[HN Gopher] Who owns Einstein? The battle for the world's most f...
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Who owns Einstein? The battle for the world's most famous face
Author : marban
Score : 37 points
Date : 2022-05-20 14:52 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| WalterBright wrote:
| > When Richman discovered that a chain of stores owned by
| Universal City Studios sold a sweatshirt with the slogan "E=mc2:
| Shit Happens", he successfully had the sweatshirt banned, and
| forced Universal to pay $25,000 in damages.
|
| I'm unable to see the connection between a formula and Einstein's
| face.
| vmception wrote:
| Turns out, everyone is able to see a connection between a
| protracted legal battle with a known litigious hound with deep
| pockets and success on this front. So they all settle or buy
| the license. The litigious entity gets their way.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Like the guy who claims he invented email?
|
| He lies, you write an article about it, he sues you to death
| and you settle.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Not the world's most famous face by any means. Not a battle
| either.
|
| As close as it gets to being an objectively clickbait title.
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| It's probably impossible to figure out who the worlds most
| famous face is but given that constraint we can still do a
| thought experiment on who we think the worlds most famous face
| would be. I would pick Jesus but it's questionable if he was
| even real and what he looked like if he wa. So going with faces
| we can be certain of, Einstein seems like a solid pick. Maybe
| Mona Lisa if the portrait counts.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Also Hitler or Donald Trump
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| +++By this point it is in fact Donald Trump. Hitler was
| famous once, not anymore, people don't connect with the
| Holocaust and WW2 like they did in the 90's. If you're born
| after 2000 it might as well be the Napoleonic Wars, some
| stuff that was on the test and nothing more. ..............
| ...........................................................
| ...........................................................
| ...........................................................
| ...........................................................
| ....................................................... But
| now it's Trump. Because of all the bad press. There was a
| slowdown in the media markets when he left the presidency
| because they were talking about him or his administrations
| in the majority of headlines. I judge 65% of big headlines
| were about him or his administration. Well you can't look
| at it objectively, it's different for every news source. ..
| ...........................................................
| ...........................................................
| ...........................................................
| ...........................................................
| ...........................................................
| ....... I'm going to swear this comment cryptographically,
| like I did in
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31451260. Nonce:
| 27965+++
|
| EDIT: I'm having difficulty working with HN, especially
| puncuation modifications, it's tricky to copy paste into eg
| https://geraintluff.github.io/sha256/
|
| To get that oath, hash that message as ASCII, everything
| between the triple +'s, "+++". Keep those out. You must get
|
| 0002a29ee3e809d4dcf5adc2bc1fc7ed61a10a01efc37eb2207bdad9193
| b1ebf
|
| But copy the string into the console, not in the entry.
| This is currently not an easy process.
| Emma_Goldman wrote:
| I would say this has >50% chance of being the right answer.
| I would also treat Gandhi, Mao, Che, and a few
| 'celebrities' like Cristiano Ronaldo and Leonardo DiCaprio
| as contenders.
| rhacker wrote:
| If you asked everyone in the world to draw Trump's face and
| Einstein's face I bet you more people would draw Trump more
| accurately. But both have crazy hair so maybe it would be a
| toss up.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Washington, Lincoln, or the Queen, due to currency. Maybe Mao
| for similar reasons.
| Insanity wrote:
| Washington? I don't know for sure what he looks like, feels
| quite US specific. But for some reason Lincoln I do know.
|
| I would guess the "Mona Lisa". Or maybe actors in popular
| films like Robert Downey Jr.
| vertigolimbo wrote:
| That's very US centric comment. I would need to think deep
| to picture Washington.
|
| I tell you what - it's the face of the most advertised
| person. Currency is not used for advertising.
|
| So out of three, it's easiest to recollect Lincoln with
| stove top with US flag and pointing finger. Her majesty
| comes second because all the memes of her longevity.
|
| The most recognisable? Certain Hollywood actors. Period.
| corrral wrote:
| > Washington, Lincoln, or the Queen
|
| How are those gonna do inside that surprisingly-small
| circle you can draw over Asia and Oceania that contains
| half the world's population? How about _all of Africa_?
|
| Whichever face it is, it's probably recognizable to _both_
| Indians _and_ Chinese people.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised the winner's a well-known
| bodhisattva. Though that opens up the question of whether
| it has to be a _photo_ , and if not, the Lisa Gherardini
| might be a real contender (though possibly disqualified,
| since that identification isn't 100% certain).
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Like a third of Africa is in the Commonwealth, as is
| India and much of Oceania.
|
| Maybe I've read too many articles about US currency being
| used across the world. That said, I've seen a surprising
| amount of foreign programs reference Lincoln's image.
| Considering there are hundreds of billions of pennies in
| existence I suspect he's more well known than you'd
| think, even though they primarily are in the US.
| Blahah wrote:
| I have no idea what Washington and Lincoln look like, and
| suspect the vast majority of people in the world also
| don't, and probably haven't heard of them.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Close, it's Buddha.
| deltree7 wrote:
| Einstein is more famous than Jesus and Mona Lisa.
|
| 40% of the world population are from India and China (a Non-
| Jesus country).
|
| Kids at a very young age are introduced to Einstein in pretty
| much every school. Mona Lisa not so much.
|
| In fact, growing up, I didn't know about Mona Lisa till about
| age 20
| potta_coffee wrote:
| There are many Christians in India and in China.
|
| The Bible is the best selling book of all time. I'm certain
| that Jesus is more popular than Einstein. Not that care,
| but your post is not factual.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Einstein is more famous than Jesus and Mona Lisa._
|
| Also, we have very few photos of Jesus or the subject of
| the Mona Lisa.
| blackoil wrote:
| Would be Iron man or Spiderman, recent and popular across the
| world.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Who is the world's most famous face then? Hitler? Mona Lisa?
| Michael Jackson? Hide the Pain Harold?
| throwaway28203 wrote:
| I was thinking Marilyn Monroe.
| dimator wrote:
| I would bet there's a large number of people who know Harold
| more than the others :)
| inanutshellus wrote:
| The smiley face.
|
| :)
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| I would have said Ghandi... though polling suggests it's
| actually Queen Elizabeth II.
| potta_coffee wrote:
| That's interesting. Her face is on a lot of paper currency,
| I'm sure that contributes to her recognition.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| That was originally the way money equalled fame. Also
| time in many monarchies was tied to the biography of the
| monarch. In Japan it was so, the Meiji period. In Matthew
| Mark Luke and John, KJV.
| RunawayGalaxy wrote:
| It's crazy how much energy is spent trying to constrain free
| information flow.
| [deleted]
| deltree7 wrote:
| If you read the article it is certainly more nuanced.
|
| * The money is going to a Top University.
|
| * There are strict limitations about how the images / brand can
| be used. I especially like the idea of not mis-quoting and
| fabricating quotes associated with Einstein.
| dangus wrote:
| Why should it be illegal to misquote someone who is dead?
| That doesn't make a lot of intuitive sense to me.
|
| As Abraham Lincoln once said:
|
| "Don't believe everything you read on the Internet just
| because there's a picture with a quote next to it."
|
| Uh oh, time to throw me in jail, right!?
|
| I realize that misinformation can be a powerfully bad thing
| in this world, but I think there must be better ways to deal
| with it than turning a dead person's image into a lucrative
| capitalist enterprise.
|
| Apple gets to use Einstein's image to advertise their
| products because they could afford to pay the $600,000 fee,
| but I can't use Einstein's image to promote my business
| because, sorry, I'm not a worthy enough capitalist.
|
| > The money is going to a Top University.
|
| Oh, that makes it all better! Top Universities (TM) have the
| unique ability to avoid all issues monetary related to
| corruption prevalent in other institutions. (/s)
|
| I'm going to guess that this money is going to be spent on
| things like academics, perhaps the next Einstein will earn $9
| million per year to perform groundbreaking research!
|
| https://stanforddaily.com/2022/02/06/congressional-probe-
| int...
| dTal wrote:
| I find myself unimpressed by this "nuance".
|
| * Does the "Top University" need the cash? Who is it coming
| from, and who is to say they do not need it more?
|
| * Evidence suggests this has not in practice been prevented.
| ashdnazg wrote:
| https://www.timesofisrael.com/hebrew-university-to-open-
| acad...
|
| From 2016 - "The university is mired in debt amounting to
| nearly NIS 13 billion ($3.4 billion) over employees'
| pensions."
| rvnx wrote:
| Stanford for example costs several billions to run.
| deltree7 wrote:
| Exactly, it is not just operational cost for 1 year, but
| Stanford and Hebrew universities have to survive the next
| 500 years of humanity for the benefit of humanity. No
| amount of Cash in the Reserve is enough for a 500 year
| plan
| akira2501 wrote:
| So, they have to spend an inordinate amount of effort
| constraining the free flow of information, to make money
| off that information, so that they can ensure the free
| flow of information into the next millennium?
|
| That doesn't seem that great.
| dangus wrote:
| These are top schools with huge endowment funds that act
| as investment vehicles.
|
| Many of them could theoretically operate indefinitely
| without ever charging tuition, if the funds were
| hypothetically allowed to be used in that way.
|
| Someone did some napkin math on this for Harvard on
| Quora: https://qr.ae/pvAQ7v
|
| Now, this person didn't do a great job accounting for
| inflation, but I do think a professionally managed
| endowment can get much better than a 3% return on its
| investments to cover inflation.
|
| Harvard's endowment is pretty close to the same size as
| Stanford.
|
| It's really just the small, less prestigious universities
| that have financial issues [1]. The Stanfords and
| Harvards of the world don't need any help.
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/27/more-colleges-face-
| bankruptc...
| deltree7 wrote:
| "This person didn't do a great job of accounting for
| inflation"
|
| Listen to yourself. This is like saying "we have a
| perfect earthquake prediction model, except it doesn't
| predict certain types of earthquakes"
|
| This comment along with the massive down-votes that my
| posts have received proves that a majority of HN is
| absolutely clueless about running businesses and I'm glad
| for that
| dangus wrote:
| While the person doing the napkin math didn't account for
| inflation, they were also wildly conservative in terms of
| how much of a return endowments can get from their
| investments, mostly just referencing the 4% rule that's
| useful for retiring individuals with very low risk
| tolerance.
|
| They estimated that free tuition for all students would
| cost 3% per year, but the S&P 500 has returned over 10%
| yearly over the last 100 years, 7% adjusted for
| inflation. [1]
|
| This math also assumes that the school _never receives
| another donation ever again,_ which is quite unlikely.
|
| It should also be obvious that my point isn't that
| schools should _literally_ run entirely on their
| endowment. My point is: giving money to a school like
| Harvard or Stanford isn 't really an act of charity at
| this point, because they are juggernaut institutions that
| are too big to fail. They don't need to be raking in
| licensing fees from images and quotes from people who
| have been dead for decades.
|
| It's also interesting that, in your last sentence, you
| are implying that HN viewers don't know anything about
| running a _business,_ but last I checked we were talking
| about _universities._ There 's a little bit of irony
| here: my whole argument revolves around the fact that
| these supposedly "non-profit" educational institutions
| are acting very much like businesses in ways probably
| shouldn't be.
|
| In my view, images and text for deceased historical
| figures like Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King, Jr.
| should be part of the public domain much sooner than
| copyright law currently allows so that we can all enjoy
| and learn from their legacy freely without capitalist
| incentives.
|
| I think Reddit is a better place to complain about fake
| Internet points. I highly recommend it!
|
| [1] https://www.officialdata.org/us/stocks/s-p-500/1926
| deltree7 wrote:
| Stanford releases most of their courses for free for the
| world to consume and improve their knowledge and help
| humanity.
|
| It is not about internet points, but the fact that how
| anti-capitalists the intellectual elites have become
| despite massively benefiting from it and the single
| biggest factor that has driven down poverty on a global
| scale.
|
| No one read the article. It was beautiful well-written.
| Instead HN, like reddit went all pitch-fork "Hurr Durr,
| Bad Capitalists"
| potta_coffee wrote:
| That they benefit "humanity" is a dubious claim. They
| certainly benefit the small club that uses their
| services.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| I am not clear why a person that lives in India should
| care about Stanford, when the cost of tutoring 1 person
| in Stanford can educate 10 people in India.
|
| Especially when it is already so well-funded.
|
| Stanford disproprotinately benefits very elite of an
| already wealthy nation. That's okay, but purl-clutching
| like they need every penny is kinda gross.
| metadat wrote:
| Actually, Stanford funds the academic portion of the
| enterprise from the interest off it's endowment.
|
| It is common knowledge that Stanford is really a front
| for a real estate venture.
|
| See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31266464
| lupire wrote:
| What's the angle? Who is profiting from this venture? How
| much?
|
| (And pro-tip re linked post: ideas carry better without
| cryptoracist prose.)
| [deleted]
| newguynewphone wrote:
| I'm sorry, what makes his link racist? The "Old, elite,
| uber-wealthy white men" comment? As in all of stanfords
| presidents?
| deltree7 wrote:
| Well, two flaws.
|
| i) if Einstein had patented his ideas and had left Billions
| of Dollars to a top university, would it have been ok with
| you?. To answer your question, Universities are
| institutions that last centuries. To survive and attract
| the best in the world for 300 years, there is no limit of
| cash that such an institution will need (they need to
| survive economic crashes, world wars, climate catastrophes,
| pandemics etc)
|
| ii) You don't have counterfactual evidence. There is a
| difference between mis-quoting in the comment section vs in
| Billion $$$ Marketing campaigns
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| > Who owns Einstein? The battle for the world's most famous face
| (theguardian.com)
|
| Lawyers!
| pmoriarty wrote:
| At least with patents there's an argument to be made that patents
| are a public good because they encourage disclosure of inventions
| by their inventors.
|
| Copyright can similarly be argued to benefit the public by
| encouraging creators to create.
|
| But how does the public benefit from enforcing publicity rights?
| strbean wrote:
| "If we don't enforce publicity rights, what incentive will
| people have to gain renown?"
|
| It's wild how nobody wrote or invented anything prior to the
| rise of intellectual property.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Or had a face.
| bdowling wrote:
| The public benefit is that if you see a person's name or
| likeness used to promote a product, the public knows that the
| person (or their estate) consented to the use. Without
| publicity rights, anyone could use anyone else's name or
| likeness to sell anything.
| hanoz wrote:
| You appear to be still describing the estate's benefit, not
| the public's.
| brink wrote:
| Quite disappointing to see people behave like this.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| There's also a battle over who own Tesla. The point of contention
| is over whether he was Croatian or Serbian.
| wincy wrote:
| Wasn't he American?
| cgriswald wrote:
| He was ethnically Serbian, was born in (what is now) Croatia,
| moved to the United States in his late 20s, and gained his
| United States citizenship in his mid-30s.
| colechristensen wrote:
| He died 67 years ago, nobody deserves to own his image.
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