Je had ‘m misschien al gezien: de cover van David Bowie’s Space Oddity door ruimtevaarder Chris Hadfield. (Die snor, mensen, die snor!)
Zo’n ruimte-cover is niet bepaald triviaal. Hoe duur is zo’n videoclip eigenlijk om te maken? Dat zocht XKCD uit:
At a total lifetime cost in the neighborhood of $150 billion, the International Space Station is one of the world’s most expensive megaprojects. (The exact cost is hard to pin down, since the countries contributing don’t all handle their finances the same way.)
By comparison, the most expensive music videos have production budgets in the range of a few million dollars. If Commander Hadfield’s video gets the ISS’s entire $150 billion price tag, then it must be tens of thousands of times more expensive than the runner-up, right?
Not so fast.
The Economist zocht op zijn beurt uit hoe je in zo’n geval eigenlijk de rechtenkwestie regelt. Als je je niet in een land op aarde bevindt, welke copyright-regels moet je dan aanhouden? Dat is op zich nog wel te overzien, maar het was een stuk ingewikkelder geworden als Hadfield het nummer live had uitgevoerd en uitgezonden:
the space station consists of multiple modules and other pieces (called “elements”) under the registration of the United States, the European Space Agency (ESA) consortium, Russia and Japan. The agreement governing the ISS makes it clear (in Article 5) that the applicable laws, including those governing IP rights, depend on which part of it an astronaut is in.
En stel je voor dat astronauten op de maan Happy Birthday To You zingen? Probleem!
If an astronaut were to travel to the Moon, an asteroid or Mars on a privately funded spacecraft, the situation would become knottier still, because the United Nations Outer Space Treaty of 1967 applies to countries, not companies or private individuals. Lees verder
