Quote:
Originally Posted by premiumcapture
Something interesting I've recently learned - almost all VHS/DVD releases in the US were required to have copyright warnings attached, however, not all programs, especially small release ones, were copyrighted. Lacking copyright, it would be legal to copy all these videos after the waiting period (5 years to give the creator time to register).
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Sneaky, isn't it?
Several companies have gone farther than that, and have threatened to sue (but NEVER actually do!) anyone caught "infringing" on their make-believe copyrights. They don't actually own it, but claim they do!
For example, lots and lots of comic books and radio shows are NOT copyrighted, yet some company claim to own them. For radio shows, a company may release 2-3 one-track/episode cassettes or CDs (ever, total!) then claim the whole library of dozens or even 100s of episodes as theirs. Comic scanners may get bogus copyright notices, yet no official licensed product exists, and never will.
Then you have companies like Harmony Gold, which take this kind of a-holery to another level yet. They licensed the original Macross back in the early 80s. Yet 30+ years later, they still claim both it AND all subsequent works that did not yet exist. And it is very likely that they are in the wrong! But because they threaten to sue, and because anime dubbing is a budget business, nobody goes to court over it. It's a really shady company -- most recently with ties to the Berlusconi scandal.
Recently HG had the audacity to ask fans for money. I wrote more about that here:
http://www.tvpast.org/forum/toons-su...ies-works.html
Because of HG, we can never get toys, comics dubbed cartoons, etc, for all of Macross.
Rights are a murky area full of shady companies being copyright trolls.
