Dues to threats of copyright infringement lawsuits, this bakery now refuses to customize birthday cakes with the kids’ beloved images, e.g. if a kid wants a Nemo cake, too bad. After all, how dare that little hooligan punk kid want to “steal” the “property” of Disney et al.? What right does he have to have an orange fish on his cake? The Bill of Rights does not say anything at all about a right-to-put-an-orange-Nemo-resembling-fish-on-a-birthday-cake. Does it? No, I didn’t think so! (Thanks to Vince Dalessio)
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/3727/copyright-and-birthday-cakes/
Copyright and Birthday Cakes
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When I was little, my mom used to bake cakes for us for birthdays and holidays. I think that, to be safe, I need to find those old albums and burn the photos of those cakes, then also search my hard drives just in case the prints have been scanned. Finally, I will contact my doctor to make sure that no molecule of the cakes has made its way to my neurons. If so, then I shall need a lobotomy.
From what I understand, the song “Happy Birthday” is also copyrighted, so make sure no one from the recording industry catches you giving a private performance.
No, really, it’s true.
Yeah. And this is why you rarely hear it on TV movies and low budget films: to save money.
Copyright is just one more great tool for the rising national-socialist establishment to control people. There’s a reason legislators in Congress and many states are trying to make the penalties for casual copyright infringement worse than theft and rape.
I think clownfish can claim prior art. Just not the anthropomorphized variety.
Sure, then after you’ve won the suit brought by the multitudes of the Grade double-A non-producers, you can try to claim prior-debt to your lawyers and state-justice-monopoly court fees.
moove along cattle.
It is interesting to see this comment here. I would think that this issue to be one that Austrians agreed with governments and corporations on–after all it is about property rights, no? I am encouraged to see this here and hope that this disdain for the attempt to have corporations and governments control our every thought and expression is one place that the right and the left can agree. I will also note, contrary to the poster above, that the attempt to extend intellectual property rights, though it may seem like a national socialist reflex, is being sold on a very libertarian kind of argument about the importance of property. This makes me wonder why it would seem to you that owning culture is so abhorrent to you when owning any other kind of property seems so reasonable.
“I would think that this issue to be one that Austrians agreed with governments and corporations on–after all it is about property rights, no?”
What is “it”? WHAT is it that is all “about property rights?”
“I am encouraged to see this here and hope that this disdain for the attempt to have corporations and governments control our every thought and expression is one place that the right and the left can agree.”
The left can go to hell, the evil bastards. They are not in favor of freedom of expression. The chilling effect on speech and expression due to left-fostered laws and policies (such as anti-discrimination laws, speech codes, affirmative action, egalitarianism, etc.) has been astounding.
“I will also note, contrary to the poster above, that the attempt to extend intellectual property rights, though it may seem like a national socialist reflex, is being sold on a very libertarian kind of argument about the importance of property. This makes me wonder why it would seem to you that owning culture is so abhorrent to you when owning any other kind of property seems so reasonable.”
Because the problem as some of us libertarians see it, with IP, is that is is not property. If you assign property rights in things that are not property, then you actually dilute real property rights. It is socialists and leftists who continually do just that, by inventing and promoting rights to things that are not really rights. For example if you have a right to a job, this can only be instantiated by invading the property rights of taxpayers or employers, to force them to hire or employ or subsidize the right holder. Everyone who advocates rights other than strict property rights are criminals to some extent–socialists and IP advocates alike.
Posted by: Sean at June 19, 2005 11:58 PM
“If you assign property rights in things that are not property, then you actually dilute real property rights.”
This is a completely arbitrary statement. If there is success in this push for IP, two hundred years from now no one will question it–just as you assume that there is such a thing as “real property rights” they will assume that culture has always been owned by the first person who filed a government patent on it. This is the slippery slope you’re walking down. As soon as people become commodities traded on a labor market and land can be appropriated by the most powerful, the logical conclusion is the ownership of our consciousness in the form of intellectual property. I’d love to hear your arguments for western corporations owning water in Africa. Is this also diluting property rights or a reasonable protection against the tragedy of the commons?
“This is a completely arbitrary statement.”
Mr. Kinsella’s statement is not arbitrary, and I’m certain you could understand what he meant.
In the case of “intellectual property”, if you pretend one man has the right to control the societal distribution and proliferation of ideas and information – which are not really property at all – then you dilute real property rights. I am no longer allowed to use my computer, my TV, my DVD player, my blank CDs, and my own data as I wish, because hundreds of companies hold thousands of copyright and patent claims that interfere with my property. IP and true property rights are completely at odds with each other, and only one is consistent with personal liberty.
Why should you point a metaphorical gun at my head and tell me which ideas I may and may not distribute or share with other people, using my own equipment? Who is violating personal rights, you or me? It’s hardly arbitrary.
In response to Paul D… I agree almost completely with your statement. My point is that property rights in general are an arbitrary construction that you claim exists in the real world in the same way that these media corporations claim they own the ideas in your head that that they have “created.” My only point is that it can’t “dilute real property rights” because it is of the same character as those property rights, only more recent: an imposition of a social institution by a powerful group with its own interests in mind. This is what it looked like to English serfs and peasants two to three hundred years ago when some folks started talking about property rights for land. Get used to it. UNtil everything in the universe is bought, sold, or decimated, you’ll always be surprised at the next fictitious commodity.
I see, so you’re arguing that even real property rights are arbitrary. I guess I’ll have to disagree with you there.
I’m confused. Based on the original statement I assumed we were talking about copyright infringement…not IP rights. What is the line between the 2? I ask because I am a cake decorator and have recently had to start to deal with these issues because of my former employers vindictiveness. She is trying to prevent me from posting pictures of any cakes I did while working for her. Now I think that is a matter of IP rights. Since I had her permission to take the pictures I am in the middle of determining what rights I have to show them in different settings. Then there is the question of whether I can actually copy the cakes for profit.
The reality in the cake business now is that, copyrighted character cakes are done ALL the time. True, grocery stores do character cakes only using the kits provided by disney, etc. But private bakeries still do them all the time. I guess it is somewhat risky…Ive never heard of anyone getting sued.
As far as intellectual property, there is so much copying in the industry. It is considered the industry standard. most cake artists are thrilled with the idea that they would have a cake design published and that brides from all over would be copying it. How many brides dont come into a consultation with the decorator with out pictures of cakes they like? And eveyone I know has a portfolio of their work…except me, because my former boss is a vindictive …..
eeyore
Self-distrust is the cause of most of our failures.
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