prankster36 ([info]prankster36) wrote,
@ 2008-04-23 01:03:00
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Theft Is Bad.

This is disgusting, and a great example of why smaller illustrators and comic artists need better protection for their ability to profit off their works. As the guy says, we ought to spread this story around as much as possible.

The thing that kills me is that China is supposed to be keeping such a tight rein on the internet to prevent its citizens from reading stuff that might be damaging to the steady stream of propaganda they're fed. You'd think that that would at least have the minor upside of preventing this kind of stuff.

Am I the only one who thinks China has become a truly unholy merging of all the worst aspects of Communism and Capitalism?



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[info]sraun
2008-05-04 01:36 am UTC (link)
I have lots of sympathy for all the artists concerned - and would not buy the book, and would recommend any friend not buy the book.

But, China is just doing what the US did for many years. It wasn't until sometime in the 20th century that the US reliably recognized foreign copyrights. A quick checks leads to the following timeline:

1891 - non-US citizens are allowed to register copyright in the US - before this, you had to be a US citizen to have a valid copyright in the US. Yes, this was explicit - we were encouraging copyright violation.

1910 - US signs the Buenos Aires Convention - reciprocity of copyright with other signatory nations, requires specific text, and individual nations could have a shorter period

1989 - US signs the Berne Convention (from 1886), finally automatically recognizing copyright from most (all?) first world nations automatically.

As much as I dislike it, until the hurt China feels because their copyright is not being recognized by the rest of the world exceeds the benefit of not recognizing everyone else's copyright, this is going to continue.

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