Mickey Mouse and Batman will soon be public domain
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
I guess 5-16 years counts as soon these days?
Anything is sooner than never, which is what it looked like for a long time.
> In the USA Copyright lengths are very simple. Anything older than Mickey Mouse is public domain and everything else is still copyrighted.
If this were not the case the entire body of case law on derivative works would be turned on its head. The entire point of derivative works law is that there's an original that everything else is based on. If the original is public domain any variation thereof is also public domain from that point forward except for exact replicas.
Meaning: You can produce all the Mickey Mouse stuff you want as long as you're not literally copying something that's still under copyright. Mickey Mouse dolls are fine as long as your artwork wasn't literally copied & pasted.
What Disney should worry about if they plan to defend their colored Mickey is a team of hacktivists creating derivative colored works from the original pd B&W image and claiming copyright on THAT for another 100 years :)
I'm not but I work with lots, and that's not how derivative works are interpreted.
You may think it's right and the logic is sound, but there are good arguments the other way too, and that is how courts have found.
Also: I don't want to test if Disney's lawyers can bankrupt my small toyshop just by drawing out the legal process.
Psst! Winnie the Pooh is already in the public domain! q.v. A.A. Milne.
It's the cultural gravity-well of disnified Pooh Bear that triggers my teeth-gnashing irrational hatred of Disney, more even than the unconscionable copyright shenanigans or treacle blanching of global culture or 'get-em while their young' marketing tactics. I quietly toss any Disney materiel that manages to appear in my 3 y.o.'s life, and replace it with original sources.
Hallo, Eeyore.
Same to you, Pooh Bear, and twice on Thursdays.
[1] https://www.audible.com/pd/Winnie-the-Pooh-Dramatised-Audiob...
In my family A. A. Milne is promoted to a status tantamount to religious text. Disney's treatment is sacriligous and feeds a very similar hatred. I think it's the juxtaposition of the epitome of innocence (albeit heavily rose-tinted) with such a cynical, nasty organisation.
And all the more upsetting that the Disney version is probably all anyone ever knows.
Hands off.
There's also the fact that copyright over characters is tied to their first appearance, and (especially in Batman's case), most other recognisable characters from the series aren't public domain. So you could write a Batman story, but it couldn't involve Robin, or the Joker, or hell, any of Batman's familiar rogues gallery.
But it's nice to see this about to happen none the less.
This isn't true. The concept of Batman as it existed in the comics that are in the public domain is open to being remixed and put into new stories and derivative works. Even with the name "Batman" and even without giving any credit to DC comics whatsoever.
What the Batman trademarks are able to prevent is someone trying to use the Batman name to confuse consumers into thinking some product is being sold by DC comics.
As the article points out, the exact borders of what trademark can be used for in terms of merch is fuzzy, but a specific strategy that doesn't work is using a trademarked name to prevent creation of copies or derivative works of something in the public domain
When creating new works with Batman, you'll have to fastidiously avoid using any elements of the character that were introduced later, but you should be good.
Everything in your comments makes sense except this part. If this goes as currently planned Batman will be in the public domain, but not e.g. Batwoman (introduced decades later).
However, I can make my own new superhero now called Foobarman and introduce a Foobarwoman without anyone having grounds for saying I'm ripping off Batman.
So if Batman is in the public domain I'll be able to have a Batwoman. Having a female version of a character isn't per-se a copyright violation just because that path's been taken before.
Of course if I go further and actually rip off entire stories involving Batwoman I'll be in trouble.
I think you're making a legal argument, and I have no idea if your interpretation is what the court has already decided/will decide.
Trademarks very explicitly do not protect concepts or ideas like you claim. Trademark only grants a monopoly on some limited and well-defined identifying design, such as a logo or brand name.
https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-getting-started/trademark-b...
What Is a Trademark or Service Mark and How Do They Differ From Patents and Copyrights?
A trademark is a brand name. A trademark or service mark includes any word, name, symbol, device, or any combination, used or intended to be used to identify and distinguish the goods/services of one seller or provider from those of others, and to indicate the source of the goods/services.
Sounds awesome.
For example, Marvel Comics recently paid to re-obtain the rights to publish Conan comic books, even though the character and original stories are in the public domain. This result is perverse, in my opinion.
If it is indeed the Mickey Mouse from Steamboat Willie, then it's the Mickey Mouse.
I would expect drawings based solely on thr Steamboat Willy work to be okay. The sequels start new timers on new characters or qualities, they don't extend the copyright on the original work. of course, IANAL.
I'm no copyright lawyer nor do I know much about copyright laws, but one should recognise the positive effects of copyright protection, which encourages innovation and investment. Those incremental investments Disney has made should be acknowledged.
But of course, the danger in this argument is that in the future someone can just make tiny face-value 'investments' into their copyright to argue for an extension, that would be detrimental to the whole copyright vs innovation balance.
Disney doesn't have any issues defending its repackaged public domain products like fairy tales. I don't see why Mickey Mouse would be harder to brand and market than the Disney princesses.
However, I heard one proposed idea that prolonged copyright extensions (or variable copyright terms, if you'd prefer) might make sense as a corporate property tax that increases over time after the baseline expiration (and better if you reset the baseline to something smaller again).
That would at least trigger bottom line decisions in corporations if keeping something in copyright (and out of the public domain) is worth the annual property taxes on it. Some of that tax could go directly to archival/preservation efforts for those properties in the proper spirit of insuring their legacy for the public domain, eventually. Most of that tax would indirectly go towards discouraging companies from IP "tenements" where rent is collected (subscription/access charges), but innovation/investment diminished a long time ago. (Mickey has new cartoons on YouTube every so often, but how many properties does Disney own that other than maybe a bare conversion to Netflix or soon Disney+ streaming they haven't done anything with in decades?)
I'm sure you're right that it encourages investment, but I don't think that the commoditization of culture makes it more innovative or better (for my subjective definition of better).
This will prevent copyright squatters on works with high value for public but lesser monetary value, like WWII footage just collecting dust as mentioned in the article.
I feel this should be restricted to the originator of the work itself.
A property can wait till the primary author is done with the work (inside reasonable intervals..sorry GRR martin), before starting the timer of it entering public domain.
However, works like Batman and Mickey that get tossed between committees and multiple authors, should not be viewed in the same way.
It´s how many years after death that is the problem.
Individual works are entering the public domain, but what you’re proposing is much trickier and largely unsettled legal territory.
When early Superman stories enter the public domain there’s no legal guarantee that courts will agree that this includes the right to tell new stories with the character. Further it almost certainly DOESN’T include the right to tell stories about the characters using elements that come from later, still-under-copyright works — and much of what we think of as Superman’s mythos comes not from the early comics but from the 1940s radio show (flight rather than big jumps, The Daily Planet, Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, kryptonite, “look, up in the sky...”), or from silver age comics of the 50s and 60s (Braniac, Bizaro, Zod, most of the characteristics of the arctic fortress of solitude, vision powers, breath powers, kandor...).
It’ll be decades before a recognizable Superman mythos is public domain.
You may want to take a look at the outcome of National Comics Publications, Inc. v. Fawcett Publications, Inc. https://bit.ly/2CHZt0i the courts have and will slap down clearly “ersatz Superman” characters.
edit: had to use a URL shortener because HN keeps mangling the Wikipedia URL
(HN removes the last ".", adding another makes the url work :-)
The decision by Hand in National is widely considered to be extremely clear and readable, if you're really curious.
It's important to understand that while mere collections of facts are not copyrightable, nothing about fiction is factual -- you can't defend Captain Marvel on the basis of "we're merely reporting the facts about his powers, which happen to mirror facts about someone elses'" because those powers aren't facts at all but represent conscious creative decisions on the part of Fawcett Comics. When all of your creative decisions are tuned to mirroring the creative decisions of another copyrighted work, you're in pretty well-defined copyright violation territory.
> The copyrights to Superman, Batman, Disney's Snow White, and early Looney Tunes characters will all fall into the public domain between 2031 and 2035.
You can’t do whatever you want with the character of Superman and the many elements of his stories that exist outside these works, however.
Yes you can.
Has anyone written to their representatives about this? Are we going to be proactive or are we waiting to organize a defense of the public domain until after a bill to attack it has passed the House?
>On January 1, 2024, we'll see the expiration of the copyright for Steamboat Willie—and with it Disney's claim to the film's star, Mickey Mouse. The copyrights to Superman, Batman, Disney's Snow White, and early Looney Tunes characters will all fall into the public domain between 2031 and 2035.
Given this list, I don’t see Disney, Warner Brothers, and DC comics all sitting idly by. If I was a betting person, I would bet that Snow White will not enter the public domain on the 2030’s.
On the other hand, picking a fight over the issue risks a public backlash that might go the other way and weaken existing copyright law in a way that really would hurt them.
So I'd bet Snow White will enter the public domain.
Mickey Mouse is still trademarked. The movies and books are copyrighted.
Also where have you been for the last hundred years where knock-off Disney everything has been the norm?
I like how you assume that current US laws have deterred them from doing so thus far (hint: they don't, not even close)
Something similar happened a few years ago with Sherlock Holmes [1]. The original Sherlock Holmes stories are public domain, and so the character can be used without the permission of the Conan Doyle estate. However, some of the later stories are still under copyright, so anything about the character which only appears in these later stories cannot be freely used.
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/sherlock-holmes-no...
https://boingboing.net/2018/12/31/thanks-justin.html
Also a rather sadder list following it of works that won't be (yet) because of the copyright extension.
As far as I understand copyright, it stops anyone copying the exact same original image/music/video.
Derivative works have always been allowed, but it's generally a Trademark that stops the derivative works dead in their tracks, as far as I understand. Also, is there a statute of limitations on Trademark? ie Can Disney keep up their TM on Mickey, stopping anyone else from using it?
So all I think this really means is that the original videos are now in the public domain.
Other way round - copyright has always covered derivative works, that's how the GPL operates. And why you need to clear every sample you use in a music track.
That's why I can't go out and record a cover version of a Beatles song without paying to license it. It would be a derivative work, and not covered under fair use. Weird Al probably can, though, because parody is fair use.
For something like, say, Amish Paradise or Tacky the new work is not a parody of the work it derives from, it had nothing to say about that work except "Ha, this is funny if you change the words". So it would probably never be fair use.
Instead Weird Al gets legal OK to use the work. Yes, all those artists, or their labels actually think Weird Al is funny, or at least they'll take the money.
Edit: To add a trademark is valid as long as it's in use.
After Steamboat Willie expires you bloody damned well can make your own Mickey Mouse cartoon, comics, dolls, or whatever as long as you're not claiming to be Disney or using an exact copy of one of their later derivatives.
If you make a cartoon using Mickey Mouse will reasonable consumers falsely attribute that cartoon to Disney? Yes. That cartoon would likely cause confusion in the market place. Mickey Mouse is inextricably linked to Disney in the consumer's mind. You cannot use the Mickey Mouse character even if you never claim to be Disney. Further, I would argue that you cannot use the character even if you explicitly state you are not Disney because Disney's primary consumers are children and even with a disclaimer the mere use of the mark would likely cause consumer confusion.
Ahh, but were I opposing counsel I would argue that the children young enough to be unable to read and comprehend the clear disclaimer that this is not a Disney production are also too young to have made the purchasing decision and therefore cannot be considered a market participant / consumer.
Could you be convinced to take over for opposing counsel on my current docket? I would be most appreciative.
This is where I think we need a common video stamping agreement- something like taking key frames in a video and hashing them, then signing the hash, and storing that in the metadata - I can rerun the check and so be sure that the certificate signing the hash is disney - if not just do not run the video.
I know this sounds like EU central copyright database thing but if we have to have some copyright (which I think we do) we then need a automated way to verify which is some form of database (decentralised for preference)
Does it mean anyone can put batman on a t-shirt, sell that t-shirt and keep all the profit? Does it mean batman movies can be pirated without repercussion?
Think about Shakespeare's works for a good example of something in the public domain. Anyone can use Romeo & Juliet's characters any way they like. Similarly, there is a huge amount of derivative work of Price and Prejudice[2]
[1] https://publicdomainreview.org/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_literary_adaptations_o...
It would be my guess that any works created after the first one still have copyright on the content itself. Correct me if I'm wrong.
That’s my hope, anyway.
If copyrights were only good for 30 years, then it would be cheap to start streaming services for music and movies. There's tons of great movies and music that you could to bootstrap your operation. Movies like Back to the Future could be freely viewed on YouTube.
Public domain works are incredibly valuable. Which is exactly why our founding fathers put the management of such powers in the hands of the federal government.
The fight now should go the other way - reverting current insane copyright term to its previous lengths. Copyright lobby might not be able to extend it more, but it doesn't mean that the current one is acceptable.
Now in 2018 we are in a similar situation: again, europeans are passing new legislation that gives teeth to copyright by introducing censorship machines.
See also: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/ustr-secret-copyright-...
Disney might be a force behind it, but it's literally true that Europe has been the leader in extending copyright terms, both the original extension last century, and then the most recent push as well.
Okay, based on the history and timeline of copyright law, that means you're saying that the corporations pass the most restrictive copyright laws that they can in Europe, and then US law is lengthened to harmonize with Europe through trade agreements (except most recently, where the US declined to participate in the trade agreement with Europe which would have adopted an even stricter copyright law).
E.g., all works by authors who died in 1948 would now be public domain, but the US often requires that they were published before 1924.
Why bother to worry about copyrights?
The main thing I'd like to see would be to get rid of any silly "life plus x years" terms.
10-15 years after publication, though, not after death. Also, nonrenewable.
Movies for well-known franchises could possibly be financed through crowd-funding, but that would make it hard for production companies to make bets in new franchises or directors.
This proposal is not only just, but feasible.
The left should get on-board, since the retroactive copyright extensions effectively took away property that was promised to the public and reassigned it to media companies for a certain amount of time.
Constitutional conservatives should get on-board, since Congress's authority to establish a copyright office is rooted in the power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," and excessively long copyright terms stifle progress rather than promoting it.
I posted a while back advocating for a coordinated reform effort [0], and I still think we can get this done. Who’s in?
Edit: Ah, trademark, not copyright, sorry!
Well, maybe actually saying they'll fix copyright laws, throw large corporations to the curb and actively fighting to reduce the term to a reasonable length may help with that. Show they're not corporate shills, and do something that younger people may actually support them with.
Is that enough on its own? Hell no, there are tons of things these parties need to do to win trust back. But it would be a great rallying point for them, and get a decent amount of support from internet folks and younger people.
I really think the defining political problem of our age is campaign finance reform and to a lesser extent election reform.
But didn't those three things exist when the sanity you want to restore prevailed?
The US was broken in the 1800s. It was broken in the 1820s-1840s with the fight over slavery. It was broken in the 1860s, and we had to fight a civil war to restore any sort of santy. It was broken in the 1880s after Restoration was rolled back. It was broken in 1900 with the rise of the Klan again. 1915 was WWI, in 1920 we were back to being broken. 1930s we were broken by depression and the fight against fascism, 1940s we had WW2. 1950s we had Korea, 1960s we were broken, 1970s we were broken, and that begun the decline of any sense of civility in the congress.
1980s we were completely broken, 1990s we were completely broken, 2000s we were completely broken, 2010s we were completely broken...
The lack of justice for Nixon broke any sense of normality left in the nation. And the Republicans nevertheless played off the idea that Nixon was somehow crucifed, and elected Reagan, then went on a witch-hunt against Clinton. Then they elected a historically bad president in Bush, started the longest wars in US history, and when people complained they crucified Obama in response. And then they elected the loudest finger-in-the-eye they could find in response.
The US has been somewhat broken for literally its entire existence but it has been actively unable to transact its internal business for about half of that... about half of that being in the last 50 years.
The first is softball and obvious. Things can work on a small scale and collapse on a large scale. We started with around 30,000 citizens per congressional district (and thus per representative). And there was a strong urging to push it lower by some. This number was envisioned as remaining as a constant, for if you dilute the power and "connection" of the average voter too much, you risk exposing yourself to politicians too far detached from their constituency which can breed tyranny, corruption, and so on. And indeed 30,000 is already pretty far up there. Today we have more than 700,000 citizens per congressional district.
The second is a more contentious issue, but perhaps even more relevant. Today we've become an increasingly divided and polarized society where nuance is increasingly a lost art. Democracy does not work in such situations. Iraq is an extreme example. Iraq is fundamentally broken up into three major groups - Shiite, Sunni, and Kurds. And these groups tend to be extremely intolerant of one another with members of each group generally adopting wholesale all views of their own group and only their own group. It just turns into a tyranny of the majority.
Somehow the United States has started trending towards this exact behavior. This wasn't always the case. While we may have had vice president engage in a duel to the death with a secretary of the treasury, these were personal conflicts. Today people are engaging more in group conflicts. Democracy works when people are willing to work together, not when they view politics as a team sport where the idea is for your side to "win" and the other side to "lose."
The US has had that precondition for centuries, so if we were to lose it, it would be a very different case fro Iraq, who never had it.
I think the factor behind increased polarisation in the US and across the democratic world probably is this thing right here. The internet! People are now increasingly getting their news and information, and thereby their world view from "social media", not the traditional mass media of the last 2-3 centuries.
It's a huge sea change, and we're only seeing the beginning of it. So far it't looking kinda scary, but things will keep changing quickly, and I think we'll sort things out. We better :)
https://www.npr.org/2016/02/06/465781632/fact-check-clinton-...
First, the study specifically avoided self identification and labeling. They clustered people based on their answers to core belief questions. From which they found 7 key clusters. One of those the study labeled Progressive Activists. But that's a label put on after the fact. So it doesn't mean 8% of the population identify as progressive activist. Just that from the study, there's 8% of the population with very similar core beliefs.
Then the study demonstrates that self labels like being left, right, middle, conservative, Democrat, Republican, etc, are bad predictors of shared common issues.
Only 3 out of the 7 groups cared most about jobs, and only one group, the smallest one, cared most about immigration.
The groups the study labeled liberals make up 26%, and the ones labeled conservative 25%. But again, that's the labels the study gave people based on their answers.
Also, the wealthiest and withest cluster identified of them all is the Devoted Conservative.
Finally, the whole point of the study is that appart from the wings of progressist activist (composed of young professionals mostly), and from the traditional (old, white middle class mostly) and devoted conservatives (old, white and wealthiest mostly), all other groups are much more willing to compromise and have varying beliefs depending on the situation, and are most bothered by the wings polarizing the country. Thus when you look at the silent majority, they are much more diversified in opinions.
This reminds me of the futurama episode with the clones running for president: A: “your 10c titanium tax goes too far” B: “well I say your 10c titanium tax doesn’t go too far enough!”
But these days, once you get past the five-second sound bites and the rhetoric, there is very little difference between what Republicans and Democrats actually do.
Obama was a pretty center-right politician, and Hillary would have been also. He didn’t support socialized medicine, didn’t support socialized education, didn’t push for a $15 minimum wage, didn’t really bolster unions — though didn’t try and demolish them either — and didn’t really tax the wealthy. He was also fairly supportive of the surveillance state. To his credit he did a lot of good work bolstering environmental regulations and pushing forward climate science. I’m a leftist by Canadian standards and I liked and respected Obama and I can confirm he was no leftist.
i'm a bit confused... wasn't Obamacare, like, that? (nb not a US citizen)
In fact until they turned on it for political strategy reasons it was quite popular with Republican representatives and saw extensive bipartisan review and amendment. The Republican narrative that it was pushed through without them having a say is flat out false.
As a UK conservative I’ve had it up to my teeth with the US Republican Party. It seems like all they’ve got left is reactionaryism and nationalism. They’re now even dismantling trade deals largely built by free trade republicans, and can’t even support their own policies as soon as anyone else supports them too. They’re totally dysfunctional.
I’m a big believer that any political party that has power for too long becomes corrupt. Success attracts mouthpiece politicians that parrrot the party line because it’s successful, without thinking through and living the basic principles. I’ve seen it happen to the Conservative party. I voted con in 1997 but we deserved that defeat. It happened to labour under Blair and Brown. The US republicans have had the same disease since the Bush eras and just can’t shake it. The fact the democrats have occupied the centre right had forced republicanism into a reactionary corner. As a conservative myself it horrible to watch. They’ve become a twisted parody of the party I once loved under Reagan.
Oops. Rant.
For example in The Netherlands, the government defines a extensive healthcare package that every insurer must provide to everyone, insurers must accept everyone for and all their clients must pay the same price, and they also determine what hospitals can charge for certain procedures. "Add-ons" like sport-related Physical Therapy are mostly unregulated.
That's far more far-reaching than Obamacare, which allows age-based price discrimination, only mandates coverage of 10 categories and does not regulate hospital pricing.
(I based in South Africa, but traveled the world. So I'm fairly neutral)
So I guess you are right, it is truly 'big-business-friendly', whether that is good or bad, I don't know.
There is also a huge right-wing movement among celebrities. Ignoring one particular rap artist, many of the older and more successful actors are right-wing icons. From Clint Eastwood and Kelsey Grammer to Mel Gibson, once you are sitting on a pile of money one's opinions tend to shift right. The biggest and most successful media organization at the moment is FOX, and the biggest television stars are the fox presenters. IIRC Judge Judy remains the highest paid TV presenter/host.
And Regan. And Trump. Both hollywood personalities.
If they wanted “lower taxes” to be the biggest issues they have all the power to make it happen.
The only reason conservative groups do so well is because they are the exception to the majority left-leaning entertainment industry. Conservative thought is highly concentrated to a few sources (in the mainstream)
This is literally what happens every day in 2019 America. I invite you to spend five minutes learning about the American Legislative Exchange Council, how ALEC writes state-level legislation, the Republican project "REDMAP", and how they all fit together.
Here's one story: https://billmoyers.com/story/alec-koch-industries-gerrymande...
If they wanted “lower taxes” to be the biggest issues they have all the power to make it happen.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-30/corporate...
Copyright and intellectual property are entirely state constructs. Media companies and IP trolls (to whatever degree you can separate the two) definitely do not want deregulation in this regard.
Copyright and patent laws are enacted by Congress, and are explicitly an optional legislative power given to Congress by the US Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8). The two main types of "intellectual property" are explicitly something that Congress has power to legislate.
Congress has also legislated additional forms of "intellectual property": copyright is codified in 17 U.S.C. (Copyright Act), patents in 35 U.S.C., trademarks in 15 U.S.C. 1051-1141 (Lanham Act), and trade secrets in 18 U.S.C. 1839. So all of the substantive forms of "intellectual property" are federal law, and thus aren't state constructs.
EDIT: Ah, if you meant "state" as in "government" then yes you're correct.
Besides, most actors/directors/producers dont make nearly enough money to have the impact of a Koch or Mercer.
The problem wasn't really the bad debt. The problem was one of confidence, and putting the money into the banks restored that confidence.
As repugnant as it seemed, and still seems, to give that money to the bankers that created the problems, it was likely the right move at the time. We'll never really know since we can't go back and try the other way, but things were grinding to a halt, and putting money in people's hands was it going to move things quickly enough.
>The problem wasn't really the bad debt. No, it was a problem of bad debt, poorly managed securities specifically MBS lead to a Ponzi like situation that should have been allowed to wind down instead of propped up. Lenders should have bit the bullet and lessons should have been learned. The political fallout from the decision to put off the the inevitable are only starting to become manifest in current politics.
I live in Canada where atypical interest rates as a result of lockstep CB policy with the US has completely distorted our real estate market. The result is going to be a lost generation that lives at home for a decade longer than their parents. This is all the result of fiscal policy trying to hold up the remains of the 2008 crisis instead of raising the problem to ground and starting again with a more humbled outlook. The Piper will be paid, it's just a matter of when, and who will be paying.
Rolling back copyright is not exactly a great rallying cry for a politician. Out of all of the things that most young voters care about, that’s not on the top of their list.
The pirate party wouldn't stand a chance in the US IMO.
People just pirate instead of making a political statement out of it. Sometimes they justify it in terms of how they're broke anyways, or support creators in other ways, or in terms of how ridiculous copyright law has gotten... but none of it really rises to the level of a significant political movement. Maybe it's the usually toothless enforcement, or the general lack of will to sue 5 year olds for millions over singing happy birthday, or just enough settlement NDAs to hide the lawsuits under the rug, but I guess it just isn't seen as much of a political issue.
I suspect it's seen as a theoretical problem more than a practical one. When specific instances of draconian abuse of IP law do rise to being a visible practical problem (company vs company doesn't count), eventually enough political pressure mounts that one of the parties might fix it. But there are "bigger" issues, so it's usually pretty quiet, with neither party having clean enough hands to score any easy points, so they just settle for not kicking any more puppies.
While copyright reform gets little traction, mucking with the ability to pirate will stir up enough of a hornets nest to actually be a political issue (cough Net neutrality cough), which is currently generally "fixed" by the more regulation-happy Democrats than the business-friendly Republicans.
Exactly the point. Why is that? In Europe they exist.
While the US has only two major parties, these parties are unusually flexible and can accomodate major shifts: the Reagan revolution, "third way" Bill Clinton, Trump... The intra-group conflicts do get played out in the primaries.
I could imagine someone like Trump, but smarter, doing it. Big tech and big content are aligned with the Democrats. So why should the Republicans care about pissing them off?
...
"Those on the Left often called themselves "republicans", while those on the Right often called themselves "conservatives"."
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"The use of the words Left and Right spread from France to other countries and came to be applied to a large number of political parties worldwide, which often differed in their political beliefs"
...
"The right is always the party sector associated with the interests of the upper or dominant classes, the left the sector expressive of the lower economic or social classes, and the centre that of the middle classes. Historically this criterion seems acceptable."
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"The differences between left and right have altered over time. The initial cleavage at the time of the French Revolution was between supporters of absolute monarchy (the Right) and those who wished to limit the king's authority (the Left). During the 19th century, the cleavage was between monarchists and republicans. Following the establishment of the Third Republic in 1871, the cleavage was between supporters of a strong executive on the Right and supporters of the primacy of the legislature on the Left"
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"The terms left-wing and right-wing are widely used in the United States, but as on the global level there is no firm consensus about their meaning."
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"Some political scientists have suggested that the classifications of "left" and "right" are no longer meaningful in the modern complex world"
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"In 2006, British Prime Minister Tony Blair described the main cleavage in politics as not left versus right, but open versus closed.[54] In this model, attitudes towards social issues and globalism are more important than the conventional economic left–right issues: "open" voters tend to be socially liberal, multicultural and in favour of globalism, while "closed" voters are culturally conservative, opposed to immigration and in favour of protectionism. This model has seen increased support following the rise of populist and centrist parties in the 2010s."
-- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left–right_political_spectru...
From other hand, deep frustration with such situation leads to the populism we see around us.
Mostly "left wing" and "right wing" exist now just to serve as pejoratives to refer to people in "the other camp" relative to whichever label an individual has chosen to identify with.
A simple one-dimensional model like "left <-> right" cannot adequately represent the varieties of political thought in existence.
I believe the same with the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative', and I've been interested in writing a blog to explain myself. Essentially, everyone is both liberal and conservative. Every day we make decisions that stereotypically fit both of these labels, yet we entirely ignore it.
If a "conservative" is someone who conserves product and tradition and resists change, then wouldn't a a hippy protecting a forest from bulldozing be a conservative? Portland OR is going through growing pains right now because the locals (majority self proclaim as 'liberals') are being kicked out due to high rent. Wouldn't resisting this change be a conservative move?
If an overweight 'conservative' buys a pallet of soda because Walmart has a bulk sale, are they liberal because they're buying a lot, or conservative because they're getting a slight discount thus saving money? If neither political parties (D/R) want to actually reduce our debt, aren't they both 'liberal'?
[Edit: and if defining a person as (l/c) simply means they live a life that's more than half one or the other, then that will beg the question: how do you even begin to quantify this crap? Simply put... You can't. Use better words.]
My point is that these terms don't make as much sense as we like to think they do. We need to start using better and more descriptive terms to describe our politics.
I also take issue with framing this as entitlement, since copyright only exists due to the idea that content producers are 'entitled' to restriction on what they release to the public. I'd also argue that all members of society should have some entitlement to re-use and re-mix the social product. This isn't such a popular idea in late hyper-commodification, but I think it's an important one nevertheless, just as the creators of the material felt entitled to use society's abstract product (ideas and support) maybe it's right for me to feel entitled to use their abstract product - the idea of Mickey Mouse and Batman.
They should. Not doing it is theft.
Disney made great use of the Brothers Grimm, and has no interest in giving back. All greed and the desire to avoid another Disney from happening.
FREE THE MOUSE
The burden of proof should be on copyright holders to explain why the state furthers the public good by requiring the courts (and police, customs, etc.) to enforce these laws.
Legally in the United States, the power to establish copyright is in the constitution: "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
This makes indefinite copyright unconstitutional.
Heh, someone collecting money like this was the story of "About a Boy" with Hugh Grant (2002).
So Shakespeare wouldn't be used in schools, that would be great!
Share and share alike, otherwise it's pulling the ladder up, rather selfish, and a theft from all of us.
Copyright was never intended to be infinite. Every work is derivative. When we don't return works to the public domain, culture gets stale, owned by big players.
Rambo 13, 14, 15...
Rip, mix, burn has lowered the bar for creation. When we do that, and expand the pool of works to draw from, we empower people to add to culture outside the big players and whatever boardroom vision they may have.
The argument is robustness of culture, not boardroom culture.
Lots of creators coming up now. Low bar to entry. New, relevant works is what they need to take their place in society.
Some will anyway.
Who knows what may come? That's the point. That MADE Disney, BTW.
And Disney will be just fine. It's the little guy somewhere who has a vision that won't be, unless we allow the same process to play out again.
Copyright is censorship.
In Germany's analogue to the US-American copyright law (Urheberrecht), there exists no fair use doctrine.
EDIT: And even if we ignore this: a little less censorship is still a censorship.
I just stated a logical fact.
Understanding the interference rules of ZFC does not enable you to prove the Riemann hypothesis.
Understanding the standard model does not enable you to build a transmutation engine.
Understanding that copyright is censorship does not enable you to come up with a visionary plan what the best political steps are to handle this truth.
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But I personally think that it would at least be a small step into the right direction if people would internalize that free speech and copyright are contradictory to each other.
I'm not sure whether this would be a great victory for the cause of free speech or nail in the coffin for copyright reduction.