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RIP 21st Century Fox...

dudalb

Penultimate Amazing
dudalb
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As of Midnight tonight, when March 19th becomes March 20th,21st Century Fox, which has been around in various forms since 1915 (when William Fox opened his Fox Studios) ceases to exist as a independent studio, and becomes a subsidiary of Disney.
A rump company called Fox Corporation will be formed covering what Rupert Murdoch chose to keep..mainly the Fox News Channel, and the Fox Sports channels. He basically chose to get out of the entertainment producing business except for sports.
This will make Disney easily the single most powerful company in the entertainment/communications business, for better or worse.
 
All your childhood memories will be fully owned IP.

For the rest of your life.


I still wonder if Disney would have had less success if they'd been subject to the same restrictions on using dead authors work that they've been ruthlessly imposing on others.
 
theprestige said:
I'm pretty sure that's not how dreams work.
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Well I was pretty sure that your reply to an obviously hyperbolic metaphor was the most useless post in this thread but then you doubled down with this post when someone made a joke about your reply so that shows me how wrong I am on the internet.

Anyway on topic: I hereby revoke my policy to never watch any Disney owned properties anymore due to the fact that I probably can't avoid them anyway.
 
theprestige said:
I'm pretty sure that's not how dreams work.
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It's not how IP works either.

When a movie is played at the cinema or on TV it is a performance. Royalties are paid by the people 'performing' it. Lawyers can't go after the people viewing it, and they certainly can't claim a person's memory of the movie as their copyright.

If you record it with a camera or DVD writer then it is a mechanical reproduction. You can't do that legally without permission of the copyright holder or their agent. But... if you purchase a legally produced copy then you can sell it or loan it out as many times as you like. The person who purchases or borrows the movie then has the right to 'perform' it.

Both Fox and Disney have made some great movies. I see no reason why they shouldn't be allowed to make money from their creations, either from performances or sales. Want to relive your childhood memories of a 21st Century Fox movie? Just buy the DVD and play it as often as you like - no lawyer can stop you!

OTOH, perhaps you don't like the idea of Disney having a copyright on 'everything'. So make your own movies, and then you can sick the lawyers onto anyone who copies them without permission. Has to be all your own work though - no ripping bits out of other movies because you were too lazy to make your own stuff! And then perhaps you will understand why copyright laws exist.
 
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Roger Ramjets said:
<snip>

OTOH, perhaps you don't like the idea of Disney having a copyright on 'everything'. So make your own movies, and then you can sick the lawyers onto anyone who copies them without permission. Has to be all your own work though - no ripping bits out of other movies because you were too lazy to make your own stuff! And then perhaps you will understand why copyright laws exist.
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The problem is not that copyright laws exist. It's rather that the length of copyright has been extended to extreme lengths (I believe it is currently at the life of the owner + 95 years :eek: ) - as well as Disney's role in the last extension - that has people complaining ...
 
It seems unfair to blame Disney, a corporation that exists to make money, for making money off the things people sold to it so they themselves could make money. Whether it's a Disney employee paid to come up with material or an author whose work Disney bought rights to, the creators did get paid for it. And Disney in turn does what it can to get the most out of what it got for its money.

If you want to angst at the dreadful commercialization of creativity you should start at the root, which is that people need and want money. Some entities being better able to navigate capitalism doesn't make them more evil than those who just aren't as skilled at it. If the sainted creator of a thing doesn't want Disney's dirty moneygrubbing fingers on their work they could just not sell it to them in the first place.
 
dann said:
You mean a little like this? A huge overnight increase in a drug's price raises protests (NYT, Sep. 21, 2015)
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I don't see drugs and movies as being similar enough to claim equivalent treatment is required. But the root source is the same problem: people need and want money so they sell things. Had the original makers of a drug not sold the rights for money they could have let anybody and everybody manufacture it freely.
 
BTW I think that Disney't move to shut down FOX 2000, after promising that it would be retained, is a really, really, dick move. I won't defend The Mouse on this one.
 
It occurred to me that my previous post might be misinterpreted. I wasn't defending anything Disney might do in the course of seeking profit, I was only defending their right to make money off intellectual properties they purchased. Of course they could be gentlemen and ladies about how they operate.
 
dudalb said:
BTW I think that Disney't move to shut down FOX 2000, after promising that it would be retained, is a really, really, dick move. I won't defend The Mouse on this one.
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I had posted this in the 'Gunn Fired/Guardians of the Galaxy' thread, but perhaps should have posted it here in stead:

To be honest, I'm not sure whether this is a good or bad decision.

After all, Disney is ultimately a business, and if Fox 2000 was doing something unique that helped bring in revenue, it would be extremely foolish to shut it down without an alternative. There is always a chance that whatever it does is replicated elsewhere in the Disney empire.

Granted it does suck for some of the people working there. But the same sort of staff cuts probably would have happened regardless of who ended up purchasing Fox.

I'd be curious about why they felt the need to close it down... Duplication of efforts in other parts of the company? Maybe plans to switch their resources to the Fox Searchlight division (unless of course its being shut down too.)

A little more detailed analysis is here (Note that its an opinion piece. Does seem to have some valid points in my opinion)...

From: https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottm...ign=sprinklrForbesShowbizTwitter#5531c414450c
the same thing would have happened had Comcast, which owns Universal and Focus Features, been the buyer. I’d wager that Fox Searchlight, which has been an Oscar powerhouse over the last decade or so (Slumdog Millionaire, 12 Years a Slave, Birdman, The Shape of Water, etc.) is probably safer at Walt Disney than it would have been with Comcast.
...
The (unexpectedly) good news is that many of the laid-off employees will get one-to-two years of severance pay.
...
Most of Fox 2000’s 50-plus movies were (at best and arguably as intended) small scale hits....especially since 2015, the majority of Fox 2000 pictures were exactly the sort that have struggled to find a theatrical audience.
...
When audiences only go to “event movies” in theaters, where adults indulge in the same tentpoles as their kids, and everyone consumes almost everything else on Netflix (or not at all), it’s hell out there for movies like The Hate U Give, Love Simon, The Mountain Between Us and Keeping Up with the Jones.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
In this context, surely they already were, only the ultimate owner has changed?
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Well, that's just a technicality.

A whopping great, totally valid one, but a technicality nonetheless.


IP laws are great, they allow people to make money from stuff the produce. My problem with Disney is the constant ans successful attempts to change the rules solely for their own benefit. Especially when they have been ruthless users of other people's creations whose protections had passed.
 
TragicMonkey said:
It occurred to me that my previous post might be misinterpreted. I wasn't defending anything Disney might do in the course of seeking profit, I was only defending their right to make money off intellectual properties they purchased. Of course they could be gentlemen and ladies about how they operate.
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No, no, all perfectly clear. You have shares in the Mouse and you have to tow the corporate line.
 
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