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The problem with this argument is simply by being the first a lot of the 'natural' story > movie translations seem to fall under copyright. While copyright does not extend from say StarWars Lightsaber to all light swards nobody is going to make a major movie that comes close to Disney’s copyright. So, the chilling effect is much wider than you might first assume.

EX: Sure, Android > droid is a natural and obvious adaptation, but good luck defending that in a movie with light swards and magic.

I don't fully understand your post so I'm not sure if this will be on point, but if by 'natural story' you mean something like the sequence of plot events or so you could easily refer back to the original fairytale source to refute claims of infringement based on ''natural' story > movie translations.'

His point is that, when you translate a tale to a feature film, you're going to need to make certain adaptations. Many of those changes are quite natural, and several writers doing the same adaptation work would arrive at those same changes. But whoever was first to the party can claim copyright on the new version, so anybody else coming afterwards won't be able to resort to those same changes, obvious though they may be (unless they can somehow prove they've never watched/heard of/had any contact with the older film).

And my point is that that's not really so. If the adaptations are indeed 'natural' (eg a Snow White scene where the Evil Queen consults the magic mirror about who is the most beautiful and the mirror affirms that she is, followed by another scene where the mirror identifies Snow White instead), then I say that's certainly defensible in court. Disney doesn't have first dibs on the idea of an Evil Queen with a magical talking mirror, seven dwarfs who live in a little house and so on. Anyone can use those elements. What you can't do is call your seven dwarves Happy, Grumpy, Dopey etc the way they are in the Disney movie, as those don't appear in the original story.

This sounds very much like an argument about clean-room reverse engineering as a defense to claims of copyright infringement. But that's a totally different situation.

Retric mentioned the term "chilling effect," which is certainly relevant here. Wikipedia defines chilling effect as "the inhibition or discouragement of the legitimate exercise of natural and legal rights by the threat of legal sanction."

You're probably right that such an adaptation would be deemed not infringing on Disney's copyright by a court. The issue is that a studio might not have the resources necessary to make it that far into the legal process. In that case, the choice is either make the movie, and risk going out of business if Disney brings a lawsuit, or not make the movie. Legal issues aside, which do you think they're going to pick?

Walt made movies using public domain works that were 40-50 years old.

Today, the copyright term is pushing 110+ years, in part thanks to Disney.

That means the next Walt Disney has to pull from increasingly culturally irrelevant works that are 3, 4 generations old rather than one.

Well, Disney released Snow White in 1937, and the Brothers Grimm version had been published in 1812. So the story was 125 years old at the time Disney published the film, and the Disney film has been copyrighted for 78 years.

Again I'm not endorsing Disney's copyright practices here but let's keep the discussion grounded in fact, shall we?

Well, his comment isn't that all the stories, or even or that Snow White specifically, were 40-50 years old. There are examples that better fit his argument, and they are not hard to find(I used wikipedia):

Pinocchio, released on 1940, was based on a novel from 1883, 57 years, then. Disney also tried to avoid Bambi copyright (book from 1923, movie released on 1942, 19 years difference), although the court did not uphold its public domain status.

He surely could have referenced better, but I do believe you should have tried to interpret better his comment instead of nitpicking and being unnecessarily aggressive.

Fair enough, but I don't feel any obligation to make his argument for him, and the original claim that I first replied simply seems mistaken to me - and that's not me being uncharitable, because there are other people building new arguments on that incorrect understanding elsewhere in this thread.

Frankly, I think part of the reason there has been so little progress in reverting to more sensible copyright terms is that many opponents of the current standard don't bother to fact-check their arguments, and so they damage their own credibility. Copyright is a political issue, because when we advocate shorter copyright terms we're arguing to reduce the scope of a property right. Inaccurate or hand-wavey arguments work against that end.

You're right about the age of Snow White, but things aren't always that rosy for Disney. When they made a film from Kipling's The Jungle Book, that book was 73 years old. If Walt (who took strong personal interest in the project) felt comfortable making money by adapting a work that old to a new medium, why shouldn't I feel comfortable adapting his even older older works?

(Yes, this is a Tu Quoque argument)

Well, you should. I'm strongly in favor of rolling back the super-long copyright terms we have now eg to the longer of life-of-the-author or 50 years.

What I think he meant, at least if I understood correctly, is that Disney stories and characters from the 30s and 40s, like Mickey Mouse et al, should themselves by all rights be public domain by now, like Snow White or Cinderella were, so that other artists could be inspired by them and create their own derivative works.

Surely, but I'm not disagreeing about that, a fact which seems to have escaped all the downvoters.

My read is that your argument about the characters Disney appropriated misses the point about those it's created. A curious asymmetry of sharing, etc., etc.

Or, in other words, your post above is a strawman / red herring (though a frequently encountered one).

I don't quite get what you mean, and amn't familiar with your 'curious asymmetry' reference off the top if my head.

I have repeatedly said that I favor shorter copyright terms (which would allow Disney creations to fall into the public domain) and acknowledged as much above so I really don't see why you think it's a straw man argument.

BTW I may be gone a couple of days this w/e and won't be able to follow up but you could email if you prefer.

Disney benefitted from a rich public domain as a consequence of copyright policies of the preceeding 200 years or so (Statute of Anne, precoursor of US copyright law, 1710).

It proceded to destroy the public domain as a result of its support of both ever-longer copyright duration, and more broadly scoped holders' rights, over the 20th century:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Copyrigh...

Under the 1909 act, in existence when "Steamboat Willy" was released in 1928, copyright's maximum term was 54 years (27 year initial, one renewal), and that required both registration and notice.

Today it's 95 years from creation.

Disney could not only use characters, but quote at will and length with no fear of infringement from any prior work which was not both registered and noticed, or any work whose initial 27 year term had lapsed, or, with no concerns at all, any work at all published prior to 1874.

Today's authors have none of these freedoms. Twenty-seven years ago was 1987. Fifty-four years ago was 1961. Neither of those are "free to use by" dates. Rather, any work published from 1923 onward may* be under copyright, and copyrights are routinely asserted on works first published long before then (most notoriously the song "Happy Birthday", whose first version was published in 1893). Its status is currently being litigated.

That is asymmetry of which I speak.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St... http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp http://wfae.org/post/happy-birthday-hits-sour-notes-when-it-...

Yes, people can and have, I never claimed they couldn't. However if Disney feels your version is too close to theirs, they'll sue. And with their war chest, your version can be a lot further from theirs than theirs can be of yours, because they can out litigate you.

Yes, they take PD works and create their own versions. They then are grossly overprotective of them. They've sued people for creating characters and costumes only vaguely similar to anything Disney specific versions of characters (including suing the Oscars!), as well as heavily lobbied congress for extensions to copyright. To claim Disney is anything other than very aggressive in their "defense" of infringement is to ignore their history.

'and now seek to prevent others from doing the same' certainly reads tome as a claim that they couldn't, and some else in this discussion interpreted as a fact. I'm not endorsing Disney's general copyright policy, just correcting a possible misunderstanding about a specific claim.