Re: A bottomless pit of plagiarism

On Sat, 14 Jun 2025 12:05:53 -0700, Tim Merrigan <tppm@rr.ca.com>
wrote:

On 6/14/2025 8:28 AM, Paul S Person wrote:

On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 17:00:53 -0400, Cryptoengineer
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
 

On 6/13/2025 11:24 AM, Paul S Person wrote:

On Thu, 12 Jun 2025 15:49:55 -0000 (UTC), Don <g@crcomp.net> wrote:
>

"Disney and Universal sue AI firm Midjourney over images"
>
<https://www.google.com/search?q=midjourney+"a+bottomless+pit+of+plagiarism">
>
PKB??

>
The link is to a Google search result. "PKB" does not occur on it, at
least not here.
>
Perhaps it would help if you specified the actual article (there are
at least four, possibly more) in which "PKB" occurs.
>
Most of what I am finding for "PKB" is from chemistry. I have doubts
about that being relevant.

>
PKB ->  Pot. Kettle. Black.

 
That at least makes sense. If Disney/Pixar is in the plagiarism
business, that is.
 
Not that I am expressing an opinion about whether or not Midjourney's
AI is plagiaristic, BTW.

>
Disney has long been in the business of taking old classics and
copyrighting them as their own.  Many of them not technically
plagiarism, since the originals were never copyrighted.  Snow White and
Cinderella, to name two off the top of my head.

IANAL, but my understanding of this would be:
1. The stories as such are not copyrighted.
2. A particular book containing the stories may be copyrighted as
regards any essays, notes, illustrations, etc added to the book by its
publisher.
3. A movie based on a book is copyrightable as such, whether the book
was copyrighted or not. Of course, if it was, the rights to make the
movie would have to be acquired.

Winny the Pooh, they bought the rights to, I don't know about Pinocchio
or James and the Giant Peach, though since Dahl was still alive when
they made JatGP, I assume there was some sort of negotiation.

There was a film about /Mary Poppins/, which had a pretty grim and
somewhat inexplicable backstory, but had the author at the premier
enjoying the film.

Enjoying it in an order never seen in an actual screening of the
movie. I mean, /really/, the people making this film couldn't have
watched the film whose making they were showing and put the segments
they used in their proper order?
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"