What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2014
web.law.duke.edu
web.law.duke.edu
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/25...
So I'd say this isn't so much the result of Disney, as it is the result of bad legislation and possibly outdated expectations about intellectual property that hasn't been updated to reflect reality.
Then the average lifetime of copyright monopolies should be around 15 years, which is actually about what it was when copyright laws were first created (the average would be dragged down a lot by people who wouldn't care about stuff they made in a week enough to pay $1,000 5 years later, but most of the "real works" that would be worth it, will probably have it for around 30 years or so.
We see it with books that after 10 years most of them are basically dead, and nobody cares about them anymore (can't find that link right now, but some of you probably know what I'm referring to). There are some "Mickeys" here and there that are relevant 100 years later under copyright, but it's more like 1 in a million works. The rest is abandoned - but it still retains the copyright on it so nobody can re-use it to improve the culture of the society (even if it just means having a company like Google find all the old books and digitize them, something they've barely won, and is actually getting appealed right now). I think that's just wrong.
[1] - http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130503/17414322946/discus...
Should this perhaps apply to patent law as well?
It would be grossly unfair for some small open source project to enter the public domain after five years, allowing commercial developers to fire most of their R&D staff and just assimilate five year old OSS without paying it forward. For that matter, any large publisher would just have to bury new authors in obscurity for five years to be able to steal their work for free.
I understand a compounding registration fee is meant to appease the behemoths who can afford it, but such a plan would end up working in their favor.
Copyright protects more than the ability to commercialize a work. The terms must be shortened, but they must also be blind to the wealth of the copyright owner.
I propose instead, as an example for discussion, a fixed term for duplication rights of 14 years from publication (+/- some years depending on industry), with a single low-cost renewal. For moral rights, life of the author plus a few years, with a 100 year maximum (people are living longer these days).
It's not obvious why that's a bad thing.
There are Donald Duck works in the public domain (Spirit of '43) and that doesn't seem to impact their bottom line terribly.
Also, when I saw Frozen at the theater a couple of weeks ago, there was an old-style Mickey cartoon before the picture (albeit one that broke the fourth wall in ways I don't believe the old cartoons did).
Ignoring the fact this is likely false, this has nothing to do with copyright. It's a matter of trademark law, and Disney would in no way lose the trademark over any of its characters if certain specific films featuring them were released into the public domain.
1. Writing new Mickey stories - This is an odd legal/moral area for me. It's not unreasonable for Disney to want to protect Mickey and if you wrote a Mickey story, it's possible that people could feel that a 3rd party product is endorsed by Disney. That could affect Disney's future business. Distributing Steamboat Willy on YouTube will not.
2. Mickey Mouse ears - Pretty clearly a trademark violation. Outside of the domain of copyright entirely.
I don't mean to nitpick, but I don't think it helps to confuse different types of intellectual property in this discussion. Steamboat Willy is a discreet work of art that should enter the public domain. As should all other works from that time. That is good for society and really has no bearing on anyone's ability to create commercially viable works of art (other than derivative works such as a Steamboat Willy stage play or novelization).
The brand of Mickey is separate and Disney has a legitimate (though perhaps not legitimate enough, I'll admit) interest in protecting it. Part of the problem is they are deceiving people into conflating the two issues to protect a supplementary revenue stream and control their brand.
No it isn't, that isn't how the world works. If you take public domain material and utilize it in your own way there is no semblance of reason to think the original creator of said material endorsed you. I don't know if you are talking about how we are now living in a world where basically nobody alive has experienced material entering public domain, but it isn't a nebulous area.
The world of trademark and copyright are colliding in a new way here if Steamboat Willy were to enter the public domain. Can you seperate the trademark "Mickey Mouse" from the work "Steamboat Willy"? Does the fact that some Mickey Mouse cartoons are in the public domain mean that Mickey Mouse the character is in the public domain? And how does that affect works still being created with Mickey in them?
But that's beside the point. The point I want to make is that Disney wants us to be confused. They want us to conflate two distinct intellectual property issues. Steamboat Willy should be public domain, period. The repercussions of that are interesting, but really a separate area of law. Mixing the two only serves to support Disney's argument. Creative works such as films and books should enter the public domain -- as is and open to redistribution and use in derivative works -- after 14+14.
EDIT: Just to provide a concrete example, there are Disney films made during the Second World War (Spirit of '43) that are in the public domain. The character in this particular case is Donald Duck. Off the top of my head I know of no particular case law so perhaps it's never been challenged, but though it is certainly possibly to distribute, screen and create derivitive works of that film for free (I've done it myself at a summer screening of old movies we used to host when I was in college), I really don't know of anyone who's has distributed new Donald Duck movies or stories and gotten away with it. It does make me curious if they could, however.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/27/sherlock-holmes...
How many remakes of Shakespeare, Jane Austen, heck, stories from Greek mythology and the Bible have been made? Lots.
As many have noted (including someone upthread), Disney itself strip-mined the public domain for many of its big-budget pictures.
It's not "unreasonable" for the Sherlock Holmes estate to want to keep everything to do with that character too, but tough beans, they don't get to.
> and if you wrote a Mickey story, it's possible that people could feel that a 3rd party product is endorsed by Disney.
Disney is on the same footing as all other citizens in utilizing the public-domain Mickey character. It's always possible when someone builds on a work that had entered the public domain for that new work to be attributed mistakenly to the original author. This isn't an excuse for the former copyright holder to have any additional rights over the work.
> 2. Mickey Mouse ears - Pretty clearly a trademark violation. Outside of the domain of copyright entirely.
Disagree, although this out of my area of expertise. The point of trademark is for brand/company recognition. Trademarks can't be made of "the idea of Mickey Mouse" once Micky has entered the public domain, so I don't see how Micky ears would violate it. I could trademark a particular 19th century drawing of Shakespere when used as a logo for my company, and it would be protected in that role on, e.g., packaging and advertisements. But that doesn't mean others can't sell reproductions of the painting or make t-shirts out of it.
Harmonization is not necessarily a bad thing. Pre-1976 US copyright law had some outright bizarre restrictions - a book could forfeit its copyright status if the publisher printed it outside North America and imported it - that we're better off having eliminated. But when everything has to be harmonized, it's rare for anyone to question why the policies we're harmonizing with are in place.
"Harmonization" somehow always ratchets upwards, never downwards. No one said to Germany: don't ratchet your copyright term upwards, keep it harmonized.
When in the next few years U.S. copyright suddenly "needs" to be extended another 20 years, no one is going to complain that this will break harmonization.
The copyright industry does not care at all about harmonization, and you should not adopt their framing by talking about it. They are copyright maximalists, pure and simple.
Now I think even the Berne term is too long and the rights granted too expansive, but it wasn't just a naked power grab by the not-yet-existent Big Media.
(The German 20-year extension was probably a naked power grab, but it happened in the 1960s and was well off the radar of English-language media companies. The descendants of some German author who died in the '20s are most likely to blame.)
I'm not sure that is the reason why it was extended, but that was definitely the excuse they used. The reason I doubt their intentions is the fact that they made it retroactive instead of applying it to new works.
"In 1993, the European Union added 20 years to the term of European copyrights. Under European law, American authors would only enjoy longer copyright terms in Europe if the United States followed Europe's lead and adopted "life plus 70" copyright terms."
I can love w & m, but hate d. I can love w & d, but hate m. I can love d & m, but hate w. I can love d, but hate w & m. I can love m, but hate w & d. I can love w, but hate d & m. I can also be ambivalent to any of these, while hating/loving one or two of the other.
tl;dr: "hating Disney" (whatever that means) has nothing to do with liking Mickey Mouse, or with wanting to use its image. it simply is not related at all.
Of course Disney's intense lobbying in extending the copyright of their works looks even worse when you consider that they've made a vast amount of their fortune by adapting classic public domain works like Snowwhite, Cinderella, Pinocchio, Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland, Little Mermaid, Aladdin and The Jungle Book, the latter was released one year after Kipling's copyright had expired.
Some Creative Commons cartoons http://www.seosmarty.com/15-cartoonists-that-allow-using-the...
Creative Commons Music at Jamendo (see the FAQ http://www.jamendo.com/en/faq)
edit: 'per-say' to 'per se' (thx ansimionescu)
We really do only have one go around. I'll buy all the knock-off Mickey Mouse crap I want.
System is broken. Please reboot.
The government taxes every other kind of property, so why not IP? Additionally, keeping created works out of the public domain is essentially a tax on the public; this intellectual levy placed on everyone should be balanced by a reinvestment in favor of public interests.
If Disney wants to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain, they should pay a yearly fee to prevent it from becoming public property. They'd more than make up for it with the revenue they garner.
I think that this would also encourage less wasteful use of copyrighted properties.
Many books, movies, photos, and other IP instances out there are difficult to track down solid ownership info for. Sometimes the contracts surrounding the IP are so complex as to make it impossible for even a trained IP lawyer to determine who owns what. In some cases even IP claimed by a particular company may not be valid [1].
If there were a national registry that listed who owned what rights to a particular property, and you had to pay to be included (maybe the initial copyright registration pays for the first X years, but after that you have to continue to pay to continue your protection), it could not only clarify who "owns" what, it could list those people who had specific sub-licenses to the property in question, and what the details of their licenses are.
To help combat orphan works, you can throw in one other important requirement: Even if we give them X years (30 or otherwise) for the initial registration requirement, they would also need to keep their contact information current at all times, on pain of losing their registration. If you try the forms of contact and get wrong numbers and returned letters, then you report that fact to the copyright registry, and if THEY can't contact the owners within, say, 60 days, then ALL the copyrights owned by that entity get released.
I know of some properties (old games in particular) that have such confused licensing surrounding them (with companies buying "rights" in large packages and then ignoring them, or the companies closing down with no clear record of who ended up purchasing those particular rights...) that they are languishing in limbo. No one can make a sequel, no one can republish them on new platforms... With a registry, you could look to see WHO is currently paying the upkeep fee, and with the "keep your contact info public" requirement, at least you'd be guaranteed that you'd be able to contact the current rights holder.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/nyregion/lawsuit-aims-to-s...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay_Round_Agreements_Act
One of the effects of this act is restoring copyright in the U.S. to foreign works of authors that weren't dead for 70 years on january 1st 1996 in their home country. Instead, works only enter the PD 95 years after publication.
So for example, the last paintings by Theo van Doesburg, a Dutch artist who entered the public domain in the Netherlands in 2002, will only be out of copyright in the U.S. in 2026. And that's why you won't see those works on a site such as Wikipedia, that is under U.S. law.
More interesting is that Tesla is part of the class of 2014 for 70 year countries :) 50 year countries get some nice additions (some real heavyweights): Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath, William Carlos Williams, Louis MacNeice, Jean Cocteau, C. S. Lewis, Aldous Huxley
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/patents_and_copyrights.htm...
http://hallingblog.com/ayn-rand-on-intellectual-property/com...
> As an objection to the patent laws, some people cite the fact that two inventors may work independently for years on the same invention, but one will beat the other to the patent office by an hour or a day and will acquire an exclusive monopoly, while the loser’s work will then be totally wasted. This type of objection is based on the error of equating the potential with the actual. The fact that a man might have been first, does not alter the fact that he wasn’t.
1) Ayn Rand's writings have had their fair share of criticism, with good reason. However, I'm not sure what the circular logic is in that snippet. Could you elaborate?
2) Randian logic aside, multiple people inventing (as opposed to "discovering") the same thing at the same time is so rare, that the USPTO changed from first-to-invent to first-to-file.
This is what the argument is about and shouldn't be the conclusion. The argument isn't about who is first, it's about why that matters.
Of course, the studios would lose the long-tail revenue from controlling movies like Bridge on the River Kwai (or licensing the movie rights to things like the old version of 3:10 to Yuma) and that does add up.
edit: so you were just restating what you already said. It wasn't persuasive the first time.
The kids aren't the purchasers of the majority of entertainment products.
If the kids had a choice between free River Kwai, and a $12 modern version of 3:10 to Yuma (or something funner), the $12 would become $2 in no time.
Prices on new product would have to be lowered to compete with free old product.
I do not believe that this is true at all. Having taught film history classes at a university, where some of the most interesting, significant human artworks were rejected because they were silent, had subtitles, or simply were not in color, I can say with no hesitation that there is little or no demand for things that aren't colorful, animated explosions featuring contemporary stars.
That's not a value judgement: people can watch whatever; that's just the current market as I understand it.
It is a really great to read the beautiful color version of the *First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid" online for free. https://archive.org/details/firstsixbooksofe00byrn
Meanwhile it is selling on Amazon for up to $100 http://www.amazon.com/Oliver-Byrne-Six-Books-Euclid/dp/38365...
One of the assumptions is that everything being equal the same works would exist if it were not for copyright protections. However, I would argue without the extended copyright protections, most of these [future] classic works would not exist, simply because publishers/studios would not invest in the creation/distribution of the works initially. In other words, copyright protections encourages the creation of works.
The OP takes an opposing stance, suggesting if copyright protections existed historically it would have stifled the creation of many classic works. This may be the case in certain instances, but to make that argument one must have an in depth understand of what constitutes copyright infringement in a legal sense - including all defenses to infringement (i.e. derivative work, fair use, educational/news worthy use, ect...)- and make the argument on a case by case basis. Very few people have any idea of what constitutes copyright infringement - and even among legal scholars, practitioners and judges there is disagreement.
All I know is if you have ever created anything and had it stolen you understand the need for legal protection. Plus it would suck to live in a world where I am financially rewarding thieves because I can not distinguish if a work was original or a knockoff. Finally, legal protection is just that protection, there is nothing stopping copyright owners from giving away their works for free, in other words voluntarily releasing their work(s) to the public domain.
1. Indefinite protections encourages the creation of new works vis-a-vis encouraging investment in new creation/distribution.
2. That just because there is indefinite copyright protection, does not mean people can still create derivative works, engage in fair use, ect...
3. Finally, just because indefinite protection exists would not prevent works from being voluntarily entered into the public domain.
What tangible difference in incentive exists for creating new works if your protection is 60 years or 1000 years after you die? Copyright is a contract between creators and society: limited protection to encourage the creation of creative works, with the promise that the material will eventually be (unconditionally) available to the public.
Information cannot be permanently locked behind a paywall, especially as it becomes important to study it historically, or as it becomes culturally embedded.
You think Disney or anyone else will invest if they lose their copyright protections in 60 years? No, it is stability that encourages creation and investment.
>Information cannot be permanently locked behind a paywall, especially as it becomes important to study it historically
That is the problem...misconception that copyrighted work is behind a paywall. Copyrighted work is subject to fair use and a number of other exceptions such as academic/scientific purposes.
Is this an appeal to imagination?
Yes I do, because I'm going to speculate that most of the income derived from a creative work is extracted in its first 60 years, and going to mention the historical fact that none of the media created 60 years ago was expected to be marketable 60 years later, and was often just destroyed.
So I don't think Disney would invest if they thought they couldn't make money from product 60 years later, it's just the truth. If your view of the issue requires as an axiom that all creativity would stop under a measly 60 year copyright term, it is clearly wrong.
You may be right most income is derived from a work in its first 60 years, or that media created 60 years ago was not expected to be marketable 60 years later. Though I do not know this to be a historical fact, 60 years ago (1953) there was plenty of evidence to suggest a given work by a US author has plenty of commercial appeal after a mere 60 years of existence (Walden Pond, Civil Disobedience, Uncle Tom's Cabin, almost any Mark Twain novel).
You keep bringing up fair use, but that does not apply to public performances.
Yes, because people did when copyright terms were shorter than that, and virtually all of the income from most things subject to copyright is derived in the first decade or so.
> Copyrighted work is subject to fair use and a number of other exceptions such as academic/scientific purposes.
Academic/scientific purpose is a factor in evaluating fair use, not a separate exception. And DMCA anti-circumvention provisions make it a crime to make it possible to get access to copyrighted material (when it is distributed in particular forms) beyond what the copyright owner chooses to allow even if the purpose of that access is to make use that is covered by fair use or other exceptions to copyright.
Yes the terms were shorter, but people were also not investing $200M+ per film. Now you are probably right that any given work, including $200M+ films, are likely to derive all income in the first decade, but the investment for such projects would not happen if they lost protection after a decade and people could simply start reproducing 1 to 1 copies at that point.
Nothing makes these works more valuable, its just the jurisprudence has caught up to modern applications of the law. Copyrightable work is an asset much like anything else I should be able to leave to my heirs, why should I be limited to making money off my work during my lifetime or any other arbitrary period of time. Especially because there is case after case that establish work that becomes popular only after the death of the creator.
So I will ask you your own question turned around, why as the creator of a work should I ever be forced to give up my rights of the same to the public?
You are not encouraging any additional creation by making the copyright indefinite, you are simply handing creators exclusivity enforcement forever at the expense of the public.
As a creator you are not entitled to ownership of information, it is given to you by the government. It is not relinquished from you to the people. Copyright is a social contract, not an inalienable right arbitrarily given to creators simply for the act of creation.
In the first Supreme Court case on Copyright, they ruled:
“Congress… by this act, instead of sanctioning an existing right… created it.”
There are many quite rational anarchists who would argue for that. Personally, I wouldn't advocate for throwing that switch in today's world, because we only have like 5% of the infrastructure needed to support a healthy anarchistic society. But if in the future we have a fairly complete complement of anarchistic technology and culture I could rationally argue that copyright would be superfluous, if not outright harmful in that world.
I create because I'm a creator, not because there is a fiscal reward. I create because I want to make a great product, not because I want to make a lot of money. I don't create so I can make some corporate fat ass rich.
Samuel Johnson, who did an awful lot of writing, and was not that one can tell a greedy man, said that No man but blockhead ever wrote but for money.
Then there is nothing stopping you from doing just that...Just because the protections exist does not mean you must avail yourselves to them, you can give your work away for free all you want or let others take your work reproduce it and sell it as their own (maybe even take credit as the original creator).
However, if your saying you need to create your work off anthers work which is copyrighted and they want to enforce the same, then I would say IP is not what is stifling creativity, rather an unoriginal artist with no creativity to begin with.
Creativity != originality. Its been pointed out elsewhere in the thread, but plenty of Disney's works are not original. That doesn't detract from the quality of the work or the creativity involved in adapting the story.
What you argue for with indefinite control is building on someone else's work and then being allowed to say "OK, I have the final say. No more is to be done on this line."
I agree with you. When I said "create your work off another" I am referencing a 1 to 1 copy or at least a work that results in a finding of infringement. If you create a derivative work that does not infringe on a copyright, more power to you - but the point is you would not need to have a work in the public domain to create a derivative work that does not infringe.
On the one side, if you don't have copyright at all, it severely limits the ability of creators to monetize easily copied works. This became a problem with the printing press and copying has only gotten easier as technology has progressed.
On the other side, there are a number of problems with granting an absolute, indefinite copyright. One is that you stifle the creation of derivative works. Another is that obscure works can easily fall out of print and be lost forever. A larger philosophical concern is whether corporations should be allowed to hold control over the shared cultural heritage of a society long after the actual creators have died.
Almost everyone sees the need for some kind of compromise here. Personally, Canada's life+50 years sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Your use of song is a good example, just because I create a song (and receive indefinite protection) does not mean someone else can not sample it, only that I am entitled to a royalty..any why shouldn't I be whether I created the song yesterday or 100 years ago and transferred the copyright to my heirs?
So if you were an author, you would not write a book because royalties would cease coming in to your grandchildren X years after your death?
People and companies should be able to "own" their ideas for a reasonable period of time. The point of copyright is to "promote the useful arts" and to promote and reward creativity.
Allowing companies to own the Mickey Mouse story in the year 2213 does nothing to promote that. What purpose does that serve? Why should the government protect the right for generations of your descendants to be profit from the intellectual work of a distant ancestor? Why should shareholders in the year 2513 benefit from a cartoon produced in 1930?
>So if you were an author, you would not write a book because royalties would cease coming in to your grandchildren X years after your death?
The chilling effect on work is not a result of the author, but the company who pays for the work that allows the author to work on the book for years. Why would a company give advance an author, spend money promoting/printing/distributing a book if they can not make royalties on it x years after the author dies?
>People and companies should be able to "own" their ideas for a reasonable period of time.
You tell me what is a reasonable time? 28 years, 28 years + 28 years, life time of the creator, lifetime +75 years?
>Allowing companies to own the Mickey Mouse story in the year 2213 does nothing to promote that. What purpose does that serve?
That serves the purpose of Disney spending billions on theme parks to further develop the brand, to further invest in their brand, establish their brand all over the world which creates jobs fueling the global economy. That is less likely if their work can be diluted by any joe schmo creating independent subpar works creating confusion in the market place in terms of origin.
It is a safe bet that any book of 1957 still remembered (definitely Atlas Shrugged and On the Road, believe it or not The Anatomy of Criticism, probably not some of the others) has long since paid back the publisher's investment beyond expectations.
Think:
A REAL lot of old Disney movies (Alice and Wonderland, Jungle Book, Pinocchio...)
Pride and Prejudice with Zombies
That Romeo and Juliet movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and guns.
A Christmas Carol in play form (it lends itself really well to live theater, I suggest seeing it!)
West Side Story (inspired by Romeo and Juliet)
Clueless (based on Jane Austen's 1815 novel Emma)
The anime/manga Lupin III was inspired by the French gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, created by Maurice Leblanc. Japan didn't enforce copyright at the time of its creation but the Leblanc estate got mad once Lupin started being sold in North America. Some foreign releases changed his name as a result. In 2012, Leblanc's original Arsène Lupin entered the public domain in France
See this video for a different perspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862BbjWx4
Also read the copyright clause in the Constitution!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, known as the Copyright Clause, empowers the United States Congress:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" is the goal and purpose of copyright, as written by the founding fathers, not "financially benefit" especially not forever.
Lets take the Disney example. Lets assume the non-disney original Snow White had a Copyright and was not in the public domain. That does not mean Disney's version violates the copyright, it is very likely there was enough change in Disney's version from the original that Disney would not be found to infringe.
Pride and Prejudice with Zombies: Assuming the creator of Pride and Prejudice had a valid copyright, without being familiar with either work I can almost guarantee this would not be Copyright infringement because it would be valid under the satirical exemption to Copyright infringement.
The Clueless and West Side Story examples are more difficult because I am not familiar with the works and the verbiage "inspired by" "based on" is all I am going off of. But this was my whole point regarding the OP that there is an assumption of copyright infringement. Just because a work is "inspired by" or "based on" does legally mean there is infringement. These individual examples would need to be analyzed on a case by case basis to determine if they violate copyright law or not.
All I advocate for is extension of the term of a copyright not an expansion of the right itself. In which case I would argue most of your examples would not rely on the underlying works being in the public domain, because they were changed enough to not constitute infringement as opposed to say a 1 on 1 copy of the original work.
I should also note that I am an attorney, and have handled both trademark and copyright infringement cases (for plaintiffs and defendants). That is in addition to successfully registering both and in some cases over objections of the examining USPTO attorney or third parties.
Edit: I don't know why I am being down voted but in the instance it sounds like I am saying I must be right bc I'm an attorney, I am the first to acknowledge disagreement between practitioners, jurisdictions, and Judge's/justices. For what its worth I noted it as a sign of good faith that I am not blowing smoke of my interpretation of copyright law
I think part of the disconnect between your opinion of copyright law and some of the other commenters here is caused by the lawyer/hacker dichotomy. Hackers tend to view any involvement of the courts as a failure. For most non-wealthy people and most small businesses, the threat alone of legal action has a chilling effect.
An argument I make against long copyrights, especially for famous works, is that these stories and characters become woven into our popular culture. At some point, the public deserve to own their own culture, not megalithic corporations. Cinderella is the story it is because of the additions of different storytellers over time, like the godmother and glass slippers added in Perrault's Cendrillon.
I used Cinderella specifically, bc my understanding is the folk tale was very unlike (violent, gory, ect...) the Disney version tailored for children.
In general satire is a much easier and obvious legal analysis as well. Say for example South Park's episodes with Mickey (although more of a Trademark issue than copyright), more on point with copyright is South Park's Star Wars episodes. However, to answer your question, is it possible to make a non-satirical Mickey story that does not violate Disney Trademarks? The answer is yes, but admittedly much more difficult and likely to infringe than a satirical story.
>Hackers tend to view any involvement of the courts as a failure.
As a lawyer, I see lawsuits as a cost of doing business and inevitable for any successful enterprise. I would encourage all hackers, especially, to view lawsuits in the same light (e.g. I am not successful until I get sued). I say this because hackers particularly set out to disrupt established industries, take Uber or AirBnB as good examples, but even YC itself has been sued, that is not a failure that is the cost of success.
> At some point, the public deserve to own their own culture, not megalithic corporations.
This is simply where we disagree, I am not saying you are wrong by any means, because I do not think their is a right answer, your point is sincere and well reasoned. My counter, is that the free market decides. Moreover, if Mickey is not going to win in the market place because society wants to take the character and run with it open source style, well then Mickey will lose in favor of another cartoon Mouse created by an pro open source artist, but I would say the reason Mickey became a cultural icon is because of the tight control of the story and character vis-a-vis Disney ownership/investment. In contrast and in support of your position Japan has a thriving culture based open source character, where even iconic corporate mascots are adopted by the public and the public creates their own stories, comics, commercial products, virtual concerts, ect...
You can't make a new version of something and not have it be a copyright violation, even if it is significantly different from the original. I'll give you an example, the movie Blade Runner was an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The movie was very different from the book, but rights still hsd to be secured to use the source material and characters and money was paid. I can't even make a completely different movie and have Harry Potter come in my movie because J.K. Rowling, etc owns that character. The exception is for parody.
Plus the burden of proof is on the defendant in a copyright lawsuit - the copyright holder can still sue even if its fair use, now you gotta defend yourself in an expensive lawsuit.
Another example that just came of my head, the movie Apocalypse Now was an adaption of Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness however the setting was changed from The Congo to Vietnam.
But since that might create a perverse incentive to murder artists or to name one's children as co-creators, it would be better to apply a fixed term instead--one well within the natural lifespan of a human.
An automatic 20 years, renewable for additional 10 year intervals only as long as the primary author still lives and holds the copyrights--that seems reasonable. Works-for-hire would thus be a fixed 20 years with no possible renewal. In contrast, patronage could be worth more to the patron in the long run, so long as the author remains satisfied.
Under such a system, I imagine it would be typical for novices to create works for hire for some time to build reputation, then graduate to patronage in exchange for exclusive licensing terms, and then finally move on to complete self-management, where the fanbase is able to fully support the artist.
I will use funny examples here just to illustrate a point. Biggie Smalls has generated more money from his work after his death than during his lifetime. 2-Pac has published more music after his death than during his life time (obviously the music was recorded but not released). There are many examples of painters who's work only became famous after their death.
It is my belief their work should not lose protection and be entered in the public domain because of their death. People can still make derivative works so long as they do not infringe, but 1 to 1 copying would, and what I argue is should, be protected. As it relates to work with greater investment, $200M+ movies for example, yes I believe (and I think what most people do not agree with me about) is those would disappear if they entered public domain after 20 years (using your term as an example).
Because information truly wants to be free, and should be. Copyright is a legal construct that exists to make it financially viable to create. Creation and innovation drives society forward.
> The chilling effect on work is not a result of the author, but the company who pays for the work that allows the author to work on the book for years. Why would a company give advance an author, spend money promoting/printing/distributing a book if they can not make royalties on it x years after the author dies?
They do already. There are 220,000 books published in the United States annually. What fraction will still be in print in a decade? 50 years? 100?
> That serves the purpose of Disney spending billions on theme parks to further develop the brand, to further invest in their brand, establish their brand all over the world which creates jobs fueling the global economy.
Letting works slide into the public domain doesn't prevent that. Disney still retains the ability to evolve the story (ie. create). Let Mickey and Minnie have kids, and make that part of the Mickey Mouse canon. Two hundred years from now, Disney can and should evolve their brand, including their theme parks.
personally i think theres no such thing as IP and lifetime+0 is plenty nice enough.
using you principle we should probably pay fees just to write words, thats if IP had been a thing 3000y ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Peikoff
"Every dollar I have is because the government has forced every single person who wants to read a book I had nothing to do with writing to pay me money. I'm a Libertarian!"
I don't know if you're actually interested in discussing Objectivism or just bashing on Objectivists, but in an effort to stay intellectually-honest you might avoid confusing philosophies with philosophers.
> He also continues Rand's opposition to libertarianism, remaining sharply opposed to any description of Objectivist political philosophy as "libertarian" and to any collaboration with most libertarian groups. He has been critical of American foreign policy, including both neoconservative and libertarian views as self-sacrificial.
I will point out that your calling copyright laws "the government teat" is a Libertarian view that IP rights are coercive. Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff both argue that proper IP laws are non-coercive. For that reason and others, Objectivists don't want to be associated with Libertarians.
From what I have experienced (and I have read through The Fountainhead in its entirety), the whole "we're going to take your products, the fruits of your efforts, and release them from your possession for all of the public world to get their hands on" thing (I understand that Rand is dead), the private/public possession dichotomy, just seems so counter to a lot of what the book espouses.
Just my personal reaction.
From http://www.publicdomainsherpa.com/trademark.html :
> Twentieth Century Fox was the producer of a World War II video series that was no longer protected by copyright. When a competitor used it, Fox sued — not for copyright infringement (because they couldn’t), but for trademark infringment. They lost. See Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. et al., 540 US 806 (2003), which you can read here: ( http://www.publicdomainsherpa.com/support-files/dastar.pdf ).
See: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=4802... (and search "Mickey Mouse", USPTO does not permit linking to result pages)
Moreover, "Mickey Mouse" can be Trademarked in name and then the actual "logo" (drawing of a mouse) can be Trademarked.
Anyhow, among hardcore libertarian circles there is actually pretty wide agreement these days that IP laws are unjust. The work you want to look at for the sea change is Kinsella's Against Intellectual Property free online here: http://mises.org/document/3582
In either case, "stealing" an artistic work would be interpreted as plagiarism rather than unauthorized copying.
Artists capable of doing live performances could also sell tickets, I suppose. Authors might be paid to attend conventions and book signings. Without copyright, the works are disseminated widely to generate a fan base, and the revenue is derived from the truly limited resource: the artist's time.
Isn't that the definition of plagiarism?
I thought this was obvious, but maybe it isn't? I see disclaimers on Youtube all the time ("I don't own this") which seem to imply the person posting the video doesn't understand the difference.
Distributing "Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare": not plagiarism or copyright violation.
Distributing "Romeo and Juliet by Turing Machine": plagiarism, but not copyright violation.
Distributing "The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien": Copyright violation, but not plagiarism.
Distributing "The Lord of the Rings by Turing Machine": both plagiarism and copyright violation.
Bringing it back to the root discussion that once you remove the requirement for authorization to copy works, there aren't many ways left to steal IP other than intentionally stealing the authors reputation, which more or less is the full official definition of plagiarism. Which you can do perfectly well by miserably failing to properly document a source, not just claiming you authored it. If I claim I wrote your post, that isn't treated all that differently than if I claim PG wrote your post.
Also muddying the waters is most plagiarism definitions include some level of intentional act, not just Fing up. Negligence is a super fuzzy area. So accidentally citing you as Qubix because I've played the board game is more or less OK. Incompetent, true, but not plagiarism.
Note that SOME people insist on getting all wound up about self plagiarism which can be a fraudulent act, but is not exactly real plagiarism, they just kind of borrowed the name because it sounds evil. Much like the multiple and peculiar definitions of computer "hacker" which have very little to do with each other aside from sounding impressive. Self plagiarism has nothing at all to do with plagiarism, other than both coincidentally being more or less wrong.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Tucker#The_Four_Monopo...
copyright is protection of intellectual property, and securing property rights is the prime reason for goverment to exist.
according to the second position (and taking opposition to the estate/death tax into account) it seems consistent with a libertarian position to argue for infinite copyright terms.
am i wrong? i am not a libertarian, but i try to understand you folks.
In general though, I think the modern consensus in Libertarian circles has fallen on the side of opposing or greatly limiting IP in general. See http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Intellectual_property for a reasonable overview.