There really needs to be a cut-off point for this kind of thing.
Rushing to finish a project by tomorrow morning, but I need to get this out of my head because it's:
1. Too long for Twitter.
2. Probably going to be in my mind forever.
But basically, I started thinking about law in a fandom universe, and for once, I wasn't stuck on the goddamn "so how old can trainers be before they start their journey" question. Because that's the stupidest question you could dwell on.
In any case, in one of my awesomesauce classes, we learned about copyright. Not just tonight, but I had brain sparks tonight in particular.
For you foreign folks and non-law-oriented folks, let me just put it in brief. American copyright laws are really fucking weird. So weird that even people in publishing can't make heads or tails of them half the time unless they're specifically trained to. But in particular, let's forget about creative commons, digital copyright law, fair use, and public domain (all of which were fun topics). Let's talk about one teensy little law that's in effect in this corner of the world.
Basically, if you create a work that can be copyrighted while you're on company grounds and/or using company equipment, the copyright holder is technically the company itself. The reason why is because if you're using company property -- time or tangible -- the company can claim that whatever is made with it is also company property. This is pretty important because if you can only file a copyright claim on something you own. If you don't own it because it's company property, then you can't copyright it. Also note that nowadays, copyright is automatic, so if you've created it and if some other entity can claim it as their property legally, then that entity automatically claims copyright. That basically means that if you write an article on a company computer and on company grounds, then the company can claim that article as their property because you used company property to create that work. No, it doesn't make sense, but that's copyright for you.
But where it gets even more fun is the fact that "company" has many meanings in the United States. For example, a company can be what's traditionally thought of as a company (as in, a corporation, a cubicle forest, and so forth), or it could be something like a hospital, a museum, a newspaper, or a school. In fact, for those of you who are in college or grad school, you most likely have a set of guidelines notifying you that anything you produce while in school and using the institution's space and equipment can be claimed by the school as part of its property.
Moreover, the term "creation" is pretty flexible too. It not only extends to the obvious -- the creation of a work through mediums deemed artistic, including written mediums, film, art, music, and so forth -- but also to things like research and computer programs (but not actual inventions or methods of doing things, as those are covered under patent law).
I think you know where I'm heading with this. Because where else would I be heading?
(See, the fun thing about having a fanfiction universe that doesn't center around a trainer is that you end up realizing, "Oh shit, he's not a trainer." Which means you get to develop all kinds of fun headcanon to cover everything he would know.)
Now, to be fair, much of the fanfic world that I write about is based on Japan, so they'd be using Japanese copyright laws (or ones based loosely on those). The unfortunate thing to note about the above is that they're not at all international laws, and a lot of this is based on the more recent WTFery the US has committed in the name of protecting property rights. The downside is that apparently, Japan has its own set of extremely complicated WTFeries going on protecting their copyright laws (including the fact that ACTA is apparently an actual Thing over there), but I don't have time to go through everything and decipher it. Especially because, well, project.
The other downside is I found this page, and it says this:
Article 15. (1) The authorship of a work (except a program work) which, on the initiative of a legal person or other employer (hereinafter in this Article referred to as "legal person, etc."), is made by his employee in the course of his duties and is made public under the name of such legal person, etc. as the author shall be attributed to that legal person, etc., unless otherwise stipulated in a contract, work regulation or the like in force at the time of the making of the work.
(2) The authorship of a program work which, on the initiative of a legal person, etc. is made by his employee in the course of his duties, shall be attributed to that legal person, etc., unless otherwise stipulated in a contract, work regulation or the like in force at the time of the making of the work.
You know what those bolded bits mean? The same thing they do in the US.
This probably explains why a lot of researchers in the Pokémon world (yeah, fuck it, that's the fandom) work outside of an organization, in their own laboratories. If, well, anyone thought about that because who thinks about copyright?
Or, well, it's my headcanon that that's why, anyway.
Except there's one little snag, isn't there? There's just one person who canonically works for someone in at least two canon universes -- or at least submits his research to a higher organization -- riiiight?
That's right. That poor bastard.
While the Sea Cottage can claimed as a functioning laboratory (meaning anything created there and not submitted elsewhere is absolutely Bill's property), where Bill loses his claim to ownership (or potentially does, anyway) is in Special and Electric Tales. In the case of Special, he submits his papers to Celadon University (see the Yellow arc), which means that if copyright works the same way as it does in the real world, Celadon University can claim his research as its property (because, given that it comes in the form of research papers, they can be considered literary works). Meanwhile, in Electric Tales, he explicitly works for the Cutting-Edge Technology Research Center, so while they may not be able to claim his patents (because, again, patent law =/= copyright law, and I'm not hardcore enough to go read about Japanese patent law right now), they can claim any of his discoveries that he might make as a result of his work for them. And, well, the programming for the storage system because remember what I said earlier about computer code being considered a work of literature? Yeeeeeah.
This is, of course, assuming that he hasn't retained rights via his contract with them. Which, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't because he's Bill, and his stance on absolutely anything is "if it doesn't have to do with Pokémon, idgaf."
That and I like to make parallels between his character and The Fly franchise, and all of these ownership shenanigans is exactly why The Fly 2 happened even if I like to pretend that movie doesn't exist. You know how Bartok Industries claimed Brundle's work as their property? Yeah, actually, they could legally do that for reasons other than, "We bought this."
End result is I'm totally going to be thinking about the random side laws of my fanfic universe just to figure out whether or not Bill actually could get into legal shenanigans as a result... or if he would bitch up a storm over it.
ETA: To clarify, basically, the Japanese version of the law means that the creator does retain their right to property unless specified via contract or the regulations of the workplace. However, that in a sense means the same as it does in the United States, where that's a more implicit given. As in, at least in the US, the phrasing is normally reversed (in that the company owns the property automatically unless otherwise stated), but the situation is still the same in that it ends up being a case-by-case basis and dependent on a lot of fine print. If the norm in Japan (or Pokéverse Japan) is that most workplaces specify that all works produced on company grounds with company equipment are therefore company property -- just as most workplaces will tell you such in their fine print in the United States -- then it would still be safer to work from one's own privately run space. Also meaning Bill would still run at a risk of opting out of his ownership rights if he failed to read the fine print or read it and agreed to those terms anyway. ...Which means his research would still be the property of someone else, which could mean very interesting things if I'm an evil author. Which I am.
This entry was cross-posted from http://mercoledi.dreamwidth.org/106146.html.
1. Too long for Twitter.
2. Probably going to be in my mind forever.
But basically, I started thinking about law in a fandom universe, and for once, I wasn't stuck on the goddamn "so how old can trainers be before they start their journey" question. Because that's the stupidest question you could dwell on.
In any case, in one of my awesomesauce classes, we learned about copyright. Not just tonight, but I had brain sparks tonight in particular.
For you foreign folks and non-law-oriented folks, let me just put it in brief. American copyright laws are really fucking weird. So weird that even people in publishing can't make heads or tails of them half the time unless they're specifically trained to. But in particular, let's forget about creative commons, digital copyright law, fair use, and public domain (all of which were fun topics). Let's talk about one teensy little law that's in effect in this corner of the world.
Basically, if you create a work that can be copyrighted while you're on company grounds and/or using company equipment, the copyright holder is technically the company itself. The reason why is because if you're using company property -- time or tangible -- the company can claim that whatever is made with it is also company property. This is pretty important because if you can only file a copyright claim on something you own. If you don't own it because it's company property, then you can't copyright it. Also note that nowadays, copyright is automatic, so if you've created it and if some other entity can claim it as their property legally, then that entity automatically claims copyright. That basically means that if you write an article on a company computer and on company grounds, then the company can claim that article as their property because you used company property to create that work. No, it doesn't make sense, but that's copyright for you.
But where it gets even more fun is the fact that "company" has many meanings in the United States. For example, a company can be what's traditionally thought of as a company (as in, a corporation, a cubicle forest, and so forth), or it could be something like a hospital, a museum, a newspaper, or a school. In fact, for those of you who are in college or grad school, you most likely have a set of guidelines notifying you that anything you produce while in school and using the institution's space and equipment can be claimed by the school as part of its property.
Moreover, the term "creation" is pretty flexible too. It not only extends to the obvious -- the creation of a work through mediums deemed artistic, including written mediums, film, art, music, and so forth -- but also to things like research and computer programs (but not actual inventions or methods of doing things, as those are covered under patent law).
I think you know where I'm heading with this. Because where else would I be heading?
(See, the fun thing about having a fanfiction universe that doesn't center around a trainer is that you end up realizing, "Oh shit, he's not a trainer." Which means you get to develop all kinds of fun headcanon to cover everything he would know.)
Now, to be fair, much of the fanfic world that I write about is based on Japan, so they'd be using Japanese copyright laws (or ones based loosely on those). The unfortunate thing to note about the above is that they're not at all international laws, and a lot of this is based on the more recent WTFery the US has committed in the name of protecting property rights. The downside is that apparently, Japan has its own set of extremely complicated WTFeries going on protecting their copyright laws (including the fact that ACTA is apparently an actual Thing over there), but I don't have time to go through everything and decipher it. Especially because, well, project.
The other downside is I found this page, and it says this:
Article 15. (1) The authorship of a work (except a program work) which, on the initiative of a legal person or other employer (hereinafter in this Article referred to as "legal person, etc."), is made by his employee in the course of his duties and is made public under the name of such legal person, etc. as the author shall be attributed to that legal person, etc., unless otherwise stipulated in a contract, work regulation or the like in force at the time of the making of the work.
(2) The authorship of a program work which, on the initiative of a legal person, etc. is made by his employee in the course of his duties, shall be attributed to that legal person, etc., unless otherwise stipulated in a contract, work regulation or the like in force at the time of the making of the work.
You know what those bolded bits mean? The same thing they do in the US.
This probably explains why a lot of researchers in the Pokémon world (yeah, fuck it, that's the fandom) work outside of an organization, in their own laboratories. If, well, anyone thought about that because who thinks about copyright?
Or, well, it's my headcanon that that's why, anyway.
Except there's one little snag, isn't there? There's just one person who canonically works for someone in at least two canon universes -- or at least submits his research to a higher organization -- riiiight?
That's right. That poor bastard.
While the Sea Cottage can claimed as a functioning laboratory (meaning anything created there and not submitted elsewhere is absolutely Bill's property), where Bill loses his claim to ownership (or potentially does, anyway) is in Special and Electric Tales. In the case of Special, he submits his papers to Celadon University (see the Yellow arc), which means that if copyright works the same way as it does in the real world, Celadon University can claim his research as its property (because, given that it comes in the form of research papers, they can be considered literary works). Meanwhile, in Electric Tales, he explicitly works for the Cutting-Edge Technology Research Center, so while they may not be able to claim his patents (because, again, patent law =/= copyright law, and I'm not hardcore enough to go read about Japanese patent law right now), they can claim any of his discoveries that he might make as a result of his work for them. And, well, the programming for the storage system because remember what I said earlier about computer code being considered a work of literature? Yeeeeeah.
This is, of course, assuming that he hasn't retained rights via his contract with them. Which, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't because he's Bill, and his stance on absolutely anything is "if it doesn't have to do with Pokémon, idgaf."
That and I like to make parallels between his character and The Fly franchise, and all of these ownership shenanigans is exactly why The Fly 2 happened even if I like to pretend that movie doesn't exist. You know how Bartok Industries claimed Brundle's work as their property? Yeah, actually, they could legally do that for reasons other than, "We bought this."
End result is I'm totally going to be thinking about the random side laws of my fanfic universe just to figure out whether or not Bill actually could get into legal shenanigans as a result... or if he would bitch up a storm over it.
ETA: To clarify, basically, the Japanese version of the law means that the creator does retain their right to property unless specified via contract or the regulations of the workplace. However, that in a sense means the same as it does in the United States, where that's a more implicit given. As in, at least in the US, the phrasing is normally reversed (in that the company owns the property automatically unless otherwise stated), but the situation is still the same in that it ends up being a case-by-case basis and dependent on a lot of fine print. If the norm in Japan (or Pokéverse Japan) is that most workplaces specify that all works produced on company grounds with company equipment are therefore company property -- just as most workplaces will tell you such in their fine print in the United States -- then it would still be safer to work from one's own privately run space. Also meaning Bill would still run at a risk of opting out of his ownership rights if he failed to read the fine print or read it and agreed to those terms anyway. ...Which means his research would still be the property of someone else, which could mean very interesting things if I'm an evil author. Which I am.
This entry was cross-posted from http://mercoledi.dreamwidth.org/106146.html.