Was there a copyright reason for Disney changing their opening logo sequence to the steamboat willy thing? Some kind of "it's now our trademark" claim?
Call me naive, but I don't think there was anything calculated about it more than attaching a mascot to the studio - like the Luxo Jr Lamp on Pixar films.
I'm saying this of course with a tongue in cheek but that doesn't mean it's completely false.
[1] DFA itself as a division of the company hasn't existed continuously in that 95-year period, of course. It was shutdown by Eisner for a while in favor of cheaper (and mostly outsourced overseas) Disney Television Animation and various dalliances with Pixar.
[2] Including the years that Disney thought it didn't need an active Disney Feature Animation department. The Steamboat Willie logo does also feel a bit like an internal political statement in that respect, too, because it kind of also says "this company was founded on Feature Animation".
Basically the Disney brand has gotten so huge and diversified that a public domain Mickey isn't an existential threat to their business anymore. Terrifying in its own right, but at least we might see an end to the endless copyright extension. Interesting times ahead!
Edit: I think the confusion may arise from the Berne convention. The US did sign, but not until 1988.
It should be looked form the frame of how long is appropriate to promote the creation of the arts etc. Realistically no author is thinking I won't create this art unless I get lifetime + 70.
I would think 50 years total is a much more reasonable figure.
Corporations can't wait even 20 years because tastes change. There's not much mainstream demand for Sum 41 anymore. Also corporations can't have much margin on public domain material; there's too much competition if anyone can publish it, and for digital creations they'd be competing with legal p2p sharing. So they need that exclusivity.
Perhaps not for Sum 41. But how about Beatles? Elvis? Michael Jackson? Metallica?
I don't know if people will still be listening to Swift and Eilish in 50 years from now, but something tells me that Beatles, Iron Maiden, Michael Jackson, Sinatra, will echo for eons..
This has the nice side effect of wildly-successful works disproportionately funding the copyright offices, thus enabling theoretically lower fees for newcomers.
Sure, but should a corporation continue to make huge profits from these artist who will be long dead?
Not all copyright is owned or even licensed to organisations.
It really is a bad feel if you created something, then 20 years later someone releases the exact thing you created and make millions and you don't get a cent of that money.
Also many people after retirement age probably need the income from royalties a little bit more than when they were in their prime, not less.
That isn't what the entire comment thread is discussing though so I misinterpreted your comment. Apologies
Corporations create the taste. They can even wait hundreds of years. Just look at how many old stories are remade today. Unless there is something extraordinary, hyped for longer than a summer, they will wait all they want.
I agree, I don't see how 20 years isn't long enough from that pov.
What company is going to wait 20 years before signing a book deal, film deal, etc.
Further. This still ignores the fact that there's value to having the original creator attached. You don't want the author of the book trashing your new film, you want them promoting it.
For example, Netflix just now announced a reboot of One Piece Anime, a series running for 25 years. The creator is still working on the original source. Imagine if Netflix could just do that on their own, the creator had no influence at all on their work. They could just make shit along the way as they see it. Twist it, change it, with their power, they could be damaging the original work for good, simply because they are bigger.
I think it just depends on the pricing the copyright holder wants. If you can pay a few bucks and get exclusive rights, it's totally a win. If you have to mortgage your business to get the rights, it's a much harder decision.
I think a reasonable compromise would be, by default a copyright lasts 10 years, but they can extend it another 10 or 20 years(or maybe even until their death), if they pay a fee of some sort, perhaps yearly, so the copyright will expire as soon as it doesn't make sense to pay the fee anymore.
This lets the long-term copyright winners continue to win for most of their lifetime, if they cut the people(the govt) in on some of that return. While most things that don't need long term copyright get dumped into public domain to help invigorate and make more awesome new ideas.
Public domain is not new. They already have this situation now, and usually avoid this, probably for exact this reason.
> This lets the long-term copyright winners continue to win for most of their lifetime
Seems not very reasonable to support the rich and paywall the poor.
If you are poor, then there is zero reason to renew the copyright, you clearly aren't making any money off of it. I view it as a tax on the copyright, it could even be implemented that way, say 10% of your take rate or something.
You can enjoy your house for 20 years.
Movies and music last a little shorter. For some reason musicians tend to have short natural lives, and copyrights start to seem like grave-robbing.
Video games and software are practically dead within two decades. The primary effect of copyrights on software more than 20 years old seems to be to stifle innovation and promote rent-seeking. I think this is why tech people have such a dim view of copyright, because the system as it exists seems to create a lot of busywork and headaches that just feel so unnecessary for anyone tasked with filling in the gaps.
Disney putting Steamboat Willie in their logo is unlikely to actually allow Disney to effectively extend restrictions on the cartoon—but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a calculated move to deter people from reproducing Steamboat Willie after its liberation simply by the implicit threat of expensive litigation from a very large team of lawyers.
There's case history on that in the US as well.
Trademarks are restricted to brand identification only; attempting to use them for anything else will result in trouble and wasted money.
[0] "Intellectual property is any law that allows you to dictate the conduct of your competitors." - Cory Doctorow, paraphrased
[1] Yes, it's a shitty made-up term to make you confuse four different kinds of law, no I don't care. There's enough negative sentiment around "intellectual property" these days that the Stallmanian position sounds like a defense of it now.
[2] It's a country, get over it
How do you trademark the exact shape of a Lego brick?
On the other hand, trademarks tend to be some form of art, so copyright and trademarks make sense to coincide
..and the hundreds of differently shaped bricks that come with it.
You can trademark a shape, actually. It's called Trade Dress[0], and The Lego Group uses it, too. The Minifig, for example, is registered[1].
Sure there'll be bad & ugly & awful things done with Steamboat Willie. But no press is bad press. And there's going to be some press about the things people do with the mouse.
> Disney has also started using this logo before some of its films.
> If you make your own Mickey cartoon, can Disney use trademark law to interfere? Trademark law is all about preventing consumer confusion – and not about getting in the way of creativity – so it depends on whether people are likely to be misled about the source of your cartoon. As long as no one thinks it is a Disney joint, there should not be a trademark problem.