Respect to Tom Lehrer

 This week, Tom Lehrer passed away at the age of 97. Pretty good innings, Tom was a famous American satirist and musician. Not being American, I did not know much about Tom until I started surfing the net. In those days things were scattered and decentralised, being a nerd I trawled through geeky humour pages. It was here that I discovered some of Lehrer's work. Clicking on little speaker icons and listening to low kilobyte midi tunes, I remember the Von Braun song in particular. 

Fast-forward over some years and I encounter Tom Lehrer again, in 2020 the then relatively young Tom Lehrer announced that he was putting his entire musical body of work into the public domain. 

 I, Tom Lehrer, individually and as trustee of the Tom Lehrer Trust 2007, hereby grant the following permissions: All copyrights to lyrics or music written or composed by me have been permanently and irrevocably relinquished, and therefore such songs are now in the public domain. All of my songs that have never been copyrighted, having been available for free for so long, are now also in the public domain. In other words, I have abandoned, surrendered and disclaimed all right, title and interest in and to my work and have injected any and all copyrights into the public domain.

 I was surprised and spent an evening and then a weekend flicking through the catalogue. While doing that, I felt a growing sense of familiarity. Then it clicked, "I know some of these songs!" songs I hadn't heard in ages. It was a nostalgic trip, I never had the pleasure of meeting Tom Lehrer nor am I capable of writing a biography, but I appreciate his wit and his work and his commitment to an open culture.

If you've not had the pleasure than I recommend checking out his site, there's also a fan run channel on YouTube. Goodnight Mr Lehrer, goodnight.

 

A Turn of Phrase

Copyright is a very confusing field. In the United Kingdom, this confusion is exacerbated by a common phrase. In British English, Public Domain is commonly used to refer to things are known to the public and has no bearing to the protected status of a concept or piece of media.

 There are many examples I can choose from, so I've picked the most recent. On the BBC iPlayer there is a documentary series on the July 2005 bombings, commonly known in the UK as the 7/7 bombings, as thankfully the second round of bombings on the 21st of July all failed. During the documentary, a senior anti-terrorism officer for the Metropolitan police used the phrase public domain. He's not talking about fair use or copyright, he's referring to a press conference and the disclosures of his superior Ian Blair (no relation to Tony Blair). The reason he's using that term is to shield himself from potential criticism or prosecution under the UK's strict slander and libel laws. By referring to the contentious subject as being in the public domain he's stating that he's comments are based on what was widely available at the time, so if his comments cross the line and a legal challenge was initiated he can fall back on that. It's quite similar to the American way of adding `allegedley` to the end of a serious accusation or criticism. You're not saying it's a hundred percent accurate and true, you're commenting on an existing allegation. 

 I trust the grounds for confusion are obvious, but it's not completely wrong to use the term in this manner. Using public domain as synonym for publicly available is sort of true in regard to facts and popular opinions. You can cease and desist a video distributor and DMCA music remixers, but you can't make the public `unknow` or `unhear` a fact or opinion. That's the alleged harm that IP owners of academic journals and the image consultants of powerful people allege when unauthorised disclosures happen. By leaking or accidentally sharing the results of a study, you've de facto removed the control or `right` of the legal owners to use it as they wish. 

 My only issue is that since awareness of copyright and the Public Domain is increasing year-on-year, I'm worried that some people will be confused by the phrase and start using material that's still copyrighted and thus be vulnerable to action. I know that's not an unfounded fear because several years ago I was involved in just such a dispute. After leaving University I struggled to find work, I became a freelancer, mainly writing copy, the odd paid consumer review and photography. It's the latter that concerns us here. After a trip to London with some friends, I uploaded my photos to Facebook. Two days later in the local newspaper I found to my surprise some of those photographs, and even stranger, credited to someone else. I didn't recognise the name, but they were absolutely my photographs. 

I contacted the newspaper providing proof of ownership, and they replied with an apology, agreed to print a correction in a later issue and gave me the contact details of the person who submitted them. Turned out is one of my circle of friends, though friends was a bit of a stretch. Annoyed, I emailed them telling them I knew what they did and that I was not happy with them. They didn't take it very well. The one excuse they kept coming back to was that the photos were in the public domain, which they weren't remotely, at the time I was still taking client work so didn't release copyrights on any of my work as I was still building my portfolio. I did occasionally release some works under a creative commons' licence, which specified attribution, but that wasn't the case for those photos. Honestly, it happened so quickly I hadn't had time to decide what I was going to do with them, I just uploaded them to Facebook for my friends to see while I decided if they were worth using for something else. 

Still, the incident was quite revealingly, it became clear that the misunderstanding meant he was only concerned about legal consequences. Had I given my photos to the public domain, that wouldn't explain or excuse pretending he had taken them and submitting them for credit*. That's plagiarism and a rotten way to treat someone, especially a friend. My ex-friend's photography adventures ended at that point. 

 So, what's the solution? Well, I try to switch from public domain to public sphere or some other synonym when it comes up in my life. Currently, I don't know of anyone getting into trouble for the misunderstanding, and if someone is unlucky enough to get dragged through the courts then I think the issue will be resolved pretty quickly.

*I had got to know the photographers for the local paper and they confirmed no money changed hands. 

Drive in Theatre

 

 The 20th Century United States of America's requirement that works must be registered to gain the benefits of copyright created several loopholes in which multiple works slipped through the cracks. I've previously covered how many pornographic works were in the public domain from creation, now here's another example.  

Movie theatres, or more precisely, drive in theatres. I don't think they need much explanation, they appear in practically every piece of media set in the USA before the election of Ronald Reagan. But the connection between drive-ins and the public domain will need some elaboration. It's illegal in the United States for movie studios to own cinemas, as that would be a powerful monopoly. So that means cinemas and studios have to negotiate between themselves to show movies. Percentages of ticket sales, how long the movie will run, how many screens, will cinemas have to pay a fee etc. are all part of the bargaining. 

This made independent movie production an attractive option for the owners of cinemas. Independent or self produced movies don't have the same clout, so the bargaining is more favourable for the cinema. This encouraged several cinema owners, particularly drive-in owners to experiment in producing films themselves, the benefits were obvious, they get every cent of profit. 

Most of these movies were not registered for copyright, since doing so could bring unwanted attention from regulators, and there wasn't much point since the only places that would show these movies were venues that they owned. This was the age of cans of flammable film reel, long before recording of motion pictures became easy and economical. 

 Now a word of caution, just because a movie was produced by a drive-in cinema owner does not automatically mean the movie is public domain, some movies that proved popular were re-edited for a wider release and sometimes these versions were registered and approved.

Nevertheless, this obscure cinematic ecosystem does contain some interesting and puzzling works to find. 

I will document just two examples whose public domain status is concrete.

The Giant Gila Monster

 

 Made famous by the movie riffing comedy show Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (MST3K) this attempt to cash in on the giant monster/Kaiju craze of the 1950s was produced by Drive-in cinema chain owner Gordon McLendon and music producer Ken Curtis. The results leave a lot to be desired, but I've seen much worse thanks to MST3K, the film has a sort of time capsule charm with its strange aw-shucks attitude and crooning by its lead Don Sullivan.

In 2012, they remade the movie with Jim Wynorski as the director. 

The Yesterday Machine

 

 

A Texan Sci-fi Nazisploitation flick, with one of the most outlandish synopsis I've ever encountered.

 In the story, a newspaper reporter, a nightclub singer, and the singer's sister fall into the hands of a mad Nazi physicist who has developed a time travel machine with which he intends to snatch Adolf Hitler from the past, teleport him into the present, and forever bring the world under the brutal domination of the Third Reich.

 Does it live up to its kuh-razy premise? Well, why don't you let me know ;)

There are more, but the issue with these regional movies is that there is not much information about them. To take The Yesterday Machine as an example, the date most commonly attributed to its release is 1963, but eagle-eyed viewers notice that it contains cars that were released in 1964. There was a copyright notice on the original film prints, but they contained no date and were ineligible, so there's no record to check.  

Hopefully the internet will help shed some light on some other forgotten films.

Notes on Peruvian Copyright

 

 In my searching for new material, I came across a curious bit of animation from Peru.

 It's called La alfabetización, una herramienta de liberación or Literacy, a tool for liberation. It debuted in 1971 and was produced by the government to encourage efforts to eliminate illiteracy among the population. I don't think I've seen an animated work quite like it before. 

At that time, Peru was governed by a military Junta calling itself the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces.  Not the first, and sadly not the last, time Peru has fallen under the control of military strongmen. This Junta came to power via armed coup in 1968 and ruled until 1980. You may infer from its name that the mix of politics it promoted included strong social policies to address poverty and its ill effects on the population. Hence, initiatives like the animation above.

 The Junta was very active in using mass media to spread its messages, art and cultural works were funded via a mechanism called SINAMOS (National Mobilisation Support System). This raised the question of what this government's attitude towards Intellectual Property was and how that attitude affected current Peruvian culture. At present, Peru uses the life +70 years standard though that was not always the case, there were two major and important legal changes in 1961 and 1996 before that.

As far as I can tell, the Junta maintained the use of the 1961 law. As it stands, it's a little difficult to be certain with multiple legal acts in effect, some of which apply retroactively and some do not. Works that entered the public domain prior to 1971 remain in the public domain. Annoyingly, that's this interesting piece was released just after that. However, I believe this work is still in the public domain as the work was a creation of the government and Peru does not claim copyright on government works. Now, the current government is not the same government as the one that produced this short animation, but it was seen as the legitimate government of Peru internationally and 1968-80 is a long time, recognising it would cause quite a stir and would have to be made clear in the current legislation.

Fair Use?

 A question that pops up semi-frequently is how can other authors, studios or publishing companies use characters that are copyrighted by another? Initially I had little interest in the question as it's between two or more people/companies that aren't me. But, since it keeps coming up, I think it might be worth examining for the educational reasons.

Well, there's a misconception around copyright, you can, in certain situations, make use of copyrighted material depending on the laws in the country you operate and how you go about it. It's impossible to give an answer that covers every situation, so I won't give specific examples, I'll outline the general possibilities here.  

Generally what's happened is one of the following.

1.  They sought and received permission to make use X 
2. The copyright holders do not know about the unauthorised usage of X
3. The copyright holders do know about the unauthorised usage of X, they just don't mind
4. The usage is protected via a specific part of legislation.

You can use things if you get permission, it happens all the time, creators are fans of each other and corporations will license or collaborate with others to exploit new revenue streams. Check to see if there is an acknowledgement or mark of collaboration.

For the second option, it's a big world and no one can be everywhere. There is no such thing as a copyright police force (not yet anyway) the protection of copyright is the responsibility of the owners of that copyright. Even in the digital age, things fall through the cracks and stay under the radar. I won't give specific examples, but I've seen plenty of restaurant/takeaway children's menus made more colourful by the inclusion of some beloved children's media characters, and I have a hard time believing these small businesses went through the trouble of sending in the required paperwork.

For the third case well, it's up to the copyright holder what they do and do not do with their copyright, they don't lose it due to laziness. You ever followed an author or showrunners social media accounts and seen them share examples of fans cosplay, fan art and other acts of appreciation? You could make a case that all of that is copyright infringement in court, and yet they seem to be cool with it.

 The last one is a bit different, some copyright legislation have exemptions. Parody is a common (though not exclusive) example, it's difficult to make fun of a thing in a way that does not use any recognisable elements that aren't copyrighted in some form. 

I guess the point of this piece is `don't sweat it`.

UK News - Prohibit publishers irrevocably disabling video games they have already sold

 

 

 You may remember the EU wide initiative to expand consumer protections for video games, the Stop Killing Games initiative. Well, the same network of activists is working in other areas and has launched or re-launched a similar initiative in the United Kingdom.

Currently, the British campaign is at the petition stage. If you're a UK citizen, you can sign the petition here. The text of the petition reads as follows.

The government should update consumer law to prohibit publishers from disabling video games (and related game assets / features) they have already sold without recourse for customers to retain or repair them. We seek this as a statutory consumer right.

 Most video games sold can work indefinitely, but some have design elements that render the product non-functional at a time which the publisher controls, with no date provided at sale. We see this as a form of planned obsolescence, as customers can be deprived of their purchase and cannot retain or repair the game. We think this practice is hostile to consumers, entirely preventable, and have concerns existing laws do not address the problem. Thus, we believe government intervention is needed.

The deadline is 14th of July 2025. UK government petitions have to pass through a committee to get published online to collect signatures and there are two thresholds, the first is 10,000 verified signatures which triggers a response from the government regarding whatever the petition is about. Then at 100,000 or more signatures, the issue raised in the petition must be debated in parliament. So far the number of signatures is over 12,000, so a formal response is guaranteed, though the show of support on the issue would be strengthened if it hit that second threshold. Incidentally the EU wide initiative has stalled somewhat so if you're an EU citizen better sign before its too late.

TM Marks the Spot: Some Notes on trade marks

 

Knowledge of copyright is slowly improving year by year as more iconic elements of pop culture fall out of its grasp. On the other hand, the equally common method of intellectual property limitation trademarks is still grossly misunderstood. I've noticed a tendency to treat trademarks like copyright with a different name, and that just isn't the case.

Disclaimer: This is not legal advice, I cannot assist you in a legal dispute or query this is just educational material and is to my knowledge correct at time of production. Direct all legal queries elsewhere.

A quick primer, Intellectual Property (IP) has three kinds of protections that limit what others can do with IP, they are as follows:

1. Patents: These concern protecting physical things such as designs and medicinal or edible recipes. In the United States of America, the United Kingdom and everywhere else I've checked, these last for a maximum of 20 years and have to be applied for via your nation's Patent Office. 
2. Copyright: This covers the idea or "Intellectual" part of IP. It generally exists at the point of creation, though registration is sometimes advisable to establish an easy way to prove creation and when in the event of a dispute. In most of the world, the terms last after the death of the creator, though there are exceptions depending on region. 
3. Trademarks: These don't protect IP so much as they protect the business entity (owner, company etc.) and their business activity on the market. They have to be applied for and approved, but can last as long as the product or service is active on the market.
   

Generally speaking, the strongest of these three IP types is Copyright, it gives the owner or possessor the greatest control over their product and has the weakest scope to challenge it. Patents are also firm but their short timespan relatively speaking mean that eventually copies and inspired products and designs will appear eventually, that's how generic versions of branded products can be sold legally, often right next to the product they're close to. 

Trademarks are the weakest of all three types, because they don't protect the IP, they protect a trademark holder from what's deemed to be unfair competition, usually via misleading and impersonation by competitors. Trademarks have to be attached to specific products, which is how you can have trademarks for public domain imagery and characters, it doesn't affect the character or the image it concerns financial activity. Now the bar on what does and does not count as unfair impersonation is arbitrary and has to be determined by court cases, but the bar for burden of proof is extremely high.

As an example, the image at the top, on the left is the original branded and trademarked soft drink Irn Bru (its pronounced Iron Brew or Urn Broo), produced by Barr, it's extremely popular in the UK, especially its native Scotland, I enjoy it and its diet version, despite its strong colour its flavour is not remotely Orange based, I don't know how to describe its flavour and the company has run advertising campaigns on how difficult to pin down its taste is. On the right is a store brand cheaper knock off called Iron Brew (it'd be funny if it were pronounced Irn Bru, but, sadly it's just called Iron Brew) I bought from either Aldi or Lidl, I forget which exactly. In addition to looking like Irn Bru it does taste like it as well. 

Now, given all the misinformation about trademarks out there, you might be wondering how on earth the stores are getting away with this, did Barr somehow let Irn Bru's trademark lapse? Well no, as an old company it has withdrawn some trademarks on designs and products over the years, but it still maintains several active trademarks.

So, then, what's the trick? Well, it isn't a trademark violation. It's clear to everyone that Aldi/Lidl are pushing their drink as an Irn Bru type soft drink, but the name is different and trust me Irn Bru is iconic here, it's like the distinction between Coke meaning Coca-Cola, and Cola meaning any black fizzy drink. And it does prominently display its brewery mark Vive which isn't Barr the owners of Irn Bru. The trademarks that are still valid include the name and its spelling and specific designs, Iron Brew while close to both is different. If they had also called their version Irn Bru or copied that design exactly or claimed to be an official Barr product, that would be a trademark violation, since there would be no way for an honest consumer to tell.

I'm not saying Barr doesn't have grounds to get a case to court to be looked at, I don't know and can't know what a corporation's legal department thinks about its chances. That it hasn't suggests (key word) that they don't fancy their chances even if they wanted to use the court to act against a competitor.

I could've also chosen The Asylum studio and its "Mockbuster" business model, where it churns out cheap movies that bare superficial resemblances to big Hollywood releases around the time of those releases. I think the most well known example is Transmorphers released in 2007 shortly after the first of the Michael Bey Transformers movies came out. 

If you're curious, this poster is better than anything in the movie

Again, it is obvious what the marketing strategy is here, but it manages to be a viable business model for them and the worst they've suffered is reputational damage as purveyors of cheap crap.

So, trademarks not only do not apply to content outside their narrow scope of business, they also don't give you the power to monopolise usage of IP within its narrow scope of business.

So, then, can we conclude that trademarks largely have no teeth? Well, trademarks have to be actively defended to be maintained, so it depends on what is the potential issue and who holds the trademarks. Last November I was visiting Dublin and toured the famous Guinness brewery, among the many interesting displays there was an information tablet dedicated to the famous brewery logo the right facing Harp. The Harp as an instrument and a symbol are closely tied to Ireland, so it's not a surprise that the image is used often for Irish products and institutions. However, one fact about the Harps I had not noticed, but the tablet explained was that all Irish government usages of the Harp are reversed, that they are all left facing. The reason? Well, Guinness trademarked their right facing Harp 50 years before the Irish state was established, and there was concern that using a right facing Harp would provoke the Guinness brewery into a trademark dispute, so to nip that in the bud the Irish government reversed the Harp. Whether Guinness would feel it had to take action and whether that action would've succeeded we'll never know.

Another interesting example of trademarking potentially causing an issue is the case of public domain Mickey Mouse comics.

You can watch the full discussion online here.

I'll summarise the key points.

• Despite Disney's firm control of IP, several pieces had fallen into the public domain. Including some of the early comic strips.
• Eternity Comics (EC) decided to collect these strips and publish them.
• EC predicted Disney would try to strong-arm them into stopping, and anticipated trademark dispute challenges.
• EC decided to pre-empt Disney by releasing the most trademark compliant comic collection imaginable, the comics were called The Uncensored Mouse, the covers were black, no Disney logos or marks past or present were used, only the artists of the strips were acknowledged and credited.
• Disney still went after them multiple times with their legal department to get them to stop after two issues were produced. Unfortunately for EC, while this was going on it was discovered that one or two of the strips in The Uncensored Mouse had been reprinted in another collection that was still copyrighted, and it looked like the public domain status of the collection was in dispute so EC stop printing them.
  

For clarification, here's the un trade markable cover for The Uncensored Mouse.

In this case it did not go to legal action, but it was heading that way if EC didn't stop. It's highly likely that a trademark suit would fail given the absurd lengths EC went to pre-empt such action, but they were a small publisher and Disney is, well, Disney. Just tying something up in court to exhaust the other side's time and money is a viable tactic that big corporations can and do resort to.

So to summarise.

• Trademarks are weaker than copyright if your goal is to prevent others from using something you've trademarked.
• Trademarks are a form of commercial protection of the business, not the trademarked thing itself.

 

A Modest Proposal

 Despite the title this isn't a work of satire in the vein of Jonathon Swift, I am being serious here and describe my proposal as modest as compared to my many other proposals it is.

There has been an upsurge in talk about the problems with the current copyright system and how it seems to have run amuck and become something of a monster. Talk and proposals for reform have also gained in popularity, but most talk runs into the brick wall of a powerful and entrenched lobbying machine and the weakness of political representation. 

So, to tip the balance a little more in the favour of the public good I have come up with a modest proposal for reform, a reasonable compromise if you will. 

This proposal is aimed at the Great Satan United States of America, and a few other countries . 

My proposal is this, build a campaign to convince Congress to pass legislation that will adopt the rule of shorter term into Law. 

A quick recap, the rule of shorter term is:

 The rule of the shorter term, also called the comparison of terms, is a provision in international copyright treaties. The provision allows that signatory countries can limit the duration of copyright they grant to foreign works under national treatment to no more than the copyright term granted in the country of origin of the work.

Thanks Wikipedia. 

The name shorter term is the most commonly used for this provision because it only comes into effect if and when the copyright term in the country of origin is shorter than that of the host country. As an example, New Zealand's copyright terms are life +50 years, in the United Kingdom its life +70 years, this means that there is a 20 year gap in public domain materials, that would be quite a challenge for a New Zealand media company operating in both territories, they would have to pay special attention to ensure they were not using material still in copyright in the UK without permission. However, the UK does have the rule of shorter term in its copyright legislation so all New Zealand made intellectual property that is public domain in New Zealand is also public domain in the United Kingdom. 

Its a mechanism to make international commerce easier, it just so happens as a side effect to make artistic expression and educational use a little easier too.

Many nations have this provision in some form as part of their copyright legislation, though a few do not so its worth checking. New Zealand is one of the nations that hasn't adopted it so in the example I gave above this would prevent the reverse, except that since the UKs copyright lasts longer than New Zealand's anyway it doesn't matter. One notable exception is the United States of America. This lack of a shorter term is what enabled the estate of Conan Doyle to strong arm productions and adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle's work in the US for years after his entire body of work passed into the public domain in his home nation of the UK and thus most of the rest of the world.

Wikipedia has an incomplete list of nations with a clear yes or no on shorter term.

So my proposal simply is to build up a lobbying campaign to convinve the United States Congress to draft legislation to adopt the rule of the shorter term into law. Why focus on the US? Well its the biggest source of entertainment and art globally, its the biggest knot that has to be untangled. Also we're in a rare moment where copyright reforms have made some small steps in the United States, in the past few years we've had

1. The end of the 20 year freeze on works entering the public domain.
2. The Music Modernisation Act which declared that sound recordings can now enter the public domain
3. Weakened the ability of research papers on programs that used federal funds to be limited to paywalled access only
4. The entry of many important cultural icons into the public domain after decades of intense corporate lobbying to prevent this, e.g. Mickey Mouse, the complete Sherlock Holmes, etc.
   

None of this is groundbreaking but they are steps in the right direction for open access and free information, and they come after decades of nothing but giant leaps in the other direction.

We also saw the attempt to restore the United States of America's copyright terms with the Copyright Clause Restoration Bill. That attempt has floundered and it was sponsored by a handful of Republican legislators trying to strong arm a company (Disney) after it was forced into a dispute with the Republican government of Florida, which the Disney corporation had supported for years lest you feel sorry for the house of the mouse. Despite all this it did set a precedent that more radical copyright reforms can find some support in Congress already and that the power of corporations are not infallible.

In addition adopting the rule of shorter term has an additional strength, it side steps the main opposition, all copyright reform proposals that mean even a slither less control by massive media and research monopolies is fought with a mountain of what amounts to gaslighting about struggling creatives, the same authors, actors and artists strong armed into signing away control. This is nullified since the rule is based on the original creatives and not on some corporation or great-great-great descendant. 

And yet another  strength is that this reform proposal is in lock step with the wider trends of US copyright reform. Throughout the 20th Century, the United States has been step by gradual step moved away from its unique concepts of copyright to conform to international standards, and has already adopted much of the Berne Convention standards and practises. This omission if corrected would further cement that process and bring it into harmony with many other nations on the world stage. 

And yet one more strength of this proposal is the opportunity for wider support. While public sentitment for copyright reforms have grown it is still largely a movement of niche interests, political fringe activists, creatives and education reformers, this limits our abilities to push for changes and is why much of our activism is committed to educational materials to appeal and convince broader sections of the public, with limited sucess. 

However, in this particular facet of copyright the tension also effects players in the industry. Remember Sherlock Holmes? The reason Sherlock Holmes became a well known example of copyright headaches is because the owners of the IP in the USA were extremely active in trying to compel other media companies including Netflix to bend to their wishes while they still owned a few short stories from the Casebook of Sherlock Holmes. That was why we had such nonsense about "respecting women and showing emotions are from the last few stories" which was rediculous and not true, he'd done both in the earliest stories.

So, here there is some unique opportunities to build bridges and wider networks of support. To be blunt our arguments for much more subtantial copyright reform are already solid, that's why there's always a shift to worrying about "starving artists" and "control your own work" even when the discussion is on lowering post death terms of limitation. We don't need to worry too much about our arguments they've been honed for years and buttressed by evidence. What we really need is bigger platforms to broadcast our messages to a wider audience and hold their attention long enough to cut through the white noise. And since industry insiders have a potential to gain more of them will be willing to lend some resources. The same companies that lodge spurious cease and desists and DMCA takedowns fight like hell when they're the ones on the recieving end, its not something to be taken lightly.

The path of reform is long and difficult, but it is built on precedent, the more times you can show your strength in numbers/votes and resources in money, organisation and connections the more steps down that road you can take.

I've based much of my strategy on the work of the EU wide initiative to prevent game deletion and other anti consumer practices. While that initiative hasn't passed yet it has built its case along similar lines, moderation of aims, based on working within the wider consumer system, etc. And has wide support with the public and industry developers with little substantial opposition. Most of the opposition I've seen comes from a single developer/content creator. I think there's a lot to learn from that project.

And for other nations on the no shorter term list like Brazil I think this strategy can largely be copied, especially if there's sucess in Washington D.C.

Heartbreaking the Worst Company in the World (Allegedly) Just Made an Excellent Point

 

I'll say this for the anonymous artist who worked on this advertising material for the Grumman industrial concern, they did an excellent job with positioning and space.

When I share material older than 1925 I often get asked how it's in the public domain, in this case despite being published material there is no copyright notice present, which was mandated by the US copyright laws at the time.

I'm no fan of the arms industry, in fact over ten years ago I walked away from my plans to pursue a career within it after leaving University. So, its with great frustration that I have to concede that this poster from the 1970s is making an excellent point. The idea behind this buy F-14s advertisement is a concept known as the Security Dilemma, its the major factor for why most nations around the globe spend heavily on defence and offense capabilities, and also how large and well equipped militaries do not in fact lead to a peaceful world by themselves.

The simplest way to think of the Security Dilemma is in the type of scenario presented by this poster, 

1. Cruise Missiles exist and Nation A is building them
2. Nation B sees a potential threat in Nation As Missile capabilities
3. The threat is not deemed serious right now as relations between the two are overall healthy
4. But can the leadership of Nation B guarantee that will always be the case?
5. Nation B decides to look for a counter measure, Grumman offers the F-14
6. Nation A sees the spending on the F-14 program and its counter missile capabilities
7. Nation As leadership is concerned that its Defence policy is now compromised as it relied on its missile capabilities.
8. Nation A looks for ways to counter or by pass the F-14.
9. Nation B sees the expanded military investments of Nation A and becomes concerned, also starts to invest in further weapons programs.
10. Relations start to deteriorate and tensions continue to rise
11. War
     

There's more to international relations than this mechanistic cycle, but it is still an important part of the logic of militarisation. The lack of attention to the Security Dilemma is a major weakness of the pacifist and anti-militarist movements. Much of their argumentation relies on moral arguments, which is understandable, the moral implications of institutions and industries dedicated to the killing of over human beings are as obvious as they are horrific, but this overfocus constrains these movements and limits their potential audiences and strategies of resistance.

They're also heavily constrained by context, I remember the anti-war movements in the UK and Western Europe in the 2000s, they were large and popular since the types of conflicts the UK, France and NATO were involving themselves in were far away and often under the initiatives of their governments. These conflicts were widely seen as aggressive on "Our" part, or at least an overreaction. During the 2010s and especially after 2022 the atmosphere has radically changed and support for military action and spending is much more popular and resistance to it the more marginal. Why? Well now we're all reminded that the "West" is not the sole purveyor of armed strife and repression, their are other powers in the world just as willing and capable of resorting to mass destruction to get their way. Opposing BAE Systems was easy when the news was full of the destruction wrought on Baghdad, its much less so now that the news is full of Russian strikes on hospitals and schools and the ruin of Bakhmut. 

The Security Dilemma is also the main reason why the previously somewhat sucessful strategy of partial demilitarisation won't work in the long run. The organised anti-war movement was somewhat sucessful in getting specific types of weapons of destruction to be seen as taboo and were able to leverage the outrage and disgust over them to get some states to adopt laws and subscribe to treaties that would phase out parts of their stockpiles. Land Mines, Cluster munitions and multiple types of chemical and biological weapons and some Nuclear munitions were after years of blood, sweat and tears from millions of passionate campaigners starting to look like endangered species. But now much of that work may well be undone as recent conflicts demonstrate to all the powers that these horrific tools do have practical applications.

In Syria Assad's regime used chemical weapons to break an rebellion that may well have toppled him. He also heavily relied on aviatian, artillery and Iranian and Russian support but the case studies he ran using Chlorine shells will prove useful in certain circles. The war in Ukraine fought between two nations which have not outlawed Cluster munitions or land mines have demonstrated how militarily useful both can be in certain conflict scenarios. When the United States of America which also has not subscribed to the ban on Cluster munitions started supplying Ukraine with some of its stockpiles the leaders of the governments in Western Europe were grilled quite heavily about the issue for a week. They all just reiterated their official opposition to these weapons and then concluded they could do nothing about it.

The only way to solve the Security Dilemma is to take an approach at the root of the issue. Banning F-14s and their equivalents globally won't effect Cruise Missiles, getting Cruise Missiles scrapped won't touch Tanks or Mortars, nor stop the logic that drives businesses to operate in the arms markets, nor states from investing and supporting these companies and the wider market. If we ever genuinely want to see a world free of F-14s, SU-34s, Elbit produced Drones, AK-47s, Challenger 2s, Mirage Fighter Jets and Scud Missiles, we need to attack their support structure.

The military industrial complex and its ancestors have always been extremely resource intensive and required decades of support and investment to bare fruit. Without the capitalist market and the State system they will not be sustainable. If humanity truly is doomed by nature to a cycle of fratricidal violence (which is not what I believe but others apparently do) than by taking away his toys and the workshops that build those toys will prevent the worst excessises of that nature. Anti-Militarism without a Materialist strategy for resistance will be doomed to ultimate failure.
 

Democracy Manifest! the Graphic Guide to Voting

 

 Well the election came and went, It'll take a few days of settling for accurate information to comeout to see what exactly happened there. In the run up to the big day I saw pages of Your Vote is Vital! a 1952 comic book created by Harvey Press to both advocate for voting and explain how the system of elective representation works. The entire comic has been scanned and can be seen/downloaded at Comic Book Plus.

Personally speaking, I find "GOTV" (Get Out the Vote) art tiresome, it often just a short command to participate, sometimes followed up with a moralising attack on a strawman reperesentation of the "apathetic voter". This comic is something of an exception, its still extremely judgy of people who aren't racing to the polling station to vote but formulates several arguments for why a citizen should care about elections and makes some consideration for the limitations and vulnerabilities of the governmental system of the United States of America.

I was tempted to upload every page here, but due to Blogger lacking a gallery function that would look awful, so instead I'll just highlight a few chosen pages.

This is the first page, and it isn't a great start. The argument that one man one vote just isn't true, its not true now, and it wasn't true in 1952. The USA is made up of states and its President is chosen via an electoral college system, that system in many states is functionally independent of the popular vote the decision to award state votes to a candidate who wins the vote in that state is largely done by convention. But even if it was law that the College and the Popular votes had to match there are four elections 1876, 1888,2000,2016 where the eventual winner did not recieve the most popular votes. At best Brown Hat here as an equal vote with his state, or congressional district if he lives in Maine or Nebraska, national his vote is weighted differently.

On the next page we're getting into a bit more substance, I was surprised to see Uncle Sam acknowledge that the assumption that elections are rule by majority is often not the case in reality. Though I notice some backsliding in the assumption that half the eligible (And we'll come to whats iffy about that term later) voters are lazy. It especially strange as pages within this very comic will present us with possible alternative explanations for why the Presidents vote base was so small.

A few things on this page, for historical context the after WWII Czechoslovakia held elections which lead to a coalition government coming to power. That coalition included the Communist party which in 1948-9 launched a coup against its coalition partners and built a dictatorship which quickly aligned with the Soviet Union. There was no voting in China the brutal dictatorial KMT were violently overthrown by the brutal dictatorial CPC, but I believe he's making a general point about complacency with the government being dangerous. I was glad to see a reference to the dictatorial regime of Peron in Argentina, I thought this was going to be a red scare screed but it seems to genuinely be in favour of elective government over overt authoritarianism.

Its wider point that who governs a nation will have an impact on every facet of daily life is important. From experience I've seen people get agitated over one issue to support a policy or faction who hammer them with every other policy they have. But I think the middle argument about organised minorities versus the lazy apathetic masses is a bit weak. It presupposes that the masses are opposed to thses minorities, when we have no way of knowing that, they could just as easily vote with these minorities. This is something that is common to all the typical "I Voted" propaganda that clogs everything in the run up to elections, if your aim is purely to increase participation then that's fine I guess, but generic calls to participation surely if they have any impact would risk encouraging voting for other candidates, policies and positions too?

 

Jumped ahead to page 6. Here we run into another issue with electoral politics. The citizens give legitimacy to politicians via a vote, but since that doesn't require any knowledge of the candidates nor their policies what exactly is that legitimacy based on? Party affiliation? Personal charisma? Name bias?

I'll credit the comic for having the maturity to acknowledge this issue, but its solution to this problem is to spend time learning the voting records and public statements of presumably all the candidates for election, that could easily number in the hundreds. I'm someone who is engaged politically so in principle I agree with Sam, if you're going to vote or do anything to support a candidate/party you should do so informed and certain of your convictions. But, I also know how difficult that is, especially for minority viewpoints who do not have connections to mass media or funds for campaigning material. And then on top of all the difficulties there's the Woodrow Wilson issue. You have zero guarantee that past behaviour will reflect on future behaviour when elected. 

In the 1916 election, many supporters of the Socialist Party broke ranks and voted and campaigned for Woodrow Wilson for President. They did this because they were desperate to keep the USA out of the slaughter known as the First World War. Wilson won and in 1917 the USA entered the First World War anyway.

This cartoon was made before Wilson won and implies that he'll lose because of his opposition to entering it.

The voters are not the only instrument of pressure affecting policy, as Wilson discovered after taking office.

See here is some of the vulnerabilities the comic can't or won't try to tackle, ownership of the means of communication. Who owns those newspapers and radio stations? What about the effect of the current government? I do however agree with the last point about the need to use your critical thinking skills to engage with and assess political messaging rather than just accepting what you're given. 

I don't necessarily disagree with this messaging, it just that for someone like me it begs the question why bother? If we're already investing our time into thinking about issues and the best solutions to those issues than why bother with governments and elections? Why not just work them out ourselves? Brown Hat and the model voters he represents is already putting in much of the brainwork of problem solving why limit it to choosing candidates and hoping that they win and then hoping that they can buck all the counter pressures? I know the answer is simple, the comics authors didn't think beyond the narrow confines of state government but I don't see why it should limit me or any other reader.

Remember back on page 3 I mentioned some issues with framing non-voters as lazy? Well this page covers many of those issues and doesn't do it very well it just states the official procedure and then refuses to discuss the many issues with it. To vote you have to register to vote which is a procedure that varies heavily from state to state in the USA. Sam is just vaguely describing some of the most common ones here, and we just have to take his word that this is all very easy and the instructions on how to do so are in fact everywhere so its your fault if you don't know. I don't know if you've ever had to interact with a government department for anything but easy and straightforward is not how I'd describe the process. 

There's another darker side to this, did you know that US Federal and State governments include people in their jurisidiction that do not qualify for citizenship? Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico don't count, they have to move to the proper United States and fulfil a number of bureacratic tasks dependent on where they are to qualify. That's just one example, it also applies to the rest of the populations of the US territories which is currently over 3 million. In addition in some states those found guilty of crimes lose the right to vote even after their terms of imprisonment are up, as far as I can tell these people are still classed as citizens but have this right denied them.

It has been common practice in the United States to make felons ineligible to vote, in some cases permanently. Over the last few decades, the general trend has been toward reinstating the right to vote at some point, although this is a state-by-state policy choice. (See "Recent State Actions" below for a chronology.)

https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/felon-voting-rights 

There is still one more issue with this page I feel I must voice. This comic was published in 1952, this is important because Sam is mentioning a literacy test or presentation of school diploma to have the right to vote. At this time several states in Sam's Union were practising legal and open segregation, as part of that attack on the civil rights of Black Americans, these jurisidictions used tests and poll taxes to deny them the vote.

Here's an example of these "reading and writing" tests used in Lousiana

To be clear these tests were supposed to be impossible

 https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/06/voting-rights-and-the-supreme-court-the-impossible-literacy-test-louisiana-used-to-give-black-voters.html

And on reflection it is disappointing that a comic about the importance of civic rights, and  one that actively warns about the dangers of tyranny has nothing to say about segregation and is endorsing one of its aspects.

Since primaries aren't typical of election systems and are unique to the US I found this page informative but I find that it doesn't reflect reality. We've gone from voting in an election to joining a political party and leveraging influence, in the example Sam gives the winner is the one who can persuade the most people through hard work and personal charisma, but you don't have to be as cynical as I am to figure out that you could also use funds or networks of influence as leverage. Does the average working person have the time, energy and financial cushion to dedicate enough time and energy? And isn't this just an example of the organised minorities in action?

I'm no fan of party allegiance over personal conscience so its good that Sam reminds us that we don't have to vote for a party slate on every election or issue, but if you've formally joined a political party you will be expected to work to its benefit in someway even if its just sending them financial contributions, so the secret ballott isn't an antidote to partisan politics. 

I once heard someone describing the problems with the governmental system of the United States of America was that its foundations were laid by men who were extremely concerned with the supposed threat of the general public deciding policy but didn't fully grasp or understand political parties and factions of influence so devised a system that limited the impact of the former and completly failed to account for the latter, and we see that argument borne out in this comic. It is the best defence for the US system I've encountered and it is extremely worried about the dangers of ignorant voting but it barely touches on the potential malign influences of party politics and is completly silent on how capitalist economics create concentrations of power, persuasion and influence.

So in summary according to Uncle Sam the American public as a mass must become political obsessives, investing much of their time and income on a variety of sources, slowly building a habit of critical thinking through experience while actively collaborating in the party system, so that the USA can safe guard against the worst facets of government, forever. If the dangers posed by these institutions in hostile hands is so great, than logically the American people's time would be better spent working towards its dismantling instead of commiting to a forever war against the tyrannical minorities lurking within its society.

In the end I'm left thinking of an old poster on a wall I saw sometime ago, it said "Choosing your master does not make you free".

You and the Atom Bomb - George Orwell

Considering how likely we all are to be blown to pieces by it within the next five years, the atomic bomb has not roused so much discussion as might have been expected. The newspapers have published numerous diagrams, not very helpful to the average man, of protons and neutrons doing their stuff, and there has been much reiteration of the useless statement that the bomb “ought to be put under international control.” But curiously little has been said, at any rate in print, about the question that is of most urgent interest to all of us, namely: “How difficult are these things to manufacture?”

Such information as we – that is, the big public – possess on this subject has come to us in a rather indirect way, apropos of President Truman’s decision not to hand over certain secrets to the USSR. Some months ago, when the bomb was still only a rumour, there was a widespread belief that splitting the atom was merely a problem for the physicists, and that when they had solved it a new and devastating weapon would be within reach of almost everybody. (At any moment, so the rumour went, some lonely lunatic in a laboratory might blow civilisation to smithereens, as easily as touching off a firework.)

Had that been true, the whole trend of history would have been abruptly altered. The distinction between great states and small states would have been wiped out, and the power of the State over the individual would have been greatly weakened. However, it appears from President Truman’s remarks, and various comments that have been made on them, that the bomb is fantastically expensive and that its manufacture demands an enormous industrial effort, such as only three or four countries in the world are capable of making. This point is of cardinal importance, because it may mean that the discovery of the atomic bomb, so far from reversing history, will simply intensify the trends which have been apparent for a dozen years past.

It is a commonplace that the history of civilisation is largely the history of weapons. In particular, the connection between the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again. And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found generally true: that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon – so long as there is no answer to it – gives claws to the weak.

The great age of democracy and of national self-determination was the age of the musket and the rifle. After the invention of the flintlock, and before the invention of the percussion cap, the musket was a fairly efficient weapon, and at the same time so simple that it could be produced almost anywhere. Its combination of qualities made possible the success of the American and French revolutions, and made a popular insurrection a more serious business than it could be in our own day. After the musket came the breech-loading rifle. This was a comparatively complex thing, but it could still be produced in scores of countries, and it was cheap, easily smuggled and economical of ammunition. Even the most backward nation could always get hold of rifles from one source or another, so that Boers, Bulgars, Abyssinians, Moroccans – even Tibetans – could put up a fight for their independence, sometimes with success. But thereafter every development in military technique has favoured the State as against the individual, and the industrialised country as against the backward one. There are fewer and fewer foci of power. Already, in 1939, there were only five states capable of waging war on the grand scale, and now there are only three – ultimately, perhaps, only two. This trend has been obvious for years, and was pointed out by a few observers even before 1914. The one thing that might reverse it is the discovery of a weapon – or, to put it more broadly, of a method of fighting – not dependent on huge concentrations of industrial plant.

From various symptoms one can infer that the Russians do not yet possess the secret of making the atomic bomb; on the other hand, the consensus of opinion seems to be that they will possess it within a few years. So we have before us the prospect of two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds, dividing the world between them. It has been rather hastily assumed that this means bigger and bloodier wars, and perhaps an actual end to the machine civilisation. But suppose – and really this the likeliest development – that the surviving great nations make a tacit agreement never to use the atomic bomb against one another? Suppose they only use it, or the threat of it, against people who are unable to retaliate? In that case, we are back where we were before, the only difference being that power is concentrated in still fewer hands and that the outlook for subject peoples and oppressed classes is still more hopeless.

When James Burnham wrote The Managerial Revolution it seemed probable to many Americans that the Germans would win the European end of the war, and it was therefore natural to assume that Germany and not Russia would dominate the Eurasian land mass, while Japan would remain master of East Asia. This was a miscalculation, but it does not affect the main argument. For Burnham’s geographical picture of the new world has turned out to be correct. More and more obviously the surface of the earth is being parcelled off into three great empires, each self-contained and cut off from contact with the outer world, and each ruled, under one disguise or another, by a self-elected oligarchy. The haggling as to where the frontiers are to be drawn is still going on, and will continue for some years, and the third of the three super-states – East Asia, dominated by China – is still potential rather than actual. But the general drift is unmistakable, and every scientific discovery of recent years has accelerated it.

We were once told that the aeroplane had “abolished frontiers”; actually, it is only since the aeroplane became a serious weapon that frontiers have become definitely impassable. The radio was once expected to promote international understanding and co-operation; it has turned out to be a means of insulating one nation from another. The atomic bomb may complete the process by robbing the exploited classes and peoples of all power to revolt, and at the same time putting the possessors of the bomb on a basis of military equality. Unable to conquer one another, they are likely to continue ruling the world between them, and it is difficult to see how the balance can be upset except by slow and unpredictable demographic changes.

For forty or fifty years past, Mr. H. G. Wells and others have been warning us that man is in danger of destroying himself with his own weapons, leaving the ants or some other gregarious species to take over. Anyone who has seen the ruined cities of Germany will find this notion at least thinkable. Nevertheless, looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery. We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity. James Burnham’s theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications – that is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of “cold war” with its neighbours.

Had the atomic bomb turned out to be something as cheap and easily manufactured as a bicycle or an alarm clock, it might well have plunged us back into barbarism, but it might, on the other hand, have meant the end of national sovereignty and of the highly-centralised police State. If, as seems to be the case, it is a rare and costly object as difficult to produce as a battleship, it is likelier to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of prolonging indefinitely a “peace that is no peace”.

Tribune, 19 October 1945

What a Concept

 

 If you're old enough to remember the early seasons of the Simpsons, you'll probably remember an exchange between Principal Skinner and an unusually exasperated Apu. Here it is in all its glory.

 

The joke is that Principal Skinner is hopelessly out of touch, both in not being aware of Jurassic Park, (this was in the 90s remember) and thinks the title Billy and the Cloneasaurus, is a good title and that this qualifies as a great American novel.

Apu does an excellent job of bursting Skinner's bubble, it's a terrible idea in direct competition with a financial and cultural juggernaut in its prime. However, at no point in his tirade does Apu cite copyright, that is because you cannot copyright an idea. Despite the existence of Jurassic Park, Skinner is free to write a novel or a script or a comic or any other format he chooses about a futuristic theme park where Dinosaurs are brought back to life through cloning experiments. The concepts of Dinosaurs, theme parks and cloning are all fair game, he would get some opposition if he titled his masterpiece Jurassic Park over trademarking, but that would have to playout in the courts titles and names aren't protected as such which is why there so many films with Exorcist in the title.

 If Billy and the Cloneasuarus either got to a stage where it could be published, Skinner would enjoy the experience of trying to find an agent and a publisher, who almost certainly would strong-arm him into changing the title to anything more marketable. The concepts themselves are fair game, anyone can make a movie about an aggressive Alien life form attacking the crew members, Alien knockoffs are quite common, The Raid, and Judge Dredd, both feature a police officer locked inside an apartment complex controlled by a ganglord and have to fight their way to the top, and both are excellent action movies to boot. Both were released without a lengthy and exhausting legal battle between each others owners over IP rights.

So, you might be wondering what exactly does copyright, well copyright. It's the story, the specific story and its combination of concepts, characters and events and the point of view of that author. You make your own story up on the same premise, you're just not allowed to actively copy an existing work and pass it off as your own. So, to take a hypothetical example Billy and the Cloneasaurus, Billy the young protagonist gets to go to a futuristic theme park where Dinosaurs are brought back to life via some bioengineering process, the book ends with Billy befriending the Cloneasaurus and eager for the chance to return to the theme park. That is a unique if not very good story that differs substantially from Jurassic Park. So long as Skinner didn't just copy Crichton's Jurassic Park, and then slap on that title he would face no opposition to publication on that front, he would face plenty of opposition for the reason Apu gave, the title's awful and there isn't a market for it.

The reason I made this post is to clarify a misconception about copyright, as bad as it is, it isn't that Draconian, not yet at least. A common post I see on public domain and creative writing message boards is asking for "free to use versions of X" and while the discussion started by these questions can sometimes bring attention to an underrated character or story It's not necessary, just make up your own version. Public Domain and Creative Commons media are tools to be used, but that doesn't mean you're restricted to them, you can make your own superheroes despite DC and Marvel existing, you can animate talking animals without getting the go-ahead from Disney and whoever owns Warner Brothers now.

We live in Pottersville; thoughts on It's a Wonderful Life

 

 

Last Christmas, I scratched It's a Wonderful Life off my to watch list. It took me awhile, I suppose it was a combination of never being on TV when I was free at Christmastime and a case of absorbing much of the film via cultural osmosis due to the staggering number of other media spoofing, parodying and tributing the film. I learnt about the key plot twists as a child thanks to the Simpsons and an episode of Johnny Bravo. I was surprised to learn that the bits everyone knows about are only a fraction of the film, and that I still really enjoyed it despite popular culture spoiling nearly every key scene. Initially Jimmy Stewart's performance stunned me since I had been under the impression that his aww shucks and golly gee dialogue and put upon but dogged demeanour combined with that semi-warble line delivery was a product of exaggerated spoofs and not the performance of a Hollywood leading man.

It's a great film, has a good moral, the cast plays their roles excellently, I didn't feel its length and this is nothing new to anyone whose seen the film. All I'll say on that is that if you were like me and were in no rush to see it, give it a go, it'll be a pleasant evening. 

So, with that out of the way, the reason I'm talking about this movie is politics. The film was controversial on release wayback in 1946, the FBI in an early move in the second Red Scare investigated the film on suspicion of it being Communist propaganda. 

There is submitted herewith the running memorandum concerning Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry which has been brought up to date as of May 26, 1947....

With regard to the picture "It's a Wonderful Life", [redacted] stated in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a "scrooge-type" so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists.

  [redacted] stated that, in his opinion, this picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters. [redacted] related that if he made this picture portraying the banker, he would have shown this individual to have been following the rules as laid down by the State Bank Examiner in connection with making loans. Further, [redacted] stated that the scene wouldn't have "suffered at all" in portraying the banker as a man who was protecting funds put in his care by private individuals and adhering to the rules governing the loan of that money rather than portraying the part as it was shown. In summary, [redacted] stated that it was not necessary to make the banker such a mean character and "I would never have done it that way."

https://web.archive.org/web/20111229215857/http://www.wisebread.com/fbi-considered-its-a-wonderful-life-communist-propaganda#memo1 

 Which is of course total nonsense. Yes, Mr Potter as portrayed by Lionel Barrymore is an absolute scumbag who you're supposed to hate with vehemence, but Jimmy Stewart's character is also a banker. The film isn't Communist at all, Capra the director of the film is throwing his weight behind small scale community oriented capitalism. Bailey Brothers Building and Loans is a bank and its importance as an institution in the town and the hope it provides to the residence of Bedford Falls is salvation through capital investment, the homes they're building and enabling the community to buy come from those investments. 

Potter and Bailey are opposed ideologically, but it's an ideological divide within, the logic of capitalism. Potter represents old monopoly capitalism, he spends the film trying to destroy the Bailey Brothers because they are the one sole form of competition in the area, so he as the big established capitalist uses every advantage he has to break the rival bank, and when that fails he just steals from them to try and deal the killing blow. I think what really got the FBI and its informant [REDACTED] ornery was that Potter, the villain, is representative of the American system, he's the typical capitalist and so criticism of how he acts and behaves is criticism of officially sanctioned America. He also doesn't face any punishment for his many morally and ethically dubious but often legal actions. I don't know if Frank Capra was consciously aware of just how damning that is a judgement of American society. The film shows us that the established powers in America can use that power to crush the good in society out of personal spite or paranoia over a potential competition, and they can do that with impunity. 

The real tragedy is that in the real world, the Potters won.  Credit Unions, community and co-operative banks still exist in the present and some have grown to some size, but compared to the banks' ala Potter? Pebbles next to mountains. The successful stakeholder initiatives increasingly morph into or sell to the big banks, which are now so big and concentrate so much capital that they can plunge the whole global economy into recessions when they screw up. And closer to home, the Potters won the battle for the film. 

It's a Wonderful Life didn't just annoy the FBI, it did poorly with the critics and was a box office disappointment. It languished in obscurity and was such a low priority that when the copyright was up for renewal in 1974 it was botched, pushing the film into the public domain.  Thanks to that clerical error that led to the film's eventual rise to classic status and beloved fixture of American holidays. TV stations could air the film in exchange for royalties to the owner of the copyright of The Greatest Gift, the 24-page source material, which still made it much cheaper to show than most alternative films. This also probably played a role in why the film is so widely referenced, parody is protected under the doctrine of Fair Use, copyright can still provide grounds for offended rights holders to make it not worth the trouble.

Republic Pictures used its ownership of the copyright to the source material to clamp down further on the distribution of the film, effectively forcing it back into copyright. Republic Pictures had closed down in the 1960s and was revived in the 80s due to business restructuring, shortly after reclaiming It's a Wonderful Life they were folded up into Viacom. No one who worked on the story or the film is connected with the royalties and fees that are accrued by the film today. The cinematic community has been robbed of the film thanks to the power of large corporations to influence the legal system of the United States with their large law firms and lobbying agents. 

I suppose It's a Wonderful Life has some solace for us, in the film Potters triumph as bleak as it is not the end of the struggle, George Bailey doesn't give into despair despite the many trying obstacles, he earns his happy ending and we can too.

On Time and Being in the public domain

 

Pay special attention to the year 1929 listed at the bottom

 

Warning to enjoyers of classic media, I've noticed a dirty trick by several bad actors to keep older works under control of estates and corporate departments. In the United States of America, copyright still works differently than in most of the rest of the world. The year of release is the most important aspect for determining if a work is or is not still in copyright. As the year's tick by and more and more popular and well remembered (still able to generate profit) works fall into the public domain, I'm seeing what I guess can be called retroactive release date extensions. 

If you look at the screenshot above, you will notice that the classic air ace film Wings is available for purchasing or rent on YouTube. You may also notice the year listed is 1929. This is not the year Wings was released. It was in fact released in 1927, why the discrepancy? Well, American works released in 1927 or earlier are now in the public domain. Whereas 1929 works at the time of writing are still in copyright. This isn't a little white lie either, I've received take down notices by companies using this false redating, and on at least one occasion while I was compiling evidence for my challenge I noticed that the English language wikipedia entry for the film in question had also mysteriously had new dates, this has since been corrected.

 

So, what can you do about this? Well, like all other forms of copyfraud we can't stop the perpetrators from doing this, we can however challenge and expose this. While wikipedia can be edited by anyone, there are several definitive databases that cannot be tampered with. For American film's I always check the American Film Institute which lists the release dates and premieres of every commercially released American film. For example, the entry on Wings clearly shows multiple screenings in 1927. For British films, the British Film Institute also fulfils this service.  So be vigilant, if in doubt check at authoritative sources.