When will Mickey Mouse enter the public domain?
When will Mickey Mouse enter the public domain?
Jan. 1, 2024, is the day when ‘Steamboat Willie’ enters the public domain
This iconic mouse is weeks away fromn being in the public domain Jan. 1, 2024, is the day when 'Steamboat Willie' enters the public domain
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Even with the character in Public Domain, I doubt Disney would be particularly happy with anyone using it.
They can send cease and desist letter left and right, claiming that "the use of the mouse is fine, but the elements X, Y and Z were introduced in a later work of ours that's still protected", even if it's a plain lie.
Trying to take Disney to court is suicide.
The have enough money to hire half the lawyers in the world and make them come up with a lawsuit even if there's no basis for one. They can stretch the lawsuit process to last years, and yet the fees would be but a fraction of a fraction of a percent in their yearly spending. Almost any defendant, meanwhile, would be financially ruined by it, even if they end up winning.
claiming that "the use of the mouse is fine, but the elements X, Y and Z were introduced in a later work of ours that's still protected", even if it's a plain lie.
Isn't that exactly what the law says? A popular example with that problem is Sherlock.
I find it insane that anyone should be allowed to use Mickey Mouse. Similarly, the 30s version of Superman is in public domain, soon, and that is similarly insane to me.
These are still Active properties closely tied with a company's marketing and image. We badly need to update our IP laws.
Companies last longer than a hundred years, now. It's silly we allow these things.
You do know that Disney made money from other people's works like the brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen right? Their works are in public domain
They made money off of their version of those works, yes. They're quite different from the originals.
This is what I mean about our laws needing updating - time alone is not enough any more. We need to define levels of differentiation that are commercially acceptable. Right now, that essentially just includes parody, which clearly is not a thorough enough accounting of the many ways IP can be varied.
Why are you such a corpo boot licker? What exactly do we gain as a species by allowing companies to hoard IP of creators of which are long since dead?
Nek minnit you'll be telling me I can't put on a play from Shakespeare or recite Beowulf without paying some corporation a fee?
Seriously?
No actually I think plays should be free to use for amateurs, and only require licensing for paid performances, since we're talking reforms.
Also why are you being an asshole for no reason?
Are you for real? The creators have been dead for decades. Apart from the discussion of who was actually creatively responsible for Disney's as significant characters. Copyright was invented to protect them, not to be a gravy train for their useless descendants or the faceless companies owning the right for some (often murky) reason.
This doesn't contain any reasoning behind why copyright shouldn't be that.
Temporary monopolies are the governments reward to encourage new works of art and inventions. The trade off is that it's temporary. By extending copyrights indefinitely it actually discourages new works to be created because they're competing with more creations than ever, and nothing can be built as a derivative work. Trademarks, which Disney still owns, are protected basically indefinitely.
Disclaimer: I've only really looked into copyright law from the perspective of a YouTube content creator
I don't see how extending copyrights indefinitely discourages new works from being made given that fair use is a thing. Assuming that fair use is protected, wouldn't having some limitations on how you use a given work encourage more creativity? The best example of this that I can think of is Raccacoonie in Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.
I'd honestly be fine with something as old as Steamboat Willie being freely available in the public domain, but I'm not sure I'd say the same thing for Mickey Mouse. It'd be cool to get some legal Mickey Mouse animations from small companies or online creators, but IMO, it wouldn't be great if Mickey Mouse content came from Warner Bros. Disney should be the only large company allowed to use Mickey Mouse as long as they still make quality content with him. The year or decade where Mickey Mouse isn't being actively worked on as a creative continuation of the original concept should be the time where everyone and anyone can adapt Mickey Mouse.
The reason why I put a split between small and big is that the latter often seems corrupted by greed, whereas the former tends to do things out of passion. IMO, creatives deserve incredibly strong copyright protections with relatively little work because there's not much stopping someone else from simply stealing said content. This is especially rampant now on TikTok and Instagram. Large companies should get the same opportunity due to brand identities, but they should be under much more scrutiny to achieve the same level of protection, and they shouldn't be able to bully creatives.
I also see a lot of commenters mention how copyright should be limited to 20 years. I don't see this working out well in today's world because old stuff is brought up and popularized seemingly often. Niche videos from 2013 can easily go viral in 2033, and I think authors deserve some sort of reward for that.
I don't see this working out well in today's world because old stuff is brought up and popularized seemingly often
That's a feature, not a bug. Humans have always built upon that which came before, that's why Robin Hood is a beloved story because each generation could do what they want with it, or King Arthur, or Shakespeare.
Nobody owns ideas, if you come up with something neat, sure have 20 years to try and make it successful, otherwise it's free real estate. Anything else is a perversion of human nature.
Robin Hood is a beloved story because each generation could do what they want with it, or King Arthur, or Shakespeare.
How is expanding "fair use" contrary to that goal? Creatives would be able to use Shakespeare or literally any copyrighted work as long as the derived work is transformative.
Nobody owns ideas
Ideas are easy to make. Implementing them is painful. Said pain should be rewarded, and Amazon shouldn't be able to find something just outside of the copyright window to copy and redistribute.
if you come up with something neat, sure have 20 years to try and make it successful, otherwise it's free real estate.
My issue with this is that after 20 years, some content farm could just copy a video, reupload it, then rake in all the profits. These farms already exist because copyright for small creators is rarely enforced. The creator literally gets nothing in this exchange, and creatives in general have way less incentive of making new works as a result.
expanding “fair use”
I'm not talking about fair use, I'm talking about public domain; complete freedom to modify or redistribute.
Said pain should be rewarded
Yes, by temporary monopoly
Amazon shouldn’t be able to find something just outside of the copyright window to copy and redistribute.
Why not? Project Gutenberg provides an incredible service (and LibriVox) which is based entirely on the concept of old works naturally falling into public domain. Imagine how absurd it would be if you still had to pay the publisher of Charles Dickens to read A Christmas Carol.
some content farm could just copy a video, reupload it, then rake in all the profits
Do you see content farms making bank with public domain content now? This is a ridiculous scenario, you obviously have not thought out this issue and instead are just justifying your feelings on the matter. Old things belong to everybody, culture is meant to be shared.
because copyright for small creators is rarely enforced
That's a completely separate matter bud, go ahead and advocate for enforcing the law for small creators, I'm talking about what the limit for those protections should be.
I think copyright and patent laws need to die.
Google would take some high-schooler's work and profit off of it in that case. In today's world, said high-schooler would receive some compensation.
If you think that this is far-fetched, it literally happened just now with Beeper Mini. A high-schooler received a $400k payout because he had ownership of his work.
The point of patents and copyrights is to promote and reward creative artists and inventors, not create a permanent revenue stream for corporations. Walt Disney died in 1966 and he, his investors, his heirs, and even their heirs have all been handsomely rewarded.
Now let’s get Steamboat Mickey in Smash Bros.
I find it insane that tvshows regularly show people watching 70+ year old tvshows. Nobody does that in real life. Doesn't feel authentic.
I find it insane that we've reused characters in stories for thousands of years, but just a century ago it suddenly became illegal until almost every character was old enough to be forgotten and culturally irrelevant.
Fan fiction of relatively new IPs should be sellable, imho, without having to beg a corporation for permission. Its stuff we've grown up on. Disney and others are literally holding our culture hostage and dictates terms.
Fan fiction being sellable would require significant changes to copyright. It seems like you're agreeing with me?
Idk what you mean by Disney "holding our culture hostage" - that seems weirdly hyperbolic.
That we've retold and improved stories for the most of human existence, suddenly we don't. Thats what I mean with holding culture hostage.
I agree there should be some protections for artists, but not a hundred years. It should be close enough that the media is still relevant to the generation that it was presented to. Yeah, it would take drastic changes, but we got ourselves into this, we should be able to turn it back.
That we’ve retold and improved stories for the most of human existence, suddenly we don’t.
In what way is this not happening?
Like, Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time and is the exact same story as Fern Gully, retold in space.
If your idea of retelling and improving upon a story is to carefully create a similar-ish general plotline in a different setting that doesn't overlap enough to be sued by the previous author, for "retelling and improving"... You miss out.
How crazy it is that creators have to go out of their way to not name something that looks and act like a lightsaber, a lightsaber. For a century! Everyone knows what a lightsaber is. It is part of our culture now. But we cant re-use them as is in any creative work (except for parodies) without begging Disney to pay for the privilege to use it if we are well-known enough. Its silly.
I feel.like you keep bringing up stifling creativity being a reason to not enforce copyright, but then you suggest that there is simply no room for creativity outside of established universes.
This really doesn't make any sense to me. I don't see how anyone benefits by a glut of terrible Star Wars fanfiction being published, throwing the entire canon into disarray, and fundamentally changing what the material is about.
Terrible Star Wars fan fiction is what we get anyway, just look at Disney's trilogy. Its already changed. Its creator(s) doesn't even have a say anymore. If anyone could make Star Wars, we could vote for the one taking it in the best direction with our wallets.
Theres of course a bit room outside of established universes, but why should we, when its the in-universe story that has occupied our minds for decades? Why re-invent everything for every story now when we once didn't have to? What gives modern people this permanent ownership of an idea that past people didn't? Why aren't we allowed to use Hobbits, but we use halflings which everyones know is just hobbits in all but name. Why can't we use Beholders and Illithids when its common knowledge what they are? What if Santa Claus was a copyrighted character belonging to Coca Cola? Or still belonged to the Dickens family so Coke never hired an artist to create the Santa Claus as we know today?
Also this obsession with "canon", its stories not actual events. Its fun to have a shared understanding of past fictional events, but obsessing too much over it isn't healthy for the fiction. But thats a different discussion.
The public must gain it's share of the revenue for allowing a private company to use public domain IP exclusively.
Hold a yearly auction to see who is granted rights to the property which is now the public's.
The public must gain it’s share of the revenue for allowing a private company to use public domain IP exclusively.
Pretty strongly disagree with the idea of a company's product just becoming the public's because a certain amount of time has passed.
I cannot even conceive of what the argument for this could possibly be.
Copyright was never meant to be used how it is today. It was specifically made to protect small creators from having big companies come in and rip them off. Companies were never meant to be the beneficiaries. But lot of lobbying plus corporations are people too bullshit changed that.
Copyright is meant to last roughly the lifetime of the artist, but organizations can live forever. And then nothing ever goes in the public domain, a shared culture dissolves in to nothingness.
Copyright is meant to last roughly the lifetime of the artist, but organizations can live forever.
This is why I think it needs to be updated.
And then nothing ever goes in the public domain, a shared culture dissolves in to nothingness.
I don't see how these two things relate to one another at all. We currently have a shared culture.
the argument is that the people, and the political system the people put in place enabled the company to create and benefit off its creations.
"we live in a society" but unironically.
enabled the company to create and benefit off its creations.
And you want to... Stop that?
I want to limit the amount of benefit they can reap.
Why?
Literally how it's worked forever, how do you think books and films become public domain? Blame the Romans.
"this is the way it's always been" is never an acceptable defense of anything
I'm confused, are you actually advocating for companies to retain control of their properties forever? Public domain exists for the benefit of all people, to keep knowledge and art open and available, and to allow future generations to build on existing work.
Sure not a huge deal for Mickey mouse because it's not as important as research work or whatever, BUT considering Disney was literally built on repacking public domain stories (Pinocchio / Snow White / Beauty and Beast directly taken from previous works, Lion King is basically Hamlet with animals), it's past time they contributed back.
Sure not a huge deal for Mickey mouse because it’s not as important as research work or whatever, BUT considering Disney was literally built on repacking public domain stories (Pinocchio / Snow White / Beauty and Beast directly taken from previous works, Lion King is basically Hamlet with animals), it’s past time they contributed back.
I'm not sure how updating IP laws get in the way of this and no one seems able to article it for me.
And yes, I believe that any trademark characters/IPs should be protected forever. I don't see how letting me write and publish independent Doctor Who stories benefits anyone but me, while damaging the "real" Doctor Who universe.
Do you have a reason for the alternative view?
For me it's quite simple. The options are offering timed control over an IP, or have the wild west of no copywrite. We, as a society, decided we will protect an IP for said time to allow profit and encourage creation, before the public can go wild on it. Without copywrite protections, derivative works are available immediately.
Under this perpetual exclusive rights system/scenario you're proposing Disney straight up does not exist. Whichever company held the rights to the Brothers Grimm estate would have immediately cease and desisted Disney's Snow White. No Disney, no Mouse, end of story.
Now, that works out great for Current Day Media Giant - but what about tomorrow's creators, the next Disney that builds it's foundation on stories like Frozen or Moana? Should those future generations not be provided similar access to their childhood fables? It starts with making Steamboat Willie available.
We agree on updating IP laws, but I think they should be curtailed rather than extended. You should not have the monopoly on an idea your entire life. If you can't milk a fortune from it in 50 years it wasn't that good an idea, so everyone else should be free to build on and improve it after that point.
And even if you absolutely kill it and your brand is still going strong decades later, that 50 years will cover anything new your did in that time. Plus it's not like people wouldn't know yours is the original even after the copyright expire; something entering public domain doesn't make it legal to claim you invented it if you didn't.
If you make something, it should be yours to disseminate as you wish. It's silly to suggest otherwise. You literally created it.
Copyright isn't just paying for an idea, its giving a complete monopoly over a concept. We came up with the idea of copyright to give creators a much easier way to profit off their creation (not having to compete after its created) to make sure innovation is very rewarded. That said, its still a government enforced monopoly, with all the issues that come with that, and with how much its been extended, its far past the point of encouraging innovation and instead just works to cement large companies in place, resting on their laurals rather than making anything new. Even when a copyright ends, the current copyright holder wouldn't lose the idea, they just no longer have a monopoly on it. Disney can and will keep making Micky Mouse content, and the mouse will probably keep being accociated with them for centuries to come unless someone makes something that dwarfs the impact of Disney's work with the character, in which case its best that it was released anyway.
No-one creates something from whole cloth. All ideas are based on things that came before them. Locking those ideas up indefinitely will stifle creativity and stagnate culture.
Locking those ideas up indefinitely will stifle creativity and stagnate culture.
How? I don't see any evidence of this. Can you point some out?
As mentioned elsewhere
Like, Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time and is the exact same story as Fern Gully, retold in space.
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I mean, IP isn't all bad. I can't start selling p*ss in a bottle and label it with Coca-Cola branding. I'd get sued into oblivion. In this particular case, that would be a good thing. It also means that if you find a rat in your coke, you can sue CocaCola. If there were no IP, everyone could make it and it would be almost impossible to know where it came from.
There would also be no widely distributed film, TV, music, books, etc. Do you really want to live in a world where WattPad is the engine of literature?
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I'd say that while copyright was intended to incentivise creativity and allow authors to share without suffering from rip-offs (at least it seems like it was), it evolved into something completely abominable. But that's not the only one thing in the current state of world that did.
Games? Name five great FOSS games.
Games and other media that are labor intensive to make and trivial to copy will not exist without some form of copyright.
Live music and theater will still exist, as well as physical works like paintings and sculptures. But say goodbye to professional books, films, games, comics, and scripted television (I guess we'd go back to sports and live variety shows). No more professional journalists, nature photography, audiobooks, podcasts...
Trademark is a form of intellectual property but never mind that. Who do you think is paying for all those indie games and films?
Sure, we can talk about some major reforms, but you seem to be fine throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Name five great FOSS games
battle for wesnoth, teeworlds, 0 A.D., warzone 2100, and soldat.
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You should find it telling that you couldn't name even one game.
Software that functions to meet a practical need is a tool, not media. People will fund ongoing work to develop and maintain tools that they use. People very rarely fund incomplete artworks.
We don't have to speculate what models may exist, because they already do. Movies like Veronica Mars and the Babbadook (and Atlas Shrugged III) do get made through crowdfunding, but they still depend on marketing and distribution from companies that rely on a degree of exclusivity. So I guess there's... Big Buck Bunny?
For games, there's itch.io, patreon, etc. for gripping titles like Yandere Simulator and Liberal Crime Squad. But charging to access a server for a non-exclusive game? Better to just start my own server. Then I can charge for the game myself.
I already mentioned WattPad.
Copyright is still the best way for small creators to make a living. I personally would not want to live in a world where government grants would decide who gets paid for their art and who has to set up a donation system and hope for the best. Art would be worse, not better. Companies would still need artists to help sell their products, and there would be a fantastic supply of starving artists at the ready.
Commercials and billboards would become pretty banging, so I guess there's that.
I don't feel that this would have the positive impact you seem to think it would - and I cannot even picture how you think this would be a positive.
No.