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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   32019 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025

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The suggestion that China was ever respecting ip is absurd. As a movie-lover, market stalls full of high quality bootlegs used to be one of the perks of visiting Hong Kong.

You're right that I don't exactly have a high opinion of chinese IP protections. Though honestly-- it's not like I'm currently respecting chinese (or japanese, or korean) IPs either... R.I.P kissanime. But As /u/HalloweenSnarry guessed, I want to do away with any fig leaf, any pretense that IP law matters. It's a consummate waste for us all to be jumping through hoops, when increasingly it won't even be humans coming up with new ideas-- it'll be AIs, running on illegaly acquired training data.

The ONLY exception I'd make is for trademarks. I would actually protest against, as you called it, "Chinese Batman." The right to advertise a work as "Batman" should be restricted to original inventor, and their heirs-- a sort of maker's mark, used to guarantee authenticity. In contrast /u/HereAndGone mentioned the use of IP inside another property, and I'm fine with that.

As cannabis legalisation around the globe shows, even trivial inconveniences add up. Before legalisation, I thought legalizing was good but kind of pointless - it wasn't particularly hard to get nor did I expect to get into significant trouble even when caught (at least with the small amounts I had as a customer).

Now after legalisation, I actually lean towards it having been a mistake, bc consumption increased so much, especially in frequency, that it's both gotten really annoying to go over campus due to the smell and evidence is adding up that while occasional usage isn't problematic, daily usage is. At the very least, even assuming no long-term effects, a decent chunk of students is blasted out of their mind perpetually.

Presumably, GBRK is imagining something along the lines of straight-up unlicensed serious productions based on Western IP. Imagine a Chinese Batman that is functionally identical to the actual thing, but they just didn't pay Warner Bros. for any rights.

Imagine a Chinese Batman that is functionally identical to the actual thing, but they just didn't pay Warner Bros. for any rights.

Look at Indian movies, there is a South India director who is working on creating his own cinematic universe of superheroes inspired by native myths and traditions. The movie is great fun, it may not be as polished as Hollywood but it deliberately references Western superheroes and their influence on the villain of the story (he wants to be the Indian Batman or Spiderman and, let's say, goes too far in pursuit of that - the lesson from Bruce Wayne should not be "you need dead parents to motivate you, if you can't get them naturally store-bought is fine so arrange their deaths"!)

There need not be any clue that it's unofficial either. You could just release sequels to novels before the original author has a chance, under the author's own name, why not.

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