, in addition to fair value.
What makes me so MAD about this new legislation is that it legalizes THEFT! The only people who benefit from this are those who want to make use of our creative works without paying for them and large companies who will run the new private copyright registries.

These registries are companies that you would be forced to pay in order to register every single image, photo, sketch or creative work.

It is currently against international law to coerce people to register their work for copyright because there are so many inherent problems with it. But because big business can push through laws in the United States, our country is about to break with the rest of the world, again, and take your rights away.

With the tens of millions of photos and pieces of artwork created each year, the bounty for forcing everyone to pay a registration fee would be enormous. We lose our rights and our creations, and someone else makes money at our expense.

Original work copyright Mark Simon, columnist for the Animation World Network, and full article available here.

What with the finals and all, I haven't had time to do the necessary research and read all the incredibly boring official text I need to to properly comment on Mr Simon's rant there.  Initial impressions: Mr Simon sounds a little conspiracy-theorist, and it's hard to take him completely seriously when I can't help imagining him writing the article muttering under his breath with eyes wild and rolling, but there's definitely food for thought there.  If he's got his facts straight - and as yet I don't know if he has - it sounds like the US has started to interfere with artists' rights to original ownership of their work (via the nice, convenient, "Oops, did we forget to tell you where and when to register?" loophole).  Well, if it's true, Mr Simon's foaming at the mouth is quite justifiable.  At the very least, it seems un-Constitutional.

Research and further comment to follow: but first, wish me luck on these research papers!  Until then, this is Copyright Cat, signing off.

Big Brother is controlling your TV

According to boinboing.com,

The FCC has given Hollywood permission to activate the "Selective Output Control" technologies in your set-top box. These are hidden flags that allow the MPAA to deactivate parts of your home theater depending on what you're watching.

Full article here.  Read it - it's interesting.

To summarise - and a lot of the acronyms are a ways over my head, so this is just my reading - it seems that, if you find yourself watching something about which the FCC is feeling particularly protective, the aforementioned FCC can reach its digital hands into your computer and switch off the output that connects it to to your DVR or DVD recorder.  Theoretically, this is so that the MPAA can start releasing movies to TV earlier to compensate for dwindling cinema revenue, as people spend more time on the internet, On Demand and Netflix.  Practically, it means the FCC is watching what you're watching and can extend those digital fingers to your TV any time it damn well pleases.

Commentary on this development will follow when I've come out from under my bed and stopped quivering.

Ten things that used to be okay in kids' animated movies (spoileriffic)

A pleasant diversion, though this will tie in with why I hate Disney so much: I present Ten Things That Used To Be Okay In Kids' Animated Movies But Became Taboo Somewhere Around The Mid-Nineties.  Try saying that with your mouth full.  Spoilers abound, so don't say I didn't warn you.  Thanks to Cracked.com for format inspiration.

Some words on the history of copyright

This article, written by Shane Richmond for the Daily Telegraph and brought to my attention by a friend from Facebook, says some interesting things about the history of copyright, which celebrated its (official) 300th birthday last month.  I'll provide commentary about it later, but perhaps more interesting than the article itself is the debate going on in the comments section.  Have a read.

This is Copyright Cat, signing off.

Creative Commons Kitten

I'll continue with my anti-Disney tirade shortly, but until then, I'd like to introduce the first of my lovable sidekicks: Creative Commons Kitten.

Ain't she cute?

The giant mouse in the corner

In the spirit of shameless self-promotion, I was trawling Facebook for a while in search of new cohorts, when I came across a page entitled the "anti-Disney Channel", which momentarily had me clapping my hands with glee.  I hate the Disney Channel with a fiery passion.  Their programming is dull and insipid, they're grossly manipulative of their target demographic, and when they show one of the old classics they put commercial breaks in the middle of big musical numbers (or change the lyrics to the opening song of Aladdin).  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Ah, the irony

Research on internet copyright debate made me realise I should probably state the following, even knowing full well how laughably ironic it is:

All writing and art on this site is copyright Copyright Cat.  No one may reproduce, sell, or pass off as their own anything contained here, without express permission from myself, Copyright Cat.  Trespassers will be prosecuted, etc, etc, etc.

Had to get that out of the way.  Now, having said that, don't go running away in terror.  I'm ranting and raving about copyright for a reason, and if you like what I write enough to copy-paste some into an e-mail and pass it on, go ahead.  If you like my little comics and want to print some out and make a flipbook out of them, I can only be flattered (though the longer I can stay off Rule 34, the happier I'll be).  I'm not planning on being a tyrant.  In fact, if it weren't a big enough subject to warrant it's own post or twenty, I'd say my part about fair use right now (more on that later).

Here's what I won't tolerate:

Why copyright extension affects more than just Rule 34

For anyone who doesn't know, Rule 34 runs thusly: if it exists, there is porn of it.  That's right, as soon as anyone realises this blog exists, there will no doubt be graphic depictions of Copyright Cat and Steroid Mickey engaging in a very different type of wrestling.  Yeah, let that image fester for a while.

Anyone who didn't go peroxide their eyeballs might be interested to know that, with the exception of those using characters definitively in the public domain, every single instance of Rule 34 is illegal.  Most of it is not for profit (though I'm sure there are students who paid their way through art school by selling doodles of Jessica Rabbit

Self-portrait

In case anyone was wondering what I look like when I'm not getting clobbered by mice on performance-enhancing drugs. I may have to acquire myself a lovable sidekick.

Cranky Mickey, pt. 2

Continued from Cranky Mickey, pt 1:

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is what alerted Walt Disney to the finer issues of creative ownership.  That's right, copyright paranoia is perhaps the only thing the Disney company still actively uses that dates directly back to Walt himself.

In 1927, Walt signed with Universal Studios, headed by Charles B Mintz, to produce a series of shorts.  Together with his creative partner, Ub Iwerks, Walt came up with the character of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a lovable, impish rogue who got into a bunch of scrapes and worked his way out of them through sheer, floppy-eared charisma.  All went well for a year or so, and then

Cranky Mickey, pt. 1

Divided into two parts, because I got carried away and this is seventeen times as long as it should have been:

About fifteen seconds before beginning to write this, some random blog-hopping put me on to this.  For anyone whose RSI prevents them from clicking the link, Disney plans to re-imagine Mickey Mouse.  That's right, in a scene right out of the Manchurian Candidate

Who is Copyright Cat?

Aaaand...we're online!

Ladies and gentlereaders, if I could please direct you to my mission statement, there you will find a thrilling tale of trust and betrayal, heroism and...oh, who am I kidding.  Head over there and read it.

In the meantime, my name is Copyright Cat, and when I'm not ranting and raving about the sorry state of copyright law in the USA and UK, I'm an emerging writer, artist and animator.  Generally speaking, that just gives me more reasons to rant and rave about the sorry state of copyright law.  I'm all for artists being able to profit from their work.  I'm even for artists being able to exclusively profit from their work...up to a point.  I'm not too fussy about where that point is.  Maybe ten years after publication/release.  Maybe fifty.  Maybe the day, minute and second the originator clutches his or her chest and keels over dead in the kitchen.  Oh hell, maybe even long enough to pay for the funeral.  But fifty, seventy, a hundred years (or near enough) after said originator is a maggot-ridden cadaver?  Say what you will, I don't think I'll really appreciate additional revenue once I'm dead.  And my kids?  Well, that's kind of the point.  One of the reasons we're in the economic outhouse we're in is that people don't know how to manage money.  They don't save, they don't invest, and they die leaving their kids nothing but pennies and spiderwebs.  Now, for all I know, I'll be just as dim once I've paid off my student loans, but here's the deal: if I haven't taken steps to provide for them while I'm alive, or at least given them the tools to provide for themselves once I'm dead, then I've done something wrong.

Besides, the very sad fact of the matter is that extended copyright protection has absolutely zip to do with providing for the artist's kids.  The protection is there for publishing houses, studios, and powerhouse corporations like Disney.  Let's say, for example,