The Public Domain Starts Growing Again Next Year
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Well that's the understatement of the century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Disney_animated_films_...
"We are not aware of any such efforts, and it's not something we are pursuing," an RIAA spokesman told us when we asked about legislation to retroactively extend copyright terms.
"While copyright term has been a longstanding topic of conversation in policy circles, we are not aware of any legislative proposals to address the issue," the MPAA told us.
I was getting advertisements from them for years essentially looking for case studies of either personal or "family" copyright (as in extension) and people willing to essentially astroturf.
I'm guessing the efforts just bombed. I don't see the ads any more and all the comments, where they were possible were deeply cynical and lambasting them.
Copyright is not like a patent where once it expires anyone can use the novel work.
Something else, while someone could repackage the earliest Mickey Mouse shorts once the copyrights expire, it is unlikely that someone could make new Mickey Mouse related stories, because of trademark and other issues - beyond that, 1923 mickey and 2017 mickey only have a passing resemblance.
http://createwebquest.com/sites/default/files/images/mickeym...
What we identify (as in most consumers of mickey related cartoons) identify as mickey mouse - didn't exist until fantasia in 1940. So long as WDC continues to make artwork with that character in it, and continues to keep up the trademark - the character itself will never leave copyright or trademark.
They don't.
The protections overlap yes, but are not the same thing.
At a minimum what we visually identify as mickey mouse wont leave copyright until, 2035 - but even then certain fundamentals of the character were not finalized until much later.
Copyright is not indefinite due to the series' continuation.
In the case of Mickey Mouse, this is a substantial part of the characters personality - most of which didnt come out until the successful shorts of the mid-30's.
The expiration of copyright on steamboat Willie, will not allow for anything but royalty free copying of that work.
https://fairuse.stanford.edu/case/klinger-v-conan-doyle-esta... leads me to believe that derivatives of Mickey Mouse that only draw from the public domain work should be fair use. So, no mentioning Minnie, and no stenciling off of a recent design.
The words "copyright" and "trademark" are different, and mean different things. You might know this and be fuzzing them for the sake of simplification, but if so, you've over-simplified. They are different, and treating them as the same is wrong and leads to confusion.
The copyright on Steamboat Willie will expire, allowing royalty-free use and copying of that movie, including Mickey Mouse. At that point, that version of Mickey Mouse will be free to us--BUT the ongoing trademark on the character will mean people should still stay away.
http://www.rightsofwriters.com/2011/04/copyright-in-fictiona...
But I'd be interested in better understanding WHY it applies, and a more legalistic description of what copyright actually mean in this context.
By the time the movie enters the Public Domain, Disney will be able to defend the clip with a trademark defense.
I could absolutely see Disney saying "That clip of Steamboat Willie is a trademark of Disney Animation Studios. If you use that in animation, you're diluting our trademark."
My understanding is merchandising fees are also an issue. Pooh alone apparently nets order $10B/year.
Similar situation, and a fantastic explanation how trademarks and copyright work and what they enable or limit in this regard.
https://priceonomics.com/how-mickey-mouse-evades-the-public-...
The first was with the Copyright Act of 1976. The main purposes of the 1976 Act were to update US copyright law to better conform to the Universal Copyright Convention and to prepare for the US to later join the Berne Convention; to update it to take into account new technology developed since the 1909 Act such as television, movies, radio, and sound recordings; and to codify various doctrines from case law include fair use.
The copyright extension in the 1976 Act was a side effect of changing terms to match those of Berne countries.
As far as I've been able to tell, the 1976 Act had very little opposition. Disney almost certainly was in favor of it, but I've found no evidence that they had any particular influence in drafting it or getting it passed, or even spent any lobbying money on it. There was no need for them to do so.
Disney did lobby for the 1998 extension (as did most major content creators), which extended US copyright terms to match those of Europe.
I don't know how Disney successfully lobbying once (as part of a large group) for a copyright extension turned into the internet myth that they have constantly been getting copyright extensions.
That was highly influential. Lessig is a very gifted speaker.
In the late 1980's, I talked with one of the government-side principals of the 1976 Act. They were at pains to explain that the Act should be viewed not as a failure, but as a success - a successful act of public policy damage control. Because you should have seen all the crazy [bleep] [Disney/Hollywood] wanted.
It seems I've been seeing a "oh, 1976 was just Berne, and Berne was no big deal" narrative more often of late. Perhaps as Disney spins up for extension-next.
Which isn't to say that some people don't honestly believe that narrative. Hollywood doing filter-bubble groupthink on copyright law has long been part of the picture. The angry public denunciations after SOPA, of a dishonest tech industry buying corrupt congressmen, was particularly striking. But after all, when everyone you know agrees that something is a great thing, anyone who opposes it can only be a bad actor.
Are you saying Holloywood doesn't know what is and is not a bad actor? Who would have thought it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyright...
I don't care if Disney gets to keep the rights to Mickey Mouse. The real problem is all the other stuff that gets swept along in the bargain.
Annual fee starts at $10 and increases by 50% each year (or similar exponential growth function) would be wonderful.
Year 2 - $15
Year 10 - ~$380
Year 20 - ~$22k
Year 30 - ~$1.3M
Year 40 - ~$74M
Year 50 - ~$4B
Why not have the lawyers show up in court and show that the company they represent is still actively using and making money on their copyright? If they are they get a, say 5 year, extension. Judges can use common sense to avoid shady behavior like manufacturing demand or trying to pass of a small number of sales as evidence and copyright holders aren't left with a huge bill.
I think that owners of a work should repay a portion of this cost to society in return for a monopoly on that work.
In an ideal world, I'd prefer some sort of "property tax" on intellectual property: annual percentage of IP's fair market value due as tax or it's released to public domain. However, I worry this scheme would be too vulnerable to gaming and manipulation as it's hard to determine the fair market price of a monopolized product.
My proposed exponential renewal tax is somewhat flawed as 'cultural relevance' is only partially correlated with age of work. But, by increasing the cost of renewal each year, it would more closely model increased societal costs over time as private works become more pervasive and relevant in our culture. By imposing a time-correlated cost of retaining IP rights, it would incentivize IP owners to release non-profitable IP into the public domain instead of hoarding it.
It also respects the statistic that most creative works stop being commercially exploited within about 28 years [1]. A shorter default copyright allows society to reap the benefits of the default effect [2], in which a creator who is no longer interested in the sale of their work is psychologically more likely to just let the default option happen, which in a world with regular extensions of copyright would mean their work would enter the public domain and others could make use of their work.
It also forces creatives and companies to back up, with results, that they believe their works are, for their own benefit, worth denying the public access to. If a work deserves or needs more than 20 years of profit to justify its existence, fine, but your belief being backed up with a $20,000 deposit, and the knowledge that the cost to you is only going to go up from that point, speaks a lot stronger than just one's word.
[1] Average result of articles linked in https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/oct/07/shorter-c...
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_effect_(psychology)
I want to put this on a plaque and hang it in every public office.
Google for example is against continuing to extend it. They have more financial resources than everyone on the other side combined. There is also meaningful public awareness, something almost entirely lacking just 20 years ago.
It's no longer a fight Disney can easily win.
Doesn't even help creatives, because public domain stuff sees little to no creative half-life apart from the very best of the best. It's great for public in the same way f2p mobile games are great, as an endless mill of free content they can consume and forget, but once the brief flurry of monetization passes, the works become dead because there's no rights owner willing to spend the money to market or preserve the IP.
I wonder if Disney, which built its empire on repurposing public domain Hans Christian Anderson stories as animated films, would have agreed with your assessment.
The value of the public domain isn’t in its literal resale, nor is it supposed to be: the value is in being a direct, continuing, and explicitly legal source of inspiration for the new.
Indeed the Arden Shakespeare show you how to make money (as does Disney): it’s the value add. Translation, curation, commentary, re-interpretation, analysis.
Contrast with books written in the seventies that have neither huge followings nor electronic versions: they might as well not exist.
Reclam would like to have a word with you. For the non-Germans here, they are a German publisher known for their iconic yellow editions of literary classics. They got their big break in 1867 when Faust entered the public domain; their Faust edition was a cash cow, and they continued on with other authors. Later on they branched out with their own stable of authors.
I'm not saying that the intangible benefits don't exist, but even from free material you can make money.
People focus on the biggest of the big as if that solves anything.
The Shadow debuted in 1930, so it is also not yet in the public domain, but was also in a movie as recently as 1994, and it still appearing in licensed comics in 2015 and ongoing.
Some Tom Swift books have entered the public domain, but not all, and the character is still covered under trademark law also.
You're making a great point about how copyright is too long, leaving characters to languish, but none of your examples are actually in the public domain.