They mostly don't bother me. They don't particularly undermine the chances of selling the music or the anime and it's done without commercial interest. I've also seen some interesting actually filmed fan videos like this for example. In this case, it's obvious that the people who made it actually spent a fair amount of their own money to make it (16mm film and development is expensive for hobbyists).
Likewise, I don't have a big issue with the numerous home recording types who put out their personal version of their favourite commercial songs for free on YouTube. (other than perhaps drawing issue with the quality of the performances...) The reason the constitution establishes the idea of copyright to begin with is to advance the arts, not generate tons of money. Money flows as a necessary component of the advancement - it's a side effect not the goal. (Despite what today's major players think.) Folk performances of popular music is just part of that advancement to me.
The place where it becomes tricky to me is when the fan product leads to great commercial wealth, for example. Take Danger Mouse for example. The Grey Album was created (as the story goes) as a non-commercial mashup. Even though he never gained great wealth from the Grey Album itself, the fame it gained him has led to millions and millions of dollars. As a related hypothetical, take the version of Blue Monday that Orgy put out as few years ago and pretend that instead of releasing it commercially it was a free track they stuck up at MySpace and rode to millions and millions of downloads which in turn led to a large contract being signed for their first major label recording.
In both cases, neither artist could have become successful without the work they piggybacked on. How do you handle a situation like that "fairly" to all parties?
One of the big problems with today's society is that our laws and ethics have not been able to keep up with the rapid changes in technology and all of this is part of it. The core of our copyright laws were written when the idea of an audio recording or trivially copied text was an absurd fantasy. This will be further addressed in answer to Fishy's comment above when I have time.
They mostly don't bother me. They don't particularly undermine the chances of selling the music or the anime and it's done without commercial interest. I've also seen some interesting actually filmed fan videos like this for example. In this case, it's obvious that the people who made it actually spent a fair amount of their own money to make it (16mm film and development is expensive for hobbyists).
Likewise, I don't have a big issue with the numerous home recording types who put out their personal version of their favourite commercial songs for free on YouTube. (other than perhaps drawing issue with the quality of the performances...) The reason the constitution establishes the idea of copyright to begin with is to advance the arts, not generate tons of money. Money flows as a necessary component of the advancement - it's a side effect not the goal. (Despite what today's major players think.) Folk performances of popular music is just part of that advancement to me.
The place where it becomes tricky to me is when the fan product leads to great commercial wealth, for example. Take Danger Mouse for example. The Grey Album was created (as the story goes) as a non-commercial mashup. Even though he never gained great wealth from the Grey Album itself, the fame it gained him has led to millions and millions of dollars. As a related hypothetical, take the version of Blue Monday that Orgy put out as few years ago and pretend that instead of releasing it commercially it was a free track they stuck up at MySpace and rode to millions and millions of downloads which in turn led to a large contract being signed for their first major label recording.
In both cases, neither artist could have become successful without the work they piggybacked on. How do you handle a situation like that "fairly" to all parties?
One of the big problems with today's society is that our laws and ethics have not been able to keep up with the rapid changes in technology and all of this is part of it. The core of our copyright laws were written when the idea of an audio recording or trivially copied text was an absurd fantasy. This will be further addressed in answer to Fishy's comment above when I have time.
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