There are lots of laws the public doesn't care about and all you have to do is get the legislature to "not disagree", after you get your pet project out of committee. So as long as people don't notice, you can get pretty much anything passed in the US. It works even better when all the well funded special interests hilariously decided to move to the far fringe edges of their respective parties and will never get consensus. Lowers the barrier for consensus for the rest of us since most of Congress is just waiting for things that can have bi-partisan support. Been a fun and cheaper than usual few years for me.......
https://priceonomics.com/how-mickey-mouse-evades-the-public-...
> According a precedent set in a 1979 court case, a trademark can protect a character in the public domain as long as that character has obtained what is called “secondary meaning.” This means that the character and the company are virtually inseparable: upon seeing it, one will immediately identify it with a brand.
You'd be surprised what you can squeeze into a budget reconciliation bill if you care enough, the government has to reopen eventually.
Honestly, enough people just don't.
But you can.
the point is that the electorate doesn't care and you don't want them to.
Most people do not have this purported easy access to Capitol Hill it is not trivial to get it done under a certa8n amount of fiscal influence. Please qualify your use of the word easy with numbers please, else its just empty words
For a significant number of voters, intellectual property policy now works like a social issue, in terms of the intensity of emotion and effort it elicits.
Under the 1909 Copyright Act, it was 28 years which could be renewed for another 28 years, giving a total of 56 years. The work was first published in 1966, giving 1966 + 56 = 2022.
The Copyright Act of 1976, the term became life of the author + 50 years for non-corporate works, and 75 years after first publication for corporate works. For works from before 1976 there were still under copyright, it was sort of retroactive.
I say "sort of" because instead of simple saying those simply got the new term, keeping their original start date, it changed their renewal term from 28 years to 47 years, which gives 75 years. Works that were still in the first term would still have to renew to get that 47 year renewal term. Anyway, 1966 + 28 + 47 = 2041. (Yes, I know that is not 2040. No, I don't know why not. (Well, I know why 1966 + 28 + 47 is not 2040...)).
The 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act (which, BTW, is the only copyright term extension in the US that Disney lobbying might have actually influenced [1]) changed the term for corporate works to be 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is earlier.
1966 + 95 = 2061.
[1] There have only been two copyright term extensions in the US since Disney was founded. I haven't been able to find anything on where they stood on the 1976 Act or if they did any lobbying for it. Of course they were in favor of it--but so was nearly everyone else. It made the US system much more compatible with the rest of the world, paving the way for the US to join the Berne Convention.
Thus in 1974 is became public domain, and all the networks could play it as many times as they wanted with no cost, and did so - making it a very popular film in the American cultural zeitgeist.
In 1993 this was all undone though, and now only the owner (which is NBC) is allowed to show the classic film, because it was based on a story that is copyrighted (and NBC acquired the copyright)
Copyright length are ridiculous. Any implication (we need copyright otherwise people won't create) that Philip Van Doren Stern wrote his story in 1943 because he felt he could capitalize on the rights of a derivative film in the cable tv and streaming era is laughable.
Knowing what we know now, Stern surely would have bargained harder and perhaps gotten more money from RKO --- as is the case in any business transaction where we're given perfect information about outcomes. But that doesn't change the underlying moral rights involved.
I think this appeal to Stern is a pretty weak argument.
Further: the argument about copyright lapsing on Its A Wonderful Life is misleading. RKO let the copyright lapse, but if they hadn't, it would properly have been copyrighted --- under the 1909 rules! --- until 2000.
Any details on branch/department of gov't?
I suspect we'll be in a similar position with video content in 10 years as well. Already, I think it's easy to make the case that we're better off than we were in the status quo ante of cable bundles and video rentals.
Even today, I get frustrated by geo-ip blocking (I'm Canadian) and I have no idea how I'm going to watch the Animaniacs reboot (Hulu isn't available here). Even worse, a lot of content gets licenced to Canadian media companies which then (if I legally want to) force me to watch through terrible apps with terrible commercial interruptions at bad times. The last movie I tried to legally watch via that last method has 20 minutes of commercials for every hour of the film.
I pay for Netflix and Apple music because they're affordable and extremely convenient, but get in my way and I'll have no qualms finding a better way.
So even if Steamboat Willie were to become public domain, would trademark limit the derivative works that could be made? The movie might be public, but the main character isn't. Can you tell me how that would work?
Meanwhile, if you're a parent that wants to put Olaf the Snowman on the TV, it has never, ever been easier or less expensive to do that.
There's a balance somewhere between the rights of the creator and the rights of society to adapt and disseminate our own culture, and the argument we're making is that the scales are currently tipped way too far on the side of the creator. I don't care how easy it is to watch Frozen in 2020, I care about what the children who grew up with that film can do with the culture they grew up in when they are adults.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_The_Wizard...
I feel like you are not responding to the points I am making, and are hung up on something else.
I could subscribe to 3 or 4 premium streaming services and be spending less than I was on CDs 20 years ago.
Don't have to spend hours ripping them all, either.
All in all I'm with tptacek here. For all but the most niche consumer this is unambiguously better than we had before.
>"Screw you, got mine," does not tend to score points with the youth of today, and it doesn't score points with me. Not that what I think matters one lick. All of my music has either been consumed via radio, adopted via possession through being the family backup media, or public domain/OST, typically from ye olde CD store.
Furthering the arts my arse. Furthering the exploitation and monetization of the Arts as business model through aggressive litigation is more like it.
That said, I'm not at all sure that I'd try to build a library from scratch if I were starting today. Maybe I'd buy the odd album here and there but probably not wholesale.
As for video, the vast vast majority people of people don't buy a lot of DVDs any longer. Heck, I've certainly had people express surprise that I even own a DVD player.
wait a minute -
If you're, I guess, weird, you can just buy CDs the way we did in 1998. They're all still available! The bands would really like you to buy them! I'm genuinely not sure what the complaint is here. It seems to be that super-cheap, super-convenient music is available in addition to the CDs we were buying instead?
I don't get it either, and yet these services are massively popular to the point of alternatives going away. Meanwhile I have tons of music on my laptop, desktop, and HTPC, and can play it as long as there isn't a power outage.
Streaming is great for things I know I want to watch once (e.g. TV series) and don't care if I can't rewatch it tomorrow. For music? Nope.
If collecting is part of the fun for you then go for it, but there's a whole lot of people for whom the collecting stuff isn't fun it's just unnecessary work.
In general, the situation with music is much better than video in general. There are exclusives and gaps (especially for some oddball stuff) but, for the most part, all the major services have most of the music people typically listen too.
I have a big library but I augment it with streaming and (mostly) don't buy a lot of new music.
It isn't. Cassettes are VERY lossy copies. It's like saving a jpg of a jpg of a jpg of a...
But ignoring that, why not create something new? Are all our artists to busy with work?