2012

Well it's now 2012 and things are still going along... I just felt like rambling... I know nobody reads this thing... Hi Dave!!! :)

I wanted to say something about Copyright, and Trademark law in the US, and about this recent SOPA thing... so basically we've got a lot of big corporations that make a lot of money claiming that people are stealing their intellectual property by downloading music, movies, etc. over the internet from people who did not create this content. The companies then claim they are protecting the rights of the artists, writers, creators, etc. of this property. I have recently thought of starting a small line of plush toys based off of some creatures that exist in the fantasy world of my book, "The Quest for the Emerald Leaf." However, in order to get "fully protected" I would have to go through a fairly arduous process of getting a Trademark from the Government, which costs upwards of over $400.00 and with no guarantee that I will get one just b/c I paid and filed in advance... etc. etc, so I think we small business creators, artists, etc. need to pick a bone with large coporations that it is difficult to get fully protected by the US government for new products not backed by huge corporations and that if the big corporations concede they are being stolen from they must in return help and nurture all of us artists not currently affiliated with a large corporation so that we too may be reasonably protected. But of course I don't think what these companies really want is protection for artists. Disney doesn't mind stealing the idea of whales swimming through the air/starlight from someone I know, and who is a fantastic animator whose work has been seen by so many other animators it's fairly clearly a decent case to be made on his part that SOMEBODY borrowed this from HIM, an ARTIST... this segment can be seen in Fantasia 2000, as well as in my good friend, John Teton's animated film "Brae She'et," which came earlier. Disney doesn't have to pay him b/c they have the money NOT to do it.

Who wants to go through an arduous legal battle with a corporate giant even if you do have a valid case? It sucks... so we should not let them sway us with their "POOR US... we can't pay our artists b/c people illegally download things..." besides... there are statistics on both sides. By this statement I mean that though they have their "we lose money stats..." they totally hypothetical anyway... basically they go to the government and say something like "10,000 people illegally copied/downloaded this song, and I could have sold that song for $1.00 each on itunes so they stole $10,000.00 from ME!!!"
But they CANNOT prove that ANY one of those people would have paid them $1.00 for the song had they not had they option to get it FREE, so this statistic is FALSE.

On the other hand there are REAL statistics that DO PROVE that people who download stuff "illegally" are more likely to actually buy the products and/or related products if they enjoy the thing they got for free. So maybe a better strategy for the big corporations is to STOP WHINING about the cake they made and didn't sell by not giving a free sample, and just give the FREE SAMPLE so that we can taste the cake and we'll probably BUY IT after we do. After all... what costs the most money in Hollywood is NOT PRODUCTION COSTS... it's PR... and that's the truth. After all... they give free samples in the supermarket... I don't see Nabisco complaining about people trying their cracker recipes... you see, many of these big media companies just do not provide certain products for "wide release" anyway... so they only way to get them AT ALL is to find them online somewhere... so Disney... stop complaining about the theft, and release stuff like SONG OF THE SOUTH on DVD... then maybe we'll respect you more. In other words... don't antagonize your customers... it's not good for business. And BTW... you also need to watch who you're "borrowing" from.