Christian Filmmakers

Tom - pornography is in the eye of the beholder (literally - an image is meaningless unless viewed and reacted to) - which is evidenced by the number of people here and elsewhere who see Michaelangelo’s statue of David as primarily “homoerotic porn.”

James - so are you willing to give your house back to whoever owned it 49 years ago with no compensation or recompense?

Cheers,
Calix

(...the siren call of 168 beckons…)

Obviously what happened to the Wolverine movie is just plain wrong and evil.  It’s theft and I hope the criminals are found and prosecuted and that the websites who play the movie for their audiences will also be punished.  I remember when the office of Indy Jones got broken into and they stole some photos that many websites did the right thing and did not publish the photos online.  I think we’ll see a lot of websites doing the right thing… at least I hope.  I know that movieweb sometimes posts videos of various movies and then pulls them off at the “request” of the distributor.  When the first minutes of The Dark Knight went public in Imax theaters as a preview before I think it was “I am Legend”, someone posted it online and recorded it with their camcorder (or phone?) and they had it up there probably because they viewed it as an advertisement for the film… but still they pulled it off at the request of the distributor.

Eric, I hope that Christians don’t treat Mickey Mouse different than Veggietales.  Stealing from a Christian is no different than stealing from someone who is not Christian.  It should grieve our hearts when anyone steals from anybody.  We should not justify stealing from a company even if they were evil… because then we become as evil as they are.  And I’m not saying that Disney is evil.  What I’m saying is that even if some Christians view Disney as evil, they should not justify stealing from Disney because they view it as evil.  It’s a wonderful Life would not have been a great film is George turned around and stole the money back from Mr. Potter too get even.  It was George’s integrity that made him the hero of the film.

The difference in this situation is that Walt has long passed away and the company had gone the limit according to original intent of the founders copyright law.  Mr. Vischer, if he still owned the rights to them is still living and Veggietales is rather young compared to Steamboat Willy which is becoming almost as old as a horse drawn carriage.

Public Domain is actually a hard issue to rule on according to Scripture if you really think about it.  Business and art was a lot different even in the days of the founders and there was no Internet and no film and no radio nor CDs or Computers.

Yes, Calix, I understand what you’re saying and I’d love to continue debating about what is and isn’t porn, but I doubt this thread will survive and it’s definitely different subject for another day which will only take this thread on a nasty rabbit trail.

I think this thread is approaching the end of its life. Let’s try and keep it on topic and related to Christian Filmmaking, please, or I’m going to go ahead and close it.

Also, please keep in mind that we do have some younger people browsing this forum. Please choose your subject matter and language carefully with this in mind.

Thanks.

~Rob

Regarding the illustration of a house - there’s quite a bit of difference between intellectual property and something like a house.

A better parallel would be comparing the house to a physical copy of a DVD. You bought the physical copy 49 years ago, you keep the physical copy.

Probably at the heart of this discussion is this: The founders thought there was value in having a public domain, balanced with giving intellectual property creators several years to profit from their work.

Is there anyone here who believes that (say) Mickey Mouse and VeggieTales should never go into the public domain, ever? Or are we just going back and forth over how long copyright should last?

Should have known socialism was a key word for starting a discussion of the economy and politics. 

Socialism, in general, is the idea that what belongs to one person should belong to all.  That it belongs to a society (thus the root of the word).

To think that one person’s or one group’s work should be available to whosoever will is a socialist philosophy.  As Calix stated, you can already express the same thought, concept or story as a copyrighted work, you just can’t express the same specifics.

And since that’s the case, why do we need to be so greedy as to demand access to someone else’s work?

The Scriptures do not promote socialism.  They promote owners of property being very giving.

Exactly.  But nowadays, the non-owners feel that they are entitled to receive more than the owners are giving.  That’s the problem with a lot of left-wing law is that, while its intentions (help for the poor and needy, etc.) are good, its methods are wrong.  It is no man’s right to tell another man that he must share what he has created or earned by his own labor.

And if we put an expiration date on inheritances, then Israel should really belong to whosoever will.  Abraham has been dead for 6,000+ years.

Rob Tull wrote:

I think this thread is approaching the end of its life. Let’s try and keep it on topic and related to Christian Filmmaking, please, or I’m going to go ahead and close it.

Erm… it is on topic.  This is the one thread that hasn’t left its original topic.  And copyright law is related to filmmaking, Christian or otherwise.

Daniel Mount wrote:

Regarding the illustration of a house - there’s quite a bit of difference between intellectual property and something like a house.

A better parallel would be comparing the house to a physical copy of a DVD. You bought the physical copy 49 years ago, you keep the physical copy.

Probably at the heart of this discussion is this: The founders thought there was value in having a public domain, balanced with giving intellectual property creators several years to profit from their work.

Is there anyone here who believes that (say) Mickey Mouse and VeggieTales should never go into the public domain, ever? Or are we just going back and forth over how long copyright should last?

You create a house.

You create a film.

Difference please?

And yes, I believe that copyrights should extend until that eternity which is fast approaching, unless the copyright holder decides otherwise.

A house is a physical creation, much like a DVD is. I do not advocate free distribution of physical creations.

I believe that intellectual properties are another matter. I agree with the Founding Fathers that an expiration date on copyrights contributes to the spread of knowledge and intellectual development.

That said, my most significant creation has been a book, and the value of the public domain in book research is far greater than its value in filmmaking.

I’m not sure how my being able to make a movie about Mickey Mouse without Disney having any say in it - creatively or financially - is going to benefit anyone.

So would that be saying that the material is of greater value than the immaterial, or should be protected as such?

If so, then one could argue that, given that religion is not physical, it should have limits and regulations placed on it.

Speech?  Well, it benefits the public for people to not use words like “sinner” and “savior” and “god” and all.  We’ll just regulate that too.

My friend, the immaterial far outweighs the material.  You can take my house, my keys and my card.  But if you touch my story, There Will Be Blood.