Popeye and Tintin enter the public domain in 2025 along with Faulkner, Hemingway
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The smell of old books, dusty libraries, and having to pick 1 book per month from what seemed like endless shelves of these comics.
We had a mobile library (a big van would park up a few streets over every Tuesday) and I have very fond memories of their Tintin books.
There's something about the 'album' format as well, you can fit a lot more on a page.
The section on Zhang Chongren's wikipedia was cool
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# Influence on Hergé
Hergé's early albums of The Adventures of Tintin were highly dependent on stereotypes for comedic effect. These included evil Russian Bolsheviks, lazy and ignorant Africans, and an America of gangsters, cowboys and Indians.
At the close of the newspaper run of Cigars of the Pharaoh, Hergé had mentioned that Tintin's next adventure (The Blue Lotus) would bring him to China. Father Gosset, the chaplain to the Chinese students at the University of Leuven, wrote to Hergé urging him to be sensitive about what he wrote about China. Hergé agreed, and in the spring of 1934 Gosset introduced him to Zhang Chongren. The two young artists quickly became close friends, and Zhang introduced Hergé to Chinese history and culture, and the techniques of Chinese art. Of similar age, they also shared many interests and beliefs. Hergé even promised to give authorship credits to Zhang in the book, but Zhang declined the offer. As a result of this experience, Hergé would strive, in The Blue Lotus and subsequent Tintin adventures, to be meticulously accurate in depicting the places Tintin visited.
As a token of appreciation, Hergé added the character "Chang Chong-Chen" (Tchang in original French-language version) to The Blue Lotus.[1]
As another result of his friendship with Zhang, Hergé became increasingly aware of the problems of colonialism, in particular the Empire of Japan's advances into China, and the corrupt, exploitative International Settlement of Shanghai. The Blue Lotus carries a bold anti-imperialist message, contrary to the prevailing view in Europe, which was sympathetic to Japan and the colonial enterprise[citation needed]. As a result, it drew sharp criticism from various parties, including a protest by Japanese diplomats to the Belgian Foreign Ministry.[citation needed]
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I bought a copy of The Blue Lotus after learning about how the publication of that adventure was a turning point in Hergé's understanding and open-mindedness about other (specifically China, in this case) cultures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Lotus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang_Chong-Chen
He may have started to broaden his understanding of "foreigners", but it still took a while.
In reality, most authors were not particularly racist; they just leveraged stereotypes to get cheap laughs, which was socially accepted back then.
Most of us will just ignore these parts (nobody's perfect, expecting that from a past author is a high bar, and would have considerably reduced the amount of entertainment available), but I also see an option for us to have alternative versions where those bits are either reworked or removed.
The original would still be there, and there would be a "modernized" version that's easier to digest for the newer generations.
Asterix is more consistent, complex and rewarding for adults. A part of Asterix has dated also because the endless cameos of real people popular in that years don't mean so much for new generations.
Other European comic in the big leagues is the Spanish Mortadelo and Filemon. If Tintin is adventure and Asterix is clever wordplay, Mortadelo embraces directly sadistic fun in its wild own way. If you don't know them still, see the film "Mortadelo and Filemon: Mission implausible" for a good glimpse of that world. You'll thank me later.
In fact, if you liked the old British TV sitcom Bottom, you'll likely enjoy M&F.
I would expect to have more new Tintin comics as result, but probably will be at most a good falsification (Don't made me make talk about the new "Lord of the rings" film).
And, OFC, as Don Quixote, they made fun of the Spanish society itself leaving no one without a critique. Politicians, bosses, the average Spaniard mentality of being half a cheapskate lifehacker and half a rascal, the Church, the shitty state infrastructures for its time, and so on.
The Brits have a similar setting with the Rowan Atkinson movies depicting incompetent spies with a Mr Bean like character.
I have some "Tintin in Vietnam" prints at home that are commonly sold in SE Asia [1]. Those street vendors will be happy to know that they're in the clear now.
[0] See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39625647
[1] eg https://old.reddit.com/r/TheAdventuresofTintin/comments/c0pv...
They were translated to Norwegian and came in bound books. Still have them.
Should have been made into cartoon series, but seeing how old it is I wonder if it was before its time. It really had an originality unlike anything I've read before or since.
Amazingly it wasn't translated into English until 2017, which is probably why it's lesser known outside of Europe. I assume this is because the translation rights/contracts with Mr. De Mesmaeker took a long time to get signed.
In the UK they apparently have a maximum 95 year term.
EU law was harmonised by setting minimum (not not maximum for some reason) terms of life +70 for most things (I think recorded music is an exception).
In the EU they brought books that had expired copyright (e.g. in the Uk which used to be life +50) back into copyright. This also did not happen in the US when it extended copyright to life + 70).
I'm still a little shocked Disney didn't try to get another extension this last time. Maybe they did quietly and were rebuffed or foiled by the utter gridlock of the US Congress.
I think you need to have enough time to incentivize the creative arts to flourish. I'd say 30 to 50 years is probably fine. Enough where people are able to adapt their favorite things from their youth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_copyright_terms_of_cou...
https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2022/12/20/a-tr...
Not be confused with Pops the Slayer Man (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33362807/), also coming out next year.
The main benefit that public domain brings to a work is that you can make small edits or changes to a work without violating its copyright. Imagine if you wanted to go through all the episodes of Spongebob, change the colors to make it clearer to watch for colorblind viewers[a], and then sell those edits as a box set or otherwise sell access to them via some accessibility-focused streaming service. Under copyright this would probably not be seen as transformative, and something non-transformative then has an incredibly high bar to clear for fair use to apply to it.
I also think that making new episodes that aren't super transformative would probably not have met the burden for Fair use: for example, making a new episode of Popeye that otherwise follows the same script beats as existing episodes would probably be seen as copyright infringement by the courts. However, once you get into the territory of making a sequel/prequel movie where you really flesh out his character, it starts getting into the realm of qualifying for transformative under fair use (depending on how the judge sees it).
But the mentioned movies really seem like they're so different from the source material. For Pooh Blood and Honey, it doesn't affecting the market for the original, given the works are so different in what they do (and there is likely 0.1% or less overlap between the audience of the slasher genre and the children's programming genre cohort), it did not use almost any of the original copyrighted works to tell its story, just its characters, and the content is transformative enough to where it's not like it's just another episode of Winnie The Pooh.
This popeye film seems to use the same approach as Blood and Honey: it's just Popeye killing people with stuff like "look, it's the Spinach from the original episodes!".
a: not sure if this would actually be beneficial, but it's the best example I can think of for a barely-transformative work other than putting sunglasses on the characters' faces or putting Subway Surfers next to it.
It's less that "what counts as fair use" is ambiguous because litigation is expensive, and more that each situation of reuse is unique to where the law has codified that fair use be determined on a case-by-case basis. Case law can aid in proving your case for fair use, but there is not a framework for quashing a challenge to your fair use if your case is basically a carbon-copy of an existing legal case.
Even in this reality, for something like Pooh Blood and Honey, Disney wouldn't have touched it since their every action in legal proceedings (especially copyright-related ones) is closely followed by enthusiasts, bloggers, and the mainstream media alike. If Disney had challenged the Pooh slasher film while he was copyrighted it probably would've grossed an extra 10 million dollars.
For a movie that could be a video player that applies certain effects and transformations at the right timestamps.
~~I think that parody would be a far better defense than fair use.~~ But I otherwise agree that those gore movies based on children cartoons would probably be legal even before the original works had become public domain. At most, they might've required a tiny misspelling to be 100% legal and safe to sell.
I mean, South Park already had a gore parody of Mickey Mouse[1] decades before Steamboat Willie went public domain. In fact, South Park's Mickey Mouse has traits from later movies, still copyrighted in 2024, like the eye shapes and the lack of a tail.
That's why I'm unimpressed by these low quality gore parodies. What's actually going to be more exciting are the sincere animated adaptations that could be made from public domain stories, like del Toro's Pinocchio.
My favourite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin:_Brea...
Others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Tintin_parodies_and_pa...
Would highly recommend, though with the caveat that you'll wish they made a sequel. Unfortunately, Peter Jackson was supposed to take over for the second one, and he's not so reliable theses days.
Here's a video of some of Spielberg's best one shot takes from the Every Frame a Painting channel: https://vimeo.com/94684923
Cool. Cool cool cool.
Surprisingly violent trailer, fyi.
What will enter the public domain in 2025?
- let's say original Tintin works were created from 1929 to 1969.
- does this mean only the works released in 1929 are now "remixable"?
- or does it mean that the "concept of Tintin" is now going to be in the public domain?
- (I'm pretty sure the works from 1969 will not be in the public domain).
Steamboat willie is in public domain so that particular cartoon and aesthetic it introduces is fair game but modern day Mickey is not. To simplify: the one with white pants is good but the one with red ones is not.
So let's pretend Tintin had his hair style in 1929 but got his blue sweater at 1969. I would imagine that would mean that you could make anything with a Tintin character (and call it Tintin) that has the hair style but put him in a blue sweater and you'll get in trouble.
It's not just the character name that matters but various other pieces that make up the character and not all of them were introduced or became iconic in the same time period.
Absolute minefield!
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/31562/shambattle-a-game-...
I’d assume you can freely use content from the earliest works, so if you eg use a character introduced in a later book it would still be covered by copyright. But I’m not sure.
Or is this sarcasm? Hard to tell!
Go ask an oAI product 'draw a portrait in the style of Patrick Nagel'.
Here's the reply I got : "I am unable to generate images in the style of Patrick Nagel due to content policy restrictions regarding artists' styles. "
I don't know of any specific copyright-centric error messages, but in my ignorant naivety I would assume that if oAI products are having problems mimicking an artists' style, it'll probably avoid copyright as much as possible.
I haven't tried lately, though. I would assume it's better now.
The modern colored Tintin we see was made after WW2 and drastically rehabilitated Tintin's reputation.
For example - https://sauvikbiswas.com/2014/11/18/tintin-in-america-the-bl...
I love reading Tintin, but being honest about it's origins and baggage is important as well. Highly recommend reading "Tintin: The Complete Companion" as well.
Really shows how much progress (positive and negative) happened in just 20-30 years.
In general, countries can't/don't enforce their laws outside of their territories, with lots of nuance and boundry cases.
There is zero chance that someone would "go after you" for, say, buying a copy of a Tintin book that was made without permission, in America. If you, say, wanted to publish a Tintin book and then export it to Europe, they might disallow it.
Belgians would have to look up their local version of that.
But to answer your question is it depends on the country. Les say one country has 100 years. Another has 50. It is now year 75. In the 50 year country and you make a derivative you are fine. But take that same thing to the 100 year country then you might be in trouble. But only if you bring the stuff into that country. Now others may import it but that is on them not you. But you might have to prove that out in court. Also in the US sound recordings can bet more tricky as there are also state laws that come into play.
I grew up with Tintin and Asterix.
A fairly laughable idea if you follow the general trend of school budgets...
How much do they pay exactly? Does it come out of a specific program’s budget, eg drama? Just curious.
To play a devil’s advocate:
Perhaps the plays generate some money for the school or the drama program. Disney might draw a larger audience.
Also, for better or worse (probably worse), Disney is “safe” and designed for mass appeal.
Small schools probably have a harder time with these sorts of decisions. Ideally, a school might encourage adaptations of classics, to foster deeper understanding and creativity (as well as to ensure that there aren’t too many “re-runs”, furthering student and audience interest). But a larger student populace makes that easier via access to more ideas, more interest, more hands.
At least this year, they let the seniors pick the play and completely run the show. They're still paying about a grand for the rights, but they did make a more interesting choice, "The Crucible".
Or they could just do Hamlet with Lions
A good working copy of Shakespeare is going to run some money just for copies.
We simply normalized users not owning content because of him.
A 25 year window should be more than appropriate for copyright protection.
The whole point of copyright is to grant an initial monopoly to a creator so they can benefit from their work, promoting the viability of further creative works. It's supposed to be a positive for the ecosystem as well as just the individual creator but I'd argue absurdly lengthy copyright terms, the fact IP trolls are a viable business model, and the fact large corporations end up dominating the creative space are all ways copyright as it stands negatively effects the overall creative ecosystem. 30 years or about that would permit the creator to benefit exclusively from the original release and a nostalgia cycle, but then it'd be fair game for everyone else to build on which is how culture has always worked. I think that arrangement would be far healthier and promote more creativity.
This isn't true, but it won't stop people claiming otherwise on HN.
(The main reason the US extended copyright protection is because it had committed to not be out of line with the EU terms in international treaties, and the EU reached their number by harmonising to the longest amongst the member states which was Germany, and the main reason German copyright is so long is due to their domestic publishing and newspaper industries).
This is surprising to me.
Not domestic publishing (I understand how that could have happened) but why would newspapers even care about protecting what they wrote about 30 years ago — how are they expecting to monetise today on how they reported in 1994 on such things such as the United Nations accepting Palau as a new member, or the Swiss Federal Assembly's approval of the Marrakesh agreement, or whoever won whichever sports events?
Today's headlines are tomorrow's fish and chips wrappers, as the British say.
Germany also just has a tradition of very strong authors rights.