Added two new character designs to my gallery. On a lark, I thought it'd be funny to make two cats named Astrophe and Aclysm (i.e.: cataclysm and catastrophe if you're slow) known for having bad luck or causing bad things to happen. I designed them and thought I could make a quick Flash short with them. I'm waiting on my friend, Jon Young, to come over to help me on the audio for it. Thought I could do audio on my own, but discovered I'm clueless about using my compressor/expander, so nope. The second piece is my attempt to make the Ninja Turtles look more like real tortoises. I did that a few months back and didn't get around to posting it. I'm also working on a character called "Psycho Billy" a ghoulish 1950's-Elvis-looking guy, so check back for that.
I noticed I put a copyright logo on the Ninja Turtles piece. I can't copyright that shit. What the hell was I thinking? I'm pretty sure I don't own the Ninja Turtles. That was dumb of me. Since I designed that piece, my attitudes about copyrights have changed anyway. I released Astophe and Aclysm under a Creative Commons Share-Alike (CC BY-SA) license and I plan to do that with any writing and art I do going forward which I intend to keep the rights to. I suspect studios won't buy pieces with that license, so I may not do that for all. I'm still figuring that out.
My attitude on copyright changed for two reasons: One was the arguments against intellectual property, the other was self-promotion. Reading some pieces (i.e.: one piece) by Stephan Kinsella, I was convinced the arguments for intellectual property don't make sense: Information is not scarce, IP intentionally creates a monopoly backed up by the force of law, information can't be possessed as a tangible item, IP requires a central repository to "prove" who owns the information, and IP is the only "property" whose rights expire with time. It's no surprise that over the years, media companies successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress to extend that time, which started at 14 years in 1790 and became (essentially) 120 years by 1998.
As for the second reason, my work isn't being seen as much as I liked, so it didn't make sense to me to limit how it could be shared. It occurred to me that public domain books are repeatedly re-imagined; Sherlock Holmes, Frankenstein, Dracula, and Shakespeare's works are regularly made into films and television shows every few years and those characters often appear in derivative works. The art lives on and is exposed to new generations in perpetuity. Compare this to other classics that are copyrighted; certainly it's not impossible to remake them too, and it may not be even difficult for experienced studios with savvy legal teams if the studio thinks it's worth it, but it can't be denied that the legal meandering is an extra burden. On top of that, an overly protective copyright holder can exercise unwanted creative input.
I jokingly tweeted the other day that I would write the sequel promised in the end credits of the 30 year old movie Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension myself. I was curious who owned the rights and did a little digging (i.e.: I spent about 10 minutes reading Wikipedia and Google) and according to an article interviewing writer-director W.D. Richter, MGM owns the rights, but David Begelman, who ran the film's original production company, was known for double dealing. Assuming MGM even wanted to relaunch the franchise, their legal team is concerned they'd invest all this money into it then discover that Begelman sold international rights to someone else. Thus, a cult classic and piece of intellectual property intangibly rests in the filings of a company afraid to do anything with it. It'll probably fade into obscurity as the people who appreciated it die off. When I think about why I got into art, it was because I wanted to leave a mark on the world with my ideas, spark the imagination of kids and kids-at-heart in the same way I was, take a person out of their world momentarily and into mine thus expanding the human experience. It wasn't to have something I worked hard on die off in a legal stalemate.
What about the money? I think if I'm clever enough, I can still make money. For example, a comic I am writing can be sold as limited run paper versions (since people actually collect comics) and free digital downloads for those who miss out. The price and quantity of the limited run would be determined by how much me, the other artists, printers, want and distribution costs involved. Unlike other indy titles, other people could contribute to its promotion by making their own derivative works without requiring my permission.
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