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Comment by nerdjon | Hacker News Reader

While I do agree that 95 years is fairly long, as a consumer I am a little more conflicted.

I like the idea that any IP created in my lifetime can stay in control by some entity from a consumer standpoint. Take something like Star Wars, once that enters general domain than there is the possibility of "Star Wars" being taken in a ton of different directions and makes it harder for a fan to follow since they will effectively be competing with eachother as the true "Star Wars".

Personally I don't exactly know what a good timeline is, but I don't fully understand what exactly the harm is of some entity being able to keep control of something for a certain period of time.

Or am I missing something here?

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I'm going to point out a recent example of what happens when culture is not strangled by a single controlling entity: Baby Shark.

Even if it drives you insane, you have to appreciate the cultural phenomenon of Baby Shark. There are hundreds of different interpretations, in different languages and wildly different styles. I've heard jazzy versions, halloween versions, pirate versions... practically anything you can imagine. And kids love it.

None of this could have happened if somebody "owned" Baby Shark. It's essentially open source culture. Most folk culture is just like this.

I personally would love to see other interpretations of Star Wars. Lucas has certainly been a terrible steward, turning it into a children's cartoon.

P.S. Han Shot First

If you haven't felt the compulsion to make fan art, write fan fiction, make your own versions of songs, etc, then it probably doesn't make any sense.

Copyright, even when no profit motive exists on the part of the "fan artist", makes those pursuits technically illegal. (Whether the copyright holder pursues action is a different matter.)

The work I like to cite is "The Last Ringbearer"[0]. It's a retelling of the Lord of the Rings and won't see a mass audience any time soon because of copyright law and the Tolkien estate.

Contrast that with the success of Wicked[1][2], building on the public domain L. Frank Baum "Wizard of Oz" universe.

Both of these works could be created with new characters and universes, but they lose the common cultural lexicon and richness of heritage of the earlier works upon which they're based.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_(Maguire_novel)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_(musical)

I would love for Star Wars to be taken in a ton of different directions, and the current toxic part of the fanbase that is obsessed with canonicity to be smashed into pieces. Let's make this a proper mythology.

Fans already take Star Wars in a lot of different directions in their cosplay and roleplaying and fan-fic, so it wouldn't even be much of an adjustment in that respect. Nevertheless, a world where fans are free and empowered to make a living creating Star Wars characters and stories, without having to pay the Mouse or get his say-so, would be a healthier place.

When I imagine your scenario, I like the idea of accepting that there’s no true “Star Wars” and having a bunch of different variations on it that we can enjoy/discuss.

For example, Disney had a bunch of anime studios produce different non-cannon Star Wars shorts. I loved the variety, and I loved seeing everyone talk about which ones were their favourites. I think a stronger public domain would really help with this.

I think this is an interesting objection. Does copyright really achieve this objective of keeping the story in the control of the original creator and a single "true canon", though? Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney, so now the "true canon" is no longer Lucas' vision, but Disney's. Maybe if there were multiple versions, someone else could carry the story on in a different way you might prefer better.

Even if there were no copyright, the original creators could keep extending their stories indefinitely, and people could continue following those if they were the best ones, or the only ones considered "real". I don't want to get into a debate about NFTs, but they could be used to verify content came from a particular source if you wanted to have some assurance that a particular piece of content was part of the "official canon".

If you check out something where people just ignore copyright, like fan fiction or ROM hacks, you'll find something that's not very hard to follow at all. Easier to follow than what particularly reboot-happy studios do with their copyrights, since people generally come up with more descriptive names for their fics/hacks/etc than "Star Wars 5."

90% of that is garbage, of course but that's true of anywhere.

If you'd like a specific timeframe where it's useful for a franchise to be controlled by a single entity, I'd say 5-10 years. Anything more than that and, even if you still have the original artist in charge, they'll be in a completely different place in their life by then.

> and makes it harder for a fan to follow since they will effectively be competing with eachother as the true "Star Wars".

It really doesn't - in a sane world, this is something that can be readily assessed by fans, critics and academic scholarship. You might as well argue that Shakespeare being in the public domain makes it hard to know whether a theatrical production is "reallly" Shakespeare.

I'm sure that fans will actually love to argue endlessly if "Netflix Star Wars Universe" or "Disney Star Wars Universe" is the "true Star Wars", dissecting each one trying to find which one adheres to the original canon and author's vision.

You're not missing anything, the argument is for how long this duration should be.

The lifetime of the original creator plus $YEARS should be more than long enough for the original work(s) to be made 'canonical'. How is a corporation buying up an IP because it is profitable going to guarantee it remains true to the original author's intentions, or to the desires of fans? If we care about the consumer they should be free to engage with the original works or any derivation thereof as they choose. IP isn't about expanding consumer choice, it's about limiting it - and it certainly isn't a mechanism for guaranteeing the ongoing quality of a series.

Sure - the original 'bargain' around copyright (between printers and the King) was that copyright, an unnatural monopoly right, would be granted for a fixed period of time and then would revert to the public domain (remember this was at a time when there was only the public domain, if you wanted a copy of something you paid someone to do it for you, printing changed all that).

The big problem with the recent changes is that a deal where you cede a right for a period of time and then get to enjoy it later in your life is moot when everyone who is party to the first part (ie society) is dead when the second part occurs

People already do things like that. Are you confused what the true Sonic games are, vs fan spinoffs and fanfic?

I think it's easy to know which company makes the franchise that you are a fan of.

Of course they do,

But I would assume that once some of these mega franchises hit the public domain, we could see Sony (just a random non disney example) make a big budget Star Wars movie and try to create their own Star Wars universe that is separate.

This may or may not actually be a thing since by the time Star Wars hits public domain it may be irreverent. But if we had a shorter period, I would assume that could happen?

Disney made big budget Star Wars movies separate from the established universe. Something like that happens to all decades long series. Even with 1 owner.

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