Hello and welcome.
My name is Christopher Chandler.
And my name is Chris Schauer and we are Generally American.
In our podcast, we discuss events, culture, whatever else we want from a
generally American perspective.
From our differing viewpoints, our goal is that we can offer others and ourselves
nuanced opinions on fascinating topics related to the U .S.
We invite you to be part of the discussion and we hope that you'll stick around to
see where the conversation takes us.
So let's dive in.
And...
We're live.
We finally are.
We needed to be, because I just had to stop myself around three or four times
from just jumping the gun on talking about podcast topics a little early.
I guess I'm rusty.
We were recording this a day later, and I guess that that's one day too much.
Yeah, but today's a special day, but we'll get into that here in a bit.
So as usual, the weather here has been pretty terrible.
I was kind of joking with my wife saying that it's...
pretty similar to England, because England's, I would say, infamous or famous
for its terrible weather.
And Germany's kind of the same way.
So I'm really looking forward to spring whenever it'll come around.
It's been pretty rainy and windy.
There's nothing really to do.
And every day I say I'm going to go out and go for a walk with my wife and my
daughter.
And every day we don't because it's just so cold and wet.
But yeah, but how about where you are?
Well, at least you have an excuse, so, excuse me.
For the last three or so weeks, we've been kind of having like a pseudo spring, like
it's been 40s to 60s a lot during the day.
And I kept telling myself I need to go take a walk and I only got around to it
when it was actually cold.
In the next few days, I think we have some snow and some high 20s, high of low 20s
coming.
So usually February is actually like one of the harsher winter months here, so.
I'm expecting it.
Yeah, I wish we had snow.
We had snow twice within like the past two or three months and that was really about
it.
It's just rain.
Yeah, so that's the...
Go on.
I was gonna say at least the contractors working on my place have put up more
siding now, so I have more insulation for when it actually gets colder.
Do you have curtains now?
I have blinds.
Oh, okay, blinds.
Because it's very...
because I work, you know, I work at home.
and I have a window right next to me and they put the ladder up on it and nail
siding there and it would be very uncomfortable if we had to make eye
contact all day.
Which I actually don't know when it gets really cold because when it was you know
below zero they weren't working.
I wonder what their temperature threshold is for working because it's gonna be it's
gonna be cold.
Yeah it's definitely not gonna be cold here.
But anyway that's that's it for the bi -weekly BIA national weather report if you
will.
But today's a special day.
We kind of touched on it.
It has something to do with your favorite sport.
Yes, and it wasn't intentional, but it happened a time out that we're recording
on Super Bowl Sunday.
Yes.
Which I'm very excited.
My Chiefs made it again.
Everybody hates us because we keep showing up.
And boy, did I see it this year.
Everybody hates us.
Yeah, so like everyone knows, I'm not really the biggest sports fan, so I'll
kind of let you take the lead for the next couple of minutes.
So...
So who's playing who?
Because honestly I haven't paid attention at all.
The only thing I've really seen is something about Taylor Swift going to or
flying to the Super Bowl.
That's about it.
So it's the San Francisco 49ers versus the Kansas City Chiefs.
Okay.
They are playing at a neutral site, but the two conferences that comprise the
league swap who is on paper the home team every year.
We're the home team this year, so that just means we get the nicer practice
facilities.
Because usually the host city has a professional team so the home team just
gets to use their facilities and the away team gets to use like a college
Facilities, which is what we did last year Okay, I Don't know if I got that so where
are they playing?
So where is it supposed to be?
Oh, they're playing in Vegas.
Oh, they're playing in big.
Okay, I didn't know that It's actually very exciting.
So the stadium in Vegas is on the strip or it's like right off the strip You can walk
there
When you're in some of the hotels and casinos, there are signs like, Allegiant
Stadium this way.
And you could just...
walk there.
It's pretty, it's pretty great.
And they're probably gonna broadcast it to like that new...
What do they call it?
Like the Vegas Eye?
Like the new Vegas building they built?
Like the huge globe?
Uh, I don't think they'll let you see it for free, but they've been putting some
stuff on there all week.
And uh...
The Sphere.
It's called The Sphere.
Oh, The Sphere.
Okay, thank you.
And...
uh, I don't...
I know it's kind of uh, it makes the news cycles every year but the cheapest tickets
are like $14 ,000.
Live?
God, that's a lot of money.
Well, what happened was they used to be just like a couple thousand or something
like that and then people scalped them for that much.
So the league was like, well if you're gonna pay that much, pay us.
I mean, I guess it's kind of fair, but not really.
Um, I don't know, I've never been to a live Super Bowl game, have you?
Oh god no.
I don't think most people can even afford it.
No, it's not for normal fans and that's fine.
We're doing the thing here.
Once we're done recording here, I'm gonna clean the house, get some Costco pizza
ordered.
I have some Kansas City themed cocktail, a caribou -loo, look it up, it's in a song.
Some other snacks and we're just gonna have a good time watching the game.
Oh.
Yeah, and so is that free to like to watch it on TV or do you have to have like a
sports package or something?
Oh, yeah, the it's it's on regular TV They they want the the big money draw for them
is the commercials the commercial spots are Insanely expensive so they want as
many eyeballs on those as possible.
Yeah, the commercials are legendary It's not free here.
Um, believe it or not.
It's actually pretty popular in Germany, too The problem is it's like it's in the
middle of the night and
I mean, I guess I kind of like football enough to like maybe watch it, but not at
like three in the morning.
Yeah.
Well, if you're what you're eight hours ahead, if I remember so kickoff is going
to be at like 30 minutes after midnight.
Yeah.
So it's pretty late, but you have a lot of diehard fans here in Germany who will, you
know, like take the day off, stay up in the middle of the night and like watch the
Super Bowl.
And it's not even like Americans, it's like Germans.
So it is.
Kind of popular here in Germany, which honestly I was really surprised.
Like when I first moved here, people were like, oh, like you're from the US, like,
hey, let's talk about football and like, what's your favorite team?
And like, this is my favorite, like quarterback and this and that.
And I was like, no, you're talking to the wrong person.
Like I'm not like that zipper into football.
You know, at the, at the risk of stereotyping, I could see how it'd be
appealing to Germans.
It's very, it's very team focused, very coordination oriented, very discipline
heavy.
I feel like those are qualities.
the German people value.
Oh yeah, definitely.
I mean, it's still kind of niche here.
So, I mean, but you got enough people who like it to where, you know, that's on the
news and they're like, oh, this team won and this team lost.
And this was like, you know, the whole play and this and that.
So, uh, I'll read about in the news tomorrow and that'll be enough for me.
And maybe I'll watch like some clips on YouTube.
Well, there's always something, there's always something weird that happens that
like makes the rounds at least one thing.
even if it's just a halftime show gaff, but something will happen.
It always does.
Yeah, I guess on a closing note, unless you have something to add, I have heard
though that the Super Bowl has been getting, well, not the Super Bowl itself,
but like the events surrounding has been getting like a lot of like criticism or
flack because a lot of celebrities are flying in there on like private jets and
you know, like that's bad for the environment and they've been criticized
for that.
And I believe Taylor Swift is among them who's...
flying down there.
Isn't her boyfriend playing in?
Yep, Travis Kelce.
I actually heard that not only is she flying in, which, you know, I don't want
to excuse any billionaires because, you know.
Is she a billionaire though?
Yeah, she is now.
Okay.
It's not really safe for her to fly on a normal plane because her fans are insane.
Or there's been, there's just legitimately been lots of stalkers and death threats
and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah with her.
She has a backup plane following her is something I read this morning.
Now I didn't verify that through a good source.
It's just something I saw someone mention this morning when I was waking up.
So, you know, green assault and all that, but yeah, a lot of, it is a week.
It is an event of excess.
So definitely.
Yeah.
Um,
Everyone can bet that we'll talk about it next Saturday or next Sunday depending on
when we record.
I'll be very happy or very sad.
Yeah, and you might be richer or poorer depending on if you're gonna bet or not.
I wish.
We have to do...
Montana sports betting has to be done in person at a kiosk and I don't have that
kind of motivation.
Yeah, that was gonna be my second question.
Is sport betting even allowed in Montana?
Because I know in some states it's not, but I don't know which ones.
Yeah, the people who fought to make it lobbied hard enough so that they had...
total control over it.
So because that's politics.
Yeah, there you have it.
So I guess the Superboard Breeze special, if you will.
So looking forward to seeing who's going to win or not.
Because the Kansas City Chiefs is more or less from my neck of the woods because
everyone knows them from Missouri and that's like right on the border.
We used to have the Rams, but they left.
So that was kind of like my team growing up, not my personal team.
I didn't really care one way or another, but it was a team that...
Everyone really talked about it, other was the rams or the chiefs.
Some people did both, but you know.
As time goes on.
Anywho, um, that's not actually our topic for today.
What is our topic?
Our topic is IP, or intellectual property.
Yes, it sounds very boring, but actually I find it to be very interesting.
It is super interesting, and whether you think about it or not, you're exposed to
it all the time.
Even if you're just watching...
a movie or a TV show and there's a can of Coke or a Pepsi or a branded candy bar,
like someone somewhere had to get that okayed.
Yeah.
And it works really differently across like country lines, country borders,
especially if you compare like China to the U .S.
The Chinese perspective on intellectual property is very different than the
American perspective.
And the German perspective is also completely different.
And how well that's protected and how well that's not protected really varies.
But we're not going to talk about like a thousand different countries.
We're just going to focus more or less on, I guess, the U .S.
Oh yeah, we'd be here for a while.
And it's interesting because there's...
It's a very gray area.
There's lots of arguments that can be made.
And it's one of those things, especially in the age of the internet, for the last
15, I'd say it's really been like the last 15 years or so where it's been a battle
online.
I don't know if you remember, but there were, at least on the YouTube side of
things, there were always review channels who'd review music or movies or TV shows.
They were always getting copyright strike against them for violations of copyright.
And it falls under the fair use terms.
And it ended up being a whole thing for everyone.
And it seems every few years that kind of bumps again.
Believe it or not, that happened to me.
I don't want to say I tried to start a YouTube channel.
I posted like one or two videos just to have fun with it like everyone does.
And...
I went to some website where it said like royalty free music, like royalty free
images and whatnot.
And I made a YouTube video and then lo and behold, I think like two or three days
later, I had like a copyright strike and it was from some random, I don't know,
like Indian channel that claimed to own the copyrights to the music that I had
gotten from a website that had told me that it was copyright free or royalty
free, whatever you want to call it.
Um,
And so I was always really paranoid about the podcast.
Not that we would get a copyright strike.
I think with podcasts, it's a little bit...
I would like to believe we're on the safer side because it's less popular than like
YouTube.
But still, if you get big enough and they find you, then they'll strike you down.
Well, and we're not really playing any third party media here.
It's for better or worse, it's just us.
Yeah.
But it's happened a lot and...
Because if I remember right, like...
At the risk of possibly mixing copyright with trademark, the purpose of a copyright
is so that a consumer wouldn't confuse two products and lose business to the
original.
Which is something that's been stretched pretty far these days.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
So the whole reason why we're talking about this is because something that we
touched on at the very end of the last episode, which was pal World.
So a game that you have played, which I have not.
But I've seen tons and tons of reviews about it and read a couple of articles and
talked to you and other friends.
And the general consensus is that it's, for lack of better terms, like an
entertaining game.
But that for me is not the most entertaining or interesting aspect.
The question that everyone asks is, is it copyright infringement?
Because it's colloquially been referred to as Pokemon with guns.
And as everyone knows, Pokemon belongs to Nintendo.
And if you know anything about Nintendo, they're terribly protective of their own
intellectual property.
Do you remember the ads from, I know this is like way before when you were born, way
before I was born, but do you remember some of like the Nintendo ads from the
80s?
Like by seeing them like reruns whatnot?
I think I've seen a few clips of them, but nothing specific comes to mind.
So this is obviously before our time, because we were born in the 90s, but back
when Nintendo was really getting into video games, so like in the 80s,
Um, they, I think they were like the biggest on the market in the U S and so
what happens is when something becomes super popular, super well known, it
becomes like generic.
So you're, I'm pretty sure you're, you're familiar with, with like Q -tips for
example, like cotton swaps for like your ears.
Yeah.
But Q -tip is, um, it's like a brand, but because it's so generic, we kind of use
it, you know, like tissue, for example, or like Kleenex they're interchangeable and.
So it becomes really, really generic.
And what had happened was in the eighties, because like the people can feel free to
correct me because I can't remember exactly, but like the Super Nintendo and
like the Famicom and whatnot, because it was so popular, people just referred to
any gaming console as a Nintendo, which for me sounds really odd to refer to like
my, I don't know, like my PlayStation as a Nintendo.
But Nintendo was synonymous with gaming console.
So anything was a Nintendo.
So like a Sega was a Nintendo.
Like just any like, you know, gaming console was a Nintendo.
And like, why am I saying this?
Because it's kind of long winded.
To make it really short is Nintendo is super protective of their copyright law or
their copyright stuff, like their intellectual property, sorry.
And...
they're really afraid of anything becoming generic because once it becomes generic,
you can't really protect it anymore.
And so whenever anything gets posted on YouTube or podcasts or music, like they
strike it down right away.
And that's kind of what's happening like with pal World at the moment.
Yeah, well, no, not quite.
They did officially launch an investigation, but they didn't...
The fact that they didn't have the grounds to basically C &D them, cease and desist
them, right away means...
I mean, it's just different.
Like, the idea is similar, but there's lots of...
I don't know, it's hard to describe to someone who hasn't played the game.
It does not at all feel like you're playing Pokemon.
Like, it feels like you're playing a very different game with, like, a Pokemon -ish
paint job.
And even then, like, it has its own quirks and...
and things.
It's one of those...
You have to play it and then it would, I think, feel pretty obvious that it's a
separate product.
The developers of the game have basically said that they're not particularly
artistic people.
I'm very roughly paraphrasing, but they're more interested in taking games they like
and mashing them together to make a fun game.
Like, that was basically their goal.
And there's the DNA of a lot of popular games in it.
And it's honestly kind of a miracle that it's fun and not just a...
undisciplined mess of mechanics, but it works pretty well.
Yeah, you can't really trademark or copyright the idea of using monsters in a
fighting game, because that in and of itself is super generic.
So you have like, what is it called?
Like Monster Hunter, then you have Digimon, then you have Pokemon, and like a
couple other games where, I guess maybe like Beyblades.
I don't know if you remember that.
Oh, come on.
Do you remember badly?
That's kind of old.
So like using monsters and fighting with them isn't particularly innovative.
Then you have, I guess, like maybe like Dragon Quest, but that's not like exactly
the same spoke.
But still, I know that someone made a mod for the game and they took that down like
right away.
Yeah, and it wasn't just that it was a mod that added Pokemon to the game, it was a
paid mod.
Oh, it was a paid mod?
I didn't know that.
Yeah, so it's actually interesting.
This has happened a few times.
People will make fan games or in this case, it a fan game as a mod, but people
will make fan games for Nintendo properties.
Mm -hmm.
and Nintendo will always come after them when they find out.
But once something's on the internet, you know, it's on the internet forever.
Yeah.
And these people always make the mis - Not always, but a lot of the time people make
the mistake of saying something like, oh, I'm halfway through developing this - this
Pokemon game, or this Metroid game, or this Zelda game.
And then Nintendo comes after them with the lawyers.
Because once you've released it on the internet, they'll come after you with the
lawyers anyway.
You stop what you're doing, which at that point is distributing it.
It's already been distributed on the internet, so it'll keep propagating.
God, they're so fast about it too.
Which is, again, another reason why I'm pretty sure Pal World is legit, because if
they found any way they could have taken it down immediately, they would have.
Yeah, that's definitely true.
Speaking of like, fangames, I know that there's this...
There's this one Pokemon game that someone was making...
It was like Pokemon nuclear or something like Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, it was Pokemon nuclear where basically the world had been bombed by
like a nuclear bomb and all the Pokemon were like nuclear atomic creatures, if you
will.
And yeah, but, you know, let your let your imagination kind of run with that.
And the guy was super, you know, proud and excited that he had actually produced it,
you know, that he was finally done.
And then I think like three days later, he got a cease and desist letter from
Nintendo.
I bet it's still out there somewhere.
Yeah, probably.
If he released it, it should be.
But yeah, so I mean, I'm not part of the modding community.
I don't know if you are.
But I've gotten some copies, you know, I've bought some games off the Internet
where I thought that they were legit and it was just like a bootleg and someone had
kind of changed the ROM file on it, which is always kind of funny.
Oh my god.
Kind of annoying.
I've I've accidentally bought a bootleg.
uh, Blu -ray before, or was it DVD?
So there was a, um, there's a basketball anime, uh, Kuroko no Basuke, that I really
enjoy.
And this was probably like, five, six years ago, so I would, more ignorant than
I am now.
And I had heard the movie basically caps off the whole series.
It's like the real ending.
And I could, it wasn't streaming at the time, or at least I didn't think it was.
So I was looking for it, like, oh, I'll just buy it.
And all the Blu -rays are like 60, $70, something like that.
Like way more than I'm willing to pay.
And I was just a cook back then, not making good money anyway.
So it didn't really seem responsible.
And then I found one that was like 20, 30 bucks.
I'm like, oh, that's reasonable.
Like I'll pay that.
It came in and it was like a super bootleg version.
It was watchable, but the subtitles were so awkward.
I remember watching it with a work friend and we were just when we realized what
happened.
I mean we watched it, but it was just so funny.
Yeah, that's an it.
I actually want to stick with that for a second.
So this is kind of going off on a tangent and we'll come back to it because I want
to talk about something else.
But like bootlegs in general.
So I guess for those who don't know, like, you know, a bootleg is basically an
illegal copy of something.
And I'm pretty sure that can be applied to...
Any like any media so like video games movies TV shows series stuff like that And
basically it's the result of you know piracy and so then there's like the age
-old question that I would like your opinion on it is Is it okay to?
Pirate something if you can't access it.
So a lot of people 100 % you think so?
Yeah
So if it's like, so like to give more context to that.
So for example, if you want to, I don't know, watch your favorite, I don't know, K
-dramas, whatever, and there's no way for you to legally stream or buy it, but you
can get like, you know, a bootleg copy of it or pirate it or torrent it or whatever.
Do you think that's permissible?
All day.
I mean, it's...
I don't know if you're familiar with the concept of lost media.
No, not at all.
So the concept of lost media is basically just that.
It's media that nobody has anymore.
Nobody can find it, nobody has a copy of it.
I think it's something like 85 or 90 % of movies that are like 100 plus years old,
or you know, around that time period, they're lost media, nobody has them
anymore.
And that's just, you know, that's art and culture lost to history.
And music, film these days is good with it, music is good with it.
TV shows can be spotty.
Video games are notoriously horrible about it.
Because there's always a new hardware generation and no backwards compatibility
and there's intellectual property rights that change hands so things can't be sold
anymore.
So, I mean, there are things...
There's a game that released...
It either released early this year or late last year.
That's already lost media.
Oh, wow.
And that was basically because the game was a scam and the whole company fell
apart and they ran with the money.
But it happens.
There is culturally significant games that you just can't legally buy anymore.
You can get them off the Internet for free.
Yeah, that's what a lot of people say about like Nintendo video games basically,
because they're incredibly popular.
And so people say like, well, what's the harm?
You know, it's like, you know, it's some Game Boy game from like 1994, like who
cares?
But Nintendo cares.
So you can't, technically you can still buy it through their shop for like
exorbitant prices, you know, like madly expensive.
Yeah.
They put a full release price on a game that's like 20 years old or more.
Yeah.
I think that's criminal.
I mean, they're well within their right to do so, but I think it's criminal.
and people are like, well, you know, the video game's been out for like 40 years,
you can't really buy it anymore, so who cares?
But that's a whole other topic for a whole other day.
What I think is really interesting, so we talked about fair use and copyright, so I
guess besides Nintendo, the biggest player in the room would be Disney.
So obviously everyone knows what I would like to hope so, that Nintendo is...
Japanese company, whereas Disney is an American based company.
And they're also fiercely protective of their intellectual property.
They do not really allow for any legal room whatsoever, with respect to any of
their works, which I think to be very hypocritical, because most of their, I
would say most of their base is built upon
you know, stuff that's in the free domain, you know, stuff that's basically, uh, like
free for everyone.
And they take that, repurpose it, and then they say it's mine.
And, uh, I don't know how to square the two.
Yeah, I mean...
hypocrisy for one and you know it's a very old company the people who have been
making decisions along the way has changed several times it's tough and you know
they've Disney has been at the spearhead of expanding copyright law in the United
States yes for a very long time that leash is finally running out Steamboat Willie
version Steamboat Willie specific version of Mickey Mouse
is now in the public domain and so people are doing stuff with that and then of
course what was it like a year ago Winnie the Pooh entered public domain so there's
like two or three I think there's like two or three bad Winnie the Pooh horror movies
now Superman I think is coming up in a few years oh I didn't know that I didn't know
Superman isn't that crazy to think just anybody can make a Superman movie
The problem is you don't own...
you can do Superman, you know, all the cast of characters are on a separate
timer.
So if you want to do like General Zod or Brainiac or something, they're...
You know, I'm not a DC historian, but they're probably at least a few years
away.
I said a couple seconds ago, I think I said freedom.
I meant public domain.
So basically where anyone can access it.
Yeah, so that's the tricky part.
So Winnie the Pooh and Steamboat Willie are now in like public domains.
So anyone can do anything they want with those characters, but there's a huge like
asterisk on that basically.
So what you can't do is pretend like you're doing something in the name of the
company.
So you can't like create like a Steamboat Willie and try to convince people like,
hey, this is being endorsed by Disney.
So you're not allowed to do that.
And I'm definitely not, I don't know if you are, but I'm definitely not a
copyright lawyer.
So I think you'd be very careful about that.
But when you mentioned a couple of seconds ago about Disney being like at the
forefront of like copyright law, can you expand them on that a little bit?
So I, I'm not an expert on the topic.
I had just known, so, you know, originally,
Copyright was developed with a relatively narrow scope.
and Disney, you know, they have all these iconic characters.
I think they successfully lobbied to get it expanded two or three times.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's my understanding too.
I think it was like, either, like don't even quote any of us, but I think it was
at the end of the 90s, like the early 2000s where they did that and they were
successful.
And it was funny because it was
But this thing basically worked, I think, with other companies to get these laws
passed.
And it was basically like the old adage of like the enemy of my enemy is my friend
and the enemy being like copyright law.
And so they just got a whole bunch of companies to really kind of push these
laws through.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe...
Things enter the public domain 70 years after the creator's death, I believe.
This is within the context of the US.
I don't know how it is like in Germany or in other countries, but that's, I think,
more or less, I think like the guideline.
But either way, you have to wait a really long time after the author dies to be able
to use that stuff for...
whatever you please.
But super interesting - didn't know it was tied to death.
Yeah, it is.
So as long as the person is alive, you can't really do anything, you know, with
their work.
I guess that makes sense.
But let me double check really quick.
But I'm pretty sure that it's basically after you die.
But it varies from country to country, so I know that in most countries it's...
Yeah, so it's either life or it's death, depending on the place, but usually a
couple decades have to pass after things have been published.
But...
Yeah, so I'm really interested in seeing what people are going to produce.
I think it's kind of funny that the things that most people produced was like horror
movies.
Honestly, I thought they would have gone like the other direction and produce like
pornography because that's basically the internet.
I'm sure that's already there.
I mean, I think it's just the low hanging fruit of taking something childish or that
people have nostalgic memories of and twisting it like it's...
It's one of the easiest horror tropes you could do.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think the one that people were like, what was it called?
Blood and Honey, I think.
Which I'll give you that it is kind of low hanging fruit.
Yeah, so I found it.
So it is 70 years.
So it's life plus 70 years.
So it's like the life of the author plus 70 years.
What did it used to be?
I don't know.
They changed it in 19...
I think 1978.
I don't have like all of the stats somewhat like Disney and all the companies
did.
But it's a really long time.
So basically, I think, within the context of the US, the logic behind it is if you
basically give...
this person, so the creator, so much time to, you know, live off their creation and
to basically get credit for their work that after that, it has to go back to, you
know, back to the people.
Because that's kind of how innovation works, you know?
So like Disney didn't really create a lot of the stuff that they have, they didn't
actually really create from whole cloth.
They just kind of built upon fairy tales that already existed.
Most of which were either from France,
from the Scandinavian countries or from Germany.
You know, so most of the fairy tales that Disney has are German in origin.
And they didn't create that.
And like those are like obviously in the public domain, like all the fairy tales.
And so they created their version.
That's the problem is, is if you create like a new version, then it starts over.
So that's why we said a couple of minutes ago, it's only for the Steamboat Willie
version.
So...
Disney has probably like 30 versions of like Mickey Mouse.
Yeah, that's actually kind of put an interesting thought in my head.
So that means if I wanted to make my own Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse movie and
then I make it and then I don't do anything with it for three years and
somebody makes a sequel to that movie, then that's copyright infringement.
Yeah, I mean, that's a kind of tricky question.
I know that a direct sequel, no, nothing ambiguous about it.
I think if it's an original work, I think that's OK.
So, like, obviously, for example, like Tarzan is was I think it I think it's like
an English novel.
I think it's originally from England.
And so the book in of itself, you know, that's something different.
But if you create like an original work based on that, then you can protect that.
And so that's basically what Disney did and Disney does.
So they protect their interpretation.
Now, I don't know how that actually works in practice if you're not like a multi
-billion company, billion dollar company, but that's basically how they operate.
And I don't know, I'm really looking forward to like all these interesting
creations.
I'm not really interested in horror, but you know, who knows?
I mean, maybe someone will create like a video game or something that...
is much more interesting than like some cheap like I don't know 1980s horror
movie.
I think we'll have to give it a few years to see what really happens because all
these big names are coming up.
Like it would be really interesting to see what someone would do.
Like we said Superman's coming up and I don't think Batman's that far behind.
Like imagine if someone made a Batman game but obviously only Batman.
is available, so they have to basically write all new villains, all new supporting
characters.
That would be so weird and bizarre to see, and at that point you should probably do
another character as your focus.
But we'll probably start seeing stuff like that.
Yeah, definitely.
And this also applies to music as well.
So we've been talking about like, you know, just like cartoons and whatnot, but
this pretty much applies to anything.
that has been copyrighted.
And by extension, this applies to trademarks and intellectual property and
all that fun stuff, which is notoriously difficult.
And I think, to a certain extent, this conversation could also apply to patents,
although patents aren't necessarily media in that sense, but patents can expire.
And that's in a completely different section.
from like copyright law.
So if your patent expires or if you don't have a patent, well then anyone can, you
know, create anything from what you've basically done.
I think a most recent case would be fidget spinners.
I don't know, you remember those?
It's been a while.
I do, I do.
I remember they were a quick flash in the pan.
Yeah, pretty much.
And so I think there were some lady who created the fidget spinners.
I don't know if the word create is really appropriate because it's...
not really that innovative.
But anyway, yeah, so she created it and she didn't put a patent on it.
And so what happened was everyone stole it and they made money and she made nothing.
So that's, you know, one of the dangers behind letting laws lapse or like not
really protecting your assets.
And it's really hard because none of these things are forever.
So it's not like you can have a patent for like a thousand years or something.
Like if you don't renew it, you're kind of out of luck.
basically on that front.
Yeah.
And one thing, you know, I want to talk about is how we respect intellectual
properties or how people in general will, because it's very hit and miss.
Because there are people who generally just don't pay for things.
Yeah.
And it's not going to change.
Like that's just who they are.
There is actually, especially for
for like games, there is a pretty large piracy community.
And whenever a new game comes out, everyone kind of, there are different
groups that will work like, oh, we're gonna crack this game and, you know, get
it released to everyone and we're gonna work on this one.
It's like their hobby.
And...
It's just fascinating to see, at the risk of beating a dead horse, I don't know if
you're familiar with this, Gabe Newell famously said this, I think, like over a
decade ago at this point, where basically piracy, you know, isn't a security issue
or something like that, it's a service issue.
You have to make paying for something more convenient than stealing it.
Which is what we did for a long time.
A lot of people used to pirate a lot of TV shows.
and nobody wanted to pay for cable, blah blah blah.
And then Netflix came out, and when Netflix streaming started, basically
everything was on Netflix.
Any popular movie or TV show, plus some original series.
And now it's kind of like cable again.
You have to buy all these different packages, except this time the packages
are different streaming services.
So now people pirate more.
And you know, I do it in my weekly anime group between...
you know, the four or five of us, we have, we have Crunchyroll, Hi -Dive, Funimation
just stopped existing, but Amazon Prime, Hulu, we have all these things and we
still can't watch everything without pirating.
Like at a certain point, like one person's not gonna spend $150 on streaming services
just to watch all the stuff they wanna watch a month.
Yeah, that's definitely true.
So back when I was in, I feel old now, but you know, back when I was in high school,
like about, you know, 15 years ago, but we basically downloaded pretty much
everything, you know, from like Torrents and like LimeWire and all that, pirated
everything.
If you go back further, you know, to the early 2000s, then you're, you know,
talking about Napster and all those like peer to peer networks.
And I think it's a very interesting quote you brought up.
which was it was so easy to just quote unquote download or like steal a song and
people were like, well, what's the harm?
And I guess it really depends.
You wouldn't download a car.
Yeah.
And a lot of movies have these ads like you wouldn't download a car or you
wouldn't steal a car or something.
And so I guess the ultimate question is what's the harm?
and people are losing out on money.
And then it's a question of, well, do you really care?
And it's a catch -22, I would say.
Because on the one hand, if you care about your favorite artists, then you should
support them.
And if you steal for them, then that'll work for a while.
But if everyone does it, eventually they'll go bankrupt and you'll get no more
new stuff.
That's kind of like the logic.
All right.
But I also feel like culturally, we've all kind of agreed.
Yeah.
That there needs to be a meeting in the middle.
Yeah, definitely.
We all agreed to pay for Netflix.
I mean, let's be clear, Netflix, if I remember right, like Netflix was never
really profitable.
It still isn't, or it's the closest to profitable.
All these streaming services lose money.
It's crazy.
But we all agreed we are willing to pay Netflix monthly to watch things.
And then when a couple more.
Some people are like, we're willing to pick and choose one or two more.
Now that it's like 10 plus streaming services, a lot of people feel like, all
right, well, this isn't a good deal anymore.
I'm just gonna go back to paying for nothing.
Yeah, pretty much.
So a lot of people don't realize, but Netflix is in the terms of the internet.
Netflix is a really old company.
Netflix has been around since like 95 or like 96.
So they're pretty old.
I used to use Netflix when...
you had to order DVDs.
Oh, that was that was the best.
Yeah.
So you had to order DVDs from Netflix and they would send you, I think, like up to
five and you had to send it back.
And, you know, they killed Blockbuster.
That's that's been probably dead for like almost like 20 years.
There's one more.
There's still one left up in Alaska somewhere.
I think, no, I think that one closed.
It's in Oregon.
Oh, is it?
OK, I don't know.
I think so.
Yeah.
But so.
That was pretty much the beginning of, I guess, the streaming services, if you
will.
And so, then that evolved into a digital form.
And so there was this period where Netflix was pretty much the only kid on the block.
They were pretty much the only ones really doing streaming services and doing it
well.
And then everyone found, oh my God, this is a terrific way to make money.
And then everyone just started getting on, you know.
you know, on the bandwagon, and now you have like 50 different services and you
can't find anything anymore because it's so split up.
For a while, you could actually find really good stuff on Netflix.
Like all the Star Wars movies were on there, like the original ones, the best
ones.
Yeah, well I remember if there was something you wanted to watch, like a
movie, like, I haven't seen this movie in 10 years.
Probably on Netflix.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now it probably isn't.
And I used to watch like movies from like the 50s and 60s from like France on
Netflix.
I mean, they had everything in the beginning.
And now it's just pretty much slim pickings.
I remember the moment I realized how convenient it was.
Streaming was already on Netflix, but I didn't really understand to what degree.
It was some summer when I was a kid.
I got really into the sci -fi original show Eureka.
I don't know if you ever watch it, but it's basically a town in Oregon where they
do...
The whole town is basically dedicated to developing super secret science stuff for
the government and wacky stuff happens.
But I remember I would order the DVDs.
I think we were on like a two DVD plan in our house.
I'd watch them send it back and wait for more.
And I remember one day I was waiting for the final seasons to come in.
And for some reason, I was scrolling Netflix on my Wii.
This was a while ago.
And it was there, the new episodes.
Like, I got on the pre -order list for the Netflix DVD because they would, like, they
could send it out the day the DVD released.
And it was available to stream that very day.
And I was like, oh, they put new stuff on here.
I didn't know that.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
I think we all got so spoiled.
Yeah, I mean there was a period where everyone was fine with just paying for the
streaming services and now that's not really an option anymore because you can't
really find stuff or the artists complain that they're not making money.
I guess on a closing note, I watched an interview with Snoop Dogg and he was
talking about how, and I haven't verified this or anything, but he said he had a
couple million streams on Spotify and that was only like 20 grand, which you know
isn't a lot in the context of everything.
So it's really hard.
It's a cat and mouse thing.
I think consumers are happy for a while and then they'll just move on.
But at the end of the day, people don't really want to pay for anything if they
don't have to.
And I think that's like the biggest thing.
And, you know, like our favorite celebrities, they're already super rich,
so who cares?
But I think it's the way a lot of people feel.
And it's hard to get people to pay for things they don't want to.
Yeah, pretty much.
I do wonder how...
So I pay for YouTube premium, which also comes with YouTube music.
I am curious how much of that goes to creators.
Because I know when you pay for YouTube premium, it basically, a portion of your
monthly payment goes to the creators you watch based on who you watched and when
and how much.
I wonder how much of that gets passed on to the music.
and i'm also now picturing a uh...
musical hellscape where it's like other streaming services were like oh well you
to music has the first three metallica albums uh...
oh yeah spotify has foreign five nobody has number six uh...
that's in rights hell and then you get seven on prime god i hope we never go that
way it yet so i guess i'll finish the episode the way we started which was with
taylor swift and
Taylor Swift was famously wrote an open letter to Apple saying that she would not
put her like catalog on Apple Music because Apple Music gave when it came
back, I think it came out like 2017, 2018 gave everyone like three months for free,
which basically meant that the artists received nothing for three months.
And she was like, I'm not going to work for free for three months.
And I don't know if I don't know if her music is on Apple.
I don't really listen to her, to be honest, but.
You know, it just goes to show that people, you know, even if they're multi
-billionaires, they still want to get paid.
But yeah, so that was my final point.
I don't know if you want to add anything before we hop out of here.
No, I think we have to draw the line here or I'm going to keep talking.
All right.
So it was a super interesting conversation.
Thanks so much, everyone, for listening and we'll catch you on the next one.
All right.
Bye.
Rude for the Chiefs.
Yeah, I will too.
Bye.
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