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youchoob Gravity from Australia Since: Feb, 2011
Gravity
#1: Feb 11th 2011 at 2:59:18 AM

"In the early 20th century a record company sued an aspiring musician for copyright over using a similar sounding riff as to one of their older songs. The court ruled in favor of the musician stating that musical were not property of anyone and as such no infringement had occurred. Over the next week the record company (through illegal measures) purchased the rights to musical notes. Other companies were soon to follow as they realized all fiction was simply a large amount of concepts put together to resemble a story.

It's now the mid/late 20th century and all fictional content is controlled by a few companies. Because of the executive meddling and lack of competition most fiction has become low quality and expensive. Resulting in most lower income earners to have a lack of fictional content. Suicides and depression run rampant in the communities and lack of motivation is responsible for the high crime rate.

With fiction prices being so high piracy has become an extremely profitable business, however due to the billions being lost to piracy the companies pressured the government to create a task-force to specifically combat privacy resulting in the creation of A.P.A.F. (Anti-Piracy Assault Force.) which the companies use as their personal army. Using this task-force the companies find noticed aspiring writers and either recruit them (for minimal pay) or send them to jail.

Enter spearhead, a terrorist organization with the sole purpose of destroying the companies that control fiction. Backed by a series of rich investors (made up of rich writers from our time zone) they recruit and indoctrinate young with stories and lies (bear in mind that most are teenagers who haven't seen much fiction) to do acts of terrorism and espionage against the companies."

So that's the setting for my novel any criticisms or notes? I'm trying to make sure my setting doesn't have any holes or fridge logic i can't see.

WackyMeetsPractical My teacher's a panda from Texas Since: Oct, 2009
My teacher's a panda
#2: Feb 11th 2011 at 11:27:08 PM

I don't know about plot holes, but the whole thing seems quite implausible. There are copyright laws set in place in most countries that specifically keep people from claiming rights to concepts, and I know that no court of law would allow a recording company to claim exclusive rights to musical notes. They'd have to pay off a lot of judges and lawyers to allow such a claim to stand after mountains of lawsuits.

Not to mention the hundreds and hundreds of creators that will simply not allow their freedoms of expression to be repressed just because some companies claim that they own letters or stories. I imagine if any one company disallows any writer or artist to create music or poetry, or any other written work, that there will immediately be a ton of boycotts with tons of supporters. Those companies will instantly go out of business.

It seems like they'd need the support of the military to pull such a thing off, punishing anybody who decides to create works without the permission of the publishing companies. And I can't imagine any government that would willingly support a private company's attempt to monopolize on creativity. Especially since the military has so many other things they should be worrying about, like fighting wars and stuff.

One thing I think is true is that people care about their freedom to express themselves and at the slightest sign that someone could possibly take that right away, people will fight for it and they will fight hard. The only case in which I think people will allow their freedoms of expression to be taken away is during war time, in which words could often be seen as harmful towards national security.

So instead of having private companies attempt to monopolize on creative properties on a whim, it may be more plausible if it was the national government that prohibited the people's freedom of expression during time of war and then have some Corrupt Corporate Executive take advantage of the situation. He could convince the government to give control of all creative properties to him and his company will ensure that everything written, printed, recorded, spoken, or sung was pro-nationalism and will support the war. He can then manipulate things so that he maintains control even after the war. Then events can continue as you've written it.

edited 11th Feb '11 11:27:40 PM by WackyMeetsPractical

youchoob Gravity from Australia Since: Feb, 2011
Gravity
#3: Feb 12th 2011 at 1:13:06 AM

I knew there was should be more plausible reason for the world to end up how it did-thanks for the help

colbertimposter Since: Dec, 1969
#4: Feb 17th 2011 at 3:36:10 PM

I get how it's meant to represent modern America and show what has been happening as a result of the rich pushing around the poor. It's true that the record companies try to find naive, unknown musicians and get them to sign unfair contracts that the record companies can exit out of whenever but the musicians are stuck in until the contracts end. Of course this could change if customers got their music from non-commercial sources, but [sarcasm] we can't expect America to change lest we no longer remain "the greatest gift from God to the world" [/end sarcasm]. I like that you're trying to draw attention to this.

On the other hand though, there are too many implausible elements.

The first is that there are already both laws and legal precedents (court rulings) granting ownership of registered creative works to those that created them or those that went through the proper legal processes to purchase rights of those registered creative works from their creators.

The second is that, with most facets of the law, there are precedents for both rulings the judge can make. So, most of the time the judge gets to decide how to rule. While a U.S. Supreme Court decision does override other court decisions, you'd have the new problem of how every higher court this trial goes through before reaching the U.S. Supreme Court would have to consistently side with what is currently the exact opposite of the written law. Plus, the U.S. Supreme Court can make the reverse decision later.

The third is that ownership of notes is impossible. People use these notes when talking and when performing any action that makes any sound, so even the ill-informed will roll their eyes at this. This is because U.S. Copyright Law includes something called "Performing Rights" which means any performing of that art, and when that is applied to the ownership of notes it means no one would be allowed to make any sound ever.

The bottom-line is that you should research the subject before writing. I really hate to poop all over your idea like this, but I don't know what to suggest others than using something else to segway into terrorism and espionage (which is what I'm guessing the novel will be about).

Oh yeah, there'd still be competition with a few companies. Competition really only ends when one company has a monopoly over the whole industry. This is a quick fix, fortunately.

edited 17th Feb '11 3:37:52 PM by colbertimposter

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