Why Joke "thieves" are bad; by someone who doesn’t believe in Intellectual Property

Posted on by MalaclypseTheYounger

My current day job is Intellectual Property. I’m an academic, I research, write about, think about, and investigate Intellectual Property, the laws that describe it, and how people interact with it. As a consequence of this, I have come to feel that Intellectual Property (IP) is a misnomer. It doesn’t mean anything, it’s a nonsense word, and it is unhelpful for assisting meaningful discussion of topics like copyright law, or “rights” in the intellectual economy. But I don’t like joke thieves and I don’t think many others do. Why would I feel animosity towards someone for stealing something that I don’t think can be “stolen”?

Recent accusations of joke theft aimed squarely at Amy Schumer

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Follow-Up: Why You Have To Support A Right To Self-Censor

Posted on by MalaclypseTheYounger

Don’t panic, I’m not about to argue that you have to like it when it’s done. Or that you can’t complain about it; vigorously if you want. But whilst you can be against Censorship, broadly speaking, I suspect most of you probably aren’t actually against self-censorship (unless you’re insane: please read on).

I was quite surprised to find that the conclusion that many readers of my article yesterday, regarding Cartoon Network’s decision to censor it’s show Steven Universe, was that we should never self-censor. This was despite what I thought was a pretty simple example of why self-censorship can be okay.

I typically swear a lot, but I don’t think I’ve ever sworn in the presence of my Gran. We can choose to modify our behaviour and speech to reflect a certain setting and there should certainly be analogous scenarios in media.

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That Time Censorship Was Bad

Posted on by MalaclypseTheYounger

Recently it was discovered that Cartoon Network was going to be censoring a scene from a show called Steven Universe that depicted a dance between two female characters. The censorship itself is rather innocuous, removing a tiny fraction of the total scene. Regardless, it seems just a little dumb. And Cartoon Network’s statement that, removing the 1-2 seconds from the longer similar scene would make parents and children more “comfortable”, seems rather regressive.

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Detailed here.

What interested me more was the reaction from the kinds of internet groups who are typically supportive of decisions to “localise”/self-censor content. As a user in /r/GamerGhazi notes:

/u/casersatz – To be logically consistent with my attitude toward Japanese games being altered for the US, I’ll probably need to say that this was a company doing what they think is right with their own property.
But why did they think it was right? That’s what I want to know. When Japanese games are altered for the US, or not sold there at all, Gamergaters have an easy conspiratorial scapegoat for the company’s actions: “SJWs”. I wish my worldview were so simple.

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Microsoft Legitimising Pirate Copies (at least for now)

Posted on by MalaclypseTheYounger

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Microsoft had “clarified” that they were not going to be upgrading pirated copies of Windows to legitimate versions of Windows 10. As it happens, early reports have suggested that Pirates have been able to upgrade to Windows 10 for free. Not only that, but it also appears that they are also receiving new keys associated with the installation and these keys may well be legitimate. So I tested it.

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Murder Scenes Aren’t Just Awful. They’re Lazy Writing

Posted on by MalaclypseTheYounger

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I read Laura Hudson’s Rape Scenes Aren’t Just Awful. They’re Lazy Writing (link & archive) shortly after it first came out and immediately knew I would need to write a response. I think part of the reason that rape is becoming a more common feature of media is that we have only really just started talking about it. It wasn’t that long ago that marital rape didn’t legally exist. This is a topic we’re still learning how to deal with but that has, until recently, been largely swept under the rug. Modern media could be a interesting way to tackle this and I can sympathise with Hudson’s wishes to not see rape handled cheaply. But part of portraying rape is also a learning experience for creatives, where the notion that people shouldn’t create rape scenes might actually be more damaging, simply further sweeping rape under the rug.

In particular, I felt like there was no reason the same arguments couldn’t be applied to other horrific acts. So I’ve re-written Hudson’s article for murder to see if it is convincing. There are some conclusions at the end. 

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The Harm of "Rape Myths” Myths

Posted on by MalaclypseTheYounger

Back in March of this year an interesting article was widely shared online entitled: “Consent: Not Actually That Complicated “. The article laid out an analogy between consenting to sex and accepting a cup of tea. Frankly, as a Brit, I’m offended that tea drinking is portrayed as anything other than a deeply complex social phenomenon. But seriously, though I think there is a genuine oversimplification of complex human interaction (both tea and sex; I mean that seriously), what worried me a lot more was a follow-up where we hear about the “rape myths” regarding false accusations.

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“Ana Mardoll We Need to Talk About the Furiosa Comic”: A rebuttal [SPOILERS ABOUND]

Posted on by MalaclypseTheYounger

I tried recording video for this post several times as I would more usually do. However, time and time again I found myself getting stuck, rambling too long, or missing important details. There is just something different about the written word. Apologies for the horrible quality of this blog itself as I have literally thrown it together so as to author this response to Ana Mardoll’s post (link here & and an Archive link if you prefer).

If you have not read Mardoll’s piece above then, by all means please do, though I will be representing much of the argument here.

This is not an attack of Feminism or a complaint about Mad Max Fury Road. This is merely my frank and honest reading and viewing of the movies and comics.

A semi-TL;DR will be included at the end.

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