On the “Blood and Sand” gang
Andrew Hobbs writes: Re. “Roll on, #SummerofNazis” (Wednesday)
I am ashamed to say this is my first time writing in to Crikey despite being a long-time subscriber.
However, even as a non-viewer of the show I did know that the “Blood and Sand” tattoos on the surfers of Summer Bay are indicative of the “River Boys” – a Bra Boys-inspired gang who originally started in 2011, if this SMH article is anything to go by.
I suspect the lingering shot indicates that some equally handsome yet troubled young man of a similar intellectual and sporting bent has arrived in Summer Bay to enact revenge on some poor soul and ultimately be tamed by love (or eaten by a shark).
Given the obvious comparison to the Sydney gangs the #SummerofNazis statement is perhaps not an inaccurate one, but the closing line of “it pays to do your research” was too good to pass up.
On copyright in the TPP
Jackie French writes: Re. “Rundle: the anti-democratic rot at the heart of the TPP” (Wednesday)
If I build a house or make a chair, I can leave my work to my grandchildren. Why does Rundle then think it ‘ridiculous’ that an author’s work should be copyright for 70 years after their death? Is the work of the mind worth so much less than the work of the hands? He may not like paying a (reasonable) fee for copyrighted work. I would like free ice-cream, too. And chocolate. But I accept that if others make these, I must pay for them. A book — and authors’ work — are just as much “theirs” as any physical artefact.
On the new “tech bubble”
Laurie Patton writes: Re: Investing like it’s 1999: when will the new tech bubble burst? (Wednesday)
Having witnessed the crash of ’87 and briefly run a ‘dot com disaster’ in the early 2000’s it was nice to see someone in the media looking at the facts. A company’s should be valued on revenue multiples not on the number of news releases they produce.
Hmm. Jackie French’s analogy is hardly sound. An inherited chair can be enjoyed in the same way that an inherited unpublished manuscript might be enjoyed – for its immediate utility and for its emotional link to the person that made it. Inherited copyright over published work is the right to control the publishing and distribution of the book/song/whatever, and is something very different.
As someone who was until relatively recently still benefiting from royalties on works written by my great grandfather long before I was born, I think that copyright periods in the UK and in Australia are already far too long, and extending them further would be a major mistake. Culture depends on successive generations building on the creative work of previous generations (and almost no popular cultural works were created in a vacuum – every novelist or songwriter owes a creative debt to their predecessors). There is plenty of evidence to suggest that moving works into the public domain encourages and fuels further creative work that can build upon it, to the benefit of all. Copyright for the lifetime of the author – fair enough, if that’s how long it can take to get a fair return on the effort. Partway into the next generation? Maybe, especially if the author dies before their progeny reach earning age. But beyond that? In my book it’s hard to justify when someone like me is still getting paid for work done by a man who not only never met me, but who died long before my parents even met each other.
Jackie,
I don’t have any objections to copyright extending for 70 years after the death of an author, but the work should be avaible for legal purchase. If a work is out of print for a certain period, say 20years, then copyright should be extinguished, regardless of whether the author is dead or alive.
I’m thinking of ‘Memoirs of an Invisible Man’ by HF Saint, which has been out of print for decades. Nowadays, it should be easy to keep a book, and works in general, available to be legally purchased by providing an electronic version on the Internet.
Jackie
actually all i did was point out that the 70 year rule (up from 50 years) was at the behest of Disney, and other big media, who want their perennials – like animation features – kept in copyright.
Copyright ownership isnt like real objects -an icecream, a chair – at all. Only one person can have the latter at one time (or just once). A text can be copied without original loss – so everyone can have it. There’s no moral right of ownership – simply notions of a desirable arrangement that allows authors to control their own product during their life, and to perhaps have some notion of it as providing an income for dependents after death. Id pull it back to 20 years myself, and thus allow texts to circulate freely, and faster.