Tag Archives: world

Rant alert: The world is bigger than the US alone

by Serge Jespers on 06. May, 2009 in Rants

copyrights.jpgI was just reading the live blogs coming from the Amazon press conference and felt kind of disappointed… again… I was hoping that Amazon would announce the European launch of the Kindle. But sadly… no.

I’m pretty sure it is yet another copyright issue that is preventing Amazon from launching Kindle worldwide. And that is exactly something that needs to change. With the Internet being this widespread and content accessible worldwide, old school copyrights and release tactics just don’t work any more. And in my opinion, they also make no sense at all.

Sadly… It’s not just Amazon. Apple’s iTunes is another good example. iTunes TV shows and movies are still only available in 1 or 2 countries in Europe. Or what about other online video providers like Netflix and Hulu? Even though it is perfectly possible to access these sites outside the US, copyright laws prevent you from using their service. Why is that?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to release books, movies, music, games, … on the same day worldwide? Combine available marketing power into one global campaign? Could that also have a positive effect on piracy? If I can go and see/buy a movie on the same day as someone across the ocean can, surely there is no need to download it? I would have no problem paying to see a movie or a new episode of a TV show.

Sadly, this is not even just restricted to copyright laws. Remember the launch of the iPhone? It was available only in the US for months. What did people outside the US do? They bought one in the US and hacked it. There are plenty of other examples like this one out there…

I know this blog post is not going to change anything but at least I got it out of my system ;-) Would love to hear your thoughts though!

UPDATE: As Mike Chambers pointed out, in some cases this is a knife that cuts both ways. People in the US also can’t watch content from Europe.

- End of rant -

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When does copyrighting go too far?

by Serge Jespers on 07. Apr, 2008 in Rants

Update: The Atomium owners have come to their senses. They now issued a statement that says that “they won’t ask for license fees on amateur photographs during this anniversary year”. That means the exhibitors are in the clear and won’t have to remove the Atomium from the photographs they’re exhibiting. The exhibitors would like to thank everyone who responded and blogged about it.

My home town Mechelen (Belgium) is having an exhibition about the world expo in Belgium in 1958. One of the only remaining buildings from that year’s world expo is the Atomium, one of the most recognized buildings in Belgium. When tourists visit Belgium, this is on their agenda. Obviously, a lot of pictures are taken in front of the Atomium.

The exhibition in Mechelen was supposed to show these types of photos. Photos of people who had visited Belgium during the world expo. Sounds very innocent, right? Well… Since the Atomium was/is such a prominent building on the world expo site, it’s obvious that this appears in a lot of photos. According to copyright laws, they can’t show the pictures. Well… They can show the pictures but it can’t have the Atomium in it. Every time the image of the Atomium is shown, they (and actually, you too) have to pay a copyright fee, get written approval from the company that manages the building and to top it off, every photo must have the “(c) vzw Atomium” copyright line.

The exhibitor has found a creative way to get around that and is now looking for 100 Photoshoppers to cut out the Atomium from all of the exhibited photos. That just seems wrong to me. I mean, it’s totally cool that they are specifically asking for Photoshoppers (Photoshop being an Adobe product :D) but the reason why seems wrong to me. The Atomium is a public building and a landmark that was (probably) paid for with tax payer’s money but you can’t show pictures from it without paying copyrights to the building owner. So that got me wondering where this copyright-fee goes to? Does it go back to the owners of the building, in this case the tax payers? I think not…

So when does copyrighting go too far? I think this would be an excellent example.

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