
A feud in wolf-kink erotica raises a deep legal question - pingou
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/23/business/omegaverse-erotica-copyright.html
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matheusmoreira
Archived page: [http://archive.vn/2siUk](http://archive.vn/2siUk)

> But they struggled to find a prior case that addressed whether fan fiction
> tropes could be protected by copyright.

All they had to do was ask Disney.

[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DisneyOwnsThisTr...](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DisneyOwnsThisTrope)

The copyright world is no stranger to ludicrous concepts like these.

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6gvONxR4sf7o
The whole present state of intellectual property law seems fucked. We need
some kind of intellectual property protection, since so much work is all just
bits and bytes these days. But we really don't seem to have gotten it right
yet.

Side rant: "intellectual property" is a terrible name for it. The regulations
are about copying implementations of ideas, rather then the ideas themselves.
Regulating usage of an idea is less self evidently good.

~~~
matheusmoreira
> We need some kind of intellectual property protection, since so much work is
> all just bits and bytes these days.

It's precisely because everything is bits and bytes that intellectual property
is absurd. All data is fundamentally just big numbers. We can even calculate
how big these numbers are:

    
    
      decimal_digits = ceil(bits * log10(2))
    

For example, a 20 kiB picture is a number with 49,321 decimal digits.

Intellectual property is an attempt to limit people's ability to know and tell
each other these numbers. Certain numbers have been declared illegal.

~~~
6gvONxR4sf7o
I don't think it makes IP fundamentally absurd. Amazon shouldn't be able to
copy the big new Disney movie and sell it itself, cutting Disney out, for
example. Even if they convert it from .mp4 to .mkv format or something making
it a brand new number. That movie is "just" a big number, yes, but we're
"just" meat and everything's "just" a big wave function and at some point we
have to decide that higher level concepts are the more useful domain to work
in.

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ikeboy
I've been tracking this case along with around a hundred others where people
have been sued for submitting infringement complaints to online marketplace
platforms.

[https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.213269...](https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.213269.1.0.pdf)
here's one that's similar in that it involves copyright on books, although it
was dismissed fairly quickly.

[https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17189170/the-
antitrend-...](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17189170/the-antitrend-
llc-v-patagonia-inc/) here's the most recent one, filed less than a week ago,
alleging harm to an Amazon storefront after false DMCA complaints.

Here's a relatively recent decision dismissing misuse claims in a case where
allegedly false DMCA claims were sent to Amazon.
[https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.519412...](https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.519412/gov.uscourts.nysd.519412.104.0.pdf)

[https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16562550/thimes-
solutio...](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16562550/thimes-solutions-
inc-v-tp-link-usa-corporation/) and here's a case I'm involved in, which
involved false counterfeit complaints to Amazon.

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dmurray
It can't be true that there are no precedents for this in intellectual
property law. Sure, Internet fan fiction is a modern phenomenon, but there are
plenty of examples where multiple authors draw from the same folk sources. For
example, I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to make an adaptation of _Snow White_ ,
the famous story told by the Brothers Grimm among others, and ignore letters
from Disney's lawyers. But if I call my supporting cast Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy,
Dopey, Sneezy, Bashful and Doc, Disney will win in court. Of course there are
grey areas and Disney could overreach, or I could be scared out of staging a
legitimate production, but I refuse to believe there is no precedent at all
here.

~~~
dharmab
Those old stories are in the public domain since they predate 20th copyright
law.

~~~
dmurray
Is that so different from the Omegaverse case? The earlier authors aren't
claiming copyright infringement there (that might actually make for a novel
case), the case is being fought between two authors both inspired by the same
source material.

~~~
dharmab
Even if you don't "claim" copyright, the work is still copyrighted. It is not
possible to release work into the public domain prematurely.

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ezoe
This is what I don't like about the common law. The copyright law of my
country, for example, explicitly defined what is copyrightable and what is
not. It's the expression that is protected by copyright law, not the mere
idea. Not by a bunch of existing case laws.

An mere idea like a man was bitten by an irradiated spider and got some super
natural power, or turtles by the age of 13-19 somehow mutated and become a
ninja is not protected, but the expression of such idea is.

~~~
chrismcb
Ideas aren't copyrightable. But certainly things are used to determine it a
story is a copy of another story

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sabujp
How are "deep legal questions"? There must be more data than just this and a
bunch of examples that don't really give a better explanation of the question.

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empath75
A knotty situation, to be sure.

~~~
gwern
I'm afraid you are infringing on Ms. Cain's copyright with your comment; only
she could possibly be so knowledgeable about canine reproduction as to make
such a joke.

