nina paley vs. copyright insanity
Posted by dermot on January 6, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Nina Paley was (I believe) the first animator to make a short film using Flash - several years ago. Her latest piece is “Sita Sings the Blues”.
She set the film to music recorded in the 1920s. Although the song recording is in the public domain, it turns out that the song is STILL under copyright. Nina has to raise $50,000 to get limited rights to the recording - a tall sum for a solo artist.
Account Here on boingboing.net.
Note that many of the commentators on that BoingBoing like just don’t get it. There’s a snide tone to many - clearly people devoid of any creative juices - small-minded parasites, essentially.
Anyhow, Nina is working on raising the required funds - and ultimately hopes to release the film under “copyleft” - as opposed to “copyright”:
The main reason why the copyright laws are so gruelling is thanks to our old friend, Walt Disney (or the ghastly creatures who now run his company). Thanks to that corporation’s desire to retain copyright over Mickey Mouse, they have successfully pushed the lifespan of copyright - essentially freezing it forever.
Ironic, as Disney made himself rich by using public domain properties with names like “Snow White”, “Cinderalla” and “Sleeping Beauty”. Good thing for him that the estates of Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm didn’t control copyright over those properties.
One law for them, another for the rest of us. And the Commons gets impoverished for everyone.
One Response to “nina paley vs. copyright insanity”
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I can’t do anything about it, but it’s nice to know that there’s a decent, hard working, creative person out there who’s being royally screwed by folks who have probably never listened to the song in question. It keeps me from being too nice to the suited people with whom I regularly interact.
I like her plan.
Sex Mahoney for President
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