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Comment by mprovost | Hacker News Reader

Hong Kong expired on the British.

The point of copyright is to encourage the creation of new works (called content these days). If Disney can just keep making money off Mickey Mouse forever and use that money to crowd newer ideas out of the market, I would argue that we're significantly poorer as a society than if new and original creations were being made.

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If Mickey Mouse is the most original idea that can be thought of and it's not possible to create new art without repurposing it, I'd say we already are that significantly poorer society. Why is it so necessary that artists be able to remix Mickey Mouse? Go make something better.

If remixing Disney signals some abysmal state of society, what does that say about Disney?

DJs should be free to remix pop songs as they like and everything is gravy, but if a DJ dares remix another DJ's work then suddenly we are a poorer society? Absurd.

Disney's abysmal. Who cares? This is the same as the "artists who let people torrent their songs will crush the RIAA" argument. Go ahead and let the RIAA be crushed by these new artists. Everybody hates Disney, but yet cares very strongly that Disney be forced to make new material instead of just fading away.

I have no idea how your second paragraph relates to my comment.

> the "artists who let people torrent their songs will crush the RIAA" argument.

What? I have absolutely no idea what this is suppose to mean and/or refer to.

The second section of my comment is pointing out that Disney remixes, yet you seem to think remixing Disney would be a symptom of some sort of awful state of society. If remixing evidences that, then why do we need further evidence of it? Remixing Disney media would just be continuing in the same vein as Disney.

An artistically vibrant society should be able to create new art without remixing Disney. Nothing in the preceding statement should be construed as a comment on Disney's own artistic vibrancy or lack thereof.

Artistically vibrant societies have always remixed, and always will. We live in a society that values what Disney has done; we live in a society that has traditionally valued remixing.

> An artistically vibrant society should be able to create new art without remixing Disney.

Disney can't even exist without remixing earlier works.

It's less about forcing other people to make something newer and better (which happens all the time) as it is to force Disney to make something newer and better, instead of just continuing to cash in on their original idea. That gives them a huge advantage over newcomers and disincentivises the creation of something new inside Disney.

Hong Kong did not revert to the public domain. Britain leased it from the owners.

That's not entirely true. HK Island itself & Kowloon were ceded to the British. The new territories were "leased".

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