Angelo, Copyright & more (not all OT)

Eta Beta eega at supereva.it
Fri Apr 20 13:46:39 CEST 2001


Let's start with the hot topic...

OK, Angelo has made a mistake, very likely a rather serious breech
of netiquette, but did he kill anybody ?

He's been insulted way beyond his faults, imho, and it's hardly
surprising to me that he felt compelled to reply on the same level
of virulence, which in turn generated even more hatred...

Let's please regain some sense of proportions, folks...


Nevertheless, I must say that I'm rather pleased whenever the shit
hits the fan on the matter of copyright laws...

I'm not criticizing the concept of intellectual property, far from
it, but very few seem to realize that current laws are mostly tailored
to protect the rights of the big dogs, leaving the rest of us up shit
creek... (OK, enough with foul language, now :-)

I don't know whether this happens in other countries, but here in
Italy part of the price for a *blank* recording medium goes to the
local Copyright Society (SIAE), which in turn shares that money
with record companies... that's because it is assumed that one would
ALWAYS use such media to make illegal copies of copyrighted material...
now, what if I record my own music on tapes or CDs ? What if I make
a movie of my children or pets ? Is it fair that I have to pay the
Sony or Columbia or whomever for that ? Why, for Pete's sake ? Because
they have the power to have such laws enforced, that's why, surely
not because that's *right*, nor *fair*...

What's more, the fee for joining, and being "protected" by said SIAE
is so high that most fairly unsuccessful musicians, like indeed yours
truly, cannot afford it... some choose to cheat, and it is a common
practice for gigging musicians to exchange songs they composed, but
never recorded, to be put in the playlists that one MUST fill for every
gig, even if they don't actually perform that song, just in order to
earn a few cents that would allow them, at the end of the year, to pay
the fee, because one never loses the faith of, one day, landing a
decent recording contract...

But what happens if one does ? That the record company owns those
rights, then, leaving only bread crumbs to the actual author...

This is just about the same situation Don Rosa often mentions about
his own work...

So, our fairly unsuccessful musician decides to go independent, and
wants to put up a web site as showroom for his music, but he cannot
afford professional services, so he tries with some "freebie" host...
only to discover that he's not allowed to upload MP3s, the only
viable format to distribute music on-line...

Again, WHOSE rights are being protected, here ? Surely not mine...

So, blessed be the internet, napster and all the pirates out there,
if they throw a brick into the still waters of copyright laws,
hoping that would sooner or later bring to a total revision of
the matter by some authority, possibly *international*...

Sorry about this long rant, I've been frustrated by these matters
for a long time...


Back to Disney now...

SOEREN, thanks for bringing up the subject of more varied discussions
on more characters and authors... it's been quite successful, even
though there have been more messages about the blood relation
between Scrooge and Grandma, and which is better between Barks and
Gottfredson... it's just that we like to nitpick on these kind of
details... :-)

I personally don't care much... I mean, I've grown up with a tradition
of Grandma being Scrooge's sister for some 30 years before Don Rosa
popped up saying she's not, so what ? The blood-relation was instrumental
to some *good*, old Italian stories, while its non existence was the same
to some *good* Rosa stories, why would I have to choose ?
I don't care, I appreciate *good* stories, period.

I think an excess of consistency would, in the long run, limit an
author's creativity...

Also, I strongly refuse to pick up one among Barks and Gottfredson,
they're totally different and I like them both. And Scarpa, and
Don Rosa, completing my own Disney Pantheon...


On a final note, I welcome the noticeably increased number of female
Disney fans among us... comics is not a man's world, hooray !  :-)


Cheers

Eta Beta



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