11 ms·
Class of 2016: Whose works will enter the public domain
- douche 11y agoFrigging Mickey Mouse. This two-bit mediocre cartoon character is why we can't have nice things.
- gherkin0 11y agoDo they still even make Mickey Mouse cartoons? He really seems like nothing more than a logo and mascot at this point.
- baldfat 11y agoYou don't have kids. Mickey Mouse Club House is HUGE with kids.
- herge 11y agoThe big issue for Disney is once Mickey Mouse enters the public domain, anyone is free to create derivative works of the initial cartoons.
- logfromblammo 11y agoMaybe only in trade classes where original-style Mickey Mouse is not asserted as trademark. You can make derivative cartoons with Steamboat-Willie-era Mickey Mouse, but you can't distribute them in commerce without a few legal precautions, as Disney asserts the Mickey Mouse image as a trademark with respect to int'l trade class 41 (entertainment). It's no longer a copyright violation, but a trademark infringement. You can't do it in such a way that creates the possibility that someone might confuse your derivative work for a genuine Disney-branded entertainment product. So it might be as simple as plastering a disclaimer over the intro to your cartoon that informs all viewers that the following is video is derived from a public domain work, and is not associated with Disney. But don't count on that saving you from the flesh-eating lawyers.
- dairy 11y agoActually, yes. They've been putting out new Mickey Mouse shorts for months now. They're all on youtube[0]. [0]http://youtu.be/iNT8T58G3f4?list=PLC6qIbU1olyXQe1WOKt8UJ4hErx3D7qt8 http://youtu.be/iNT8T58G3f4?list=PLC6qIbU1olyXQe1WOKt8UJ4hEr...
- m52go 11y agoIt looks like those shorts are some sort of modern reproductions. Originals, which I personally like much better, are here: https://www.youtube.com/user/OldVintageTimes https://www.youtube.com/user/OldVintageTimes
- dairy 11y agoThey're modern, but not reproductions. They're all brand new material, and quite good.
- baldfat 11y agoWe need to find someway that Disney get's their copyright for everything and the rest of the world can have Public Domain. Also the Autobiography of Malcolm X is one of the best non-fiction books I ever read and should be read by everyone in America. Though I don't think that book would be public domain now due to Alex Haley being a co-writter and died in 1992.
- panglott 11y agoThe thing is, they can keep him as a trademark even if he is public domain. This is how the Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate keeps Tarzan and John Carter, for example. Maybe it should just be increasingly costly to maintain an old copyright, so a few high-value copyrights like Mickey Mouse could be maintained while much more literature simply passes into the public domain. Or perhaps film copyrights could be separated from print copyrights. Or maybe we could just not have de facto perpetual copyright.
- logfromblammo 11y agoBut trademark is restricted by trade classifications, and must be monitored and defended vigorously by the trademark-holder. If you sell construction equipment, you can have a Tarzan brand of earth-mover. If you sell space tourism, you can have a John Carter brand of travel package. In order to lawyer-smack you, the estate would have to show the court that they were already using the trademark in that line of business before you. So you could call anything that Disney does not already sell a "Mickey Mouse". Think of something NSFW. When they go to C&D you, you can demand to see proof that they are actually in that line of business. They either successfully defend the trademark and get a PR disaster or you get to use the trademark for your trade class.
- chc 11y agoI think it's a little more complicated than that. The primary goal of trademark is to prevent consumer confusion. Mickey Mouse is so closely associated with Disney and used with such a dizzying array of products that calling something Mickey Mouse, even something NSFW that Disney wouldn't want to make themselves, seems likely enough to cause confusion.
- rhino369 11y agoWe need to create a sort of hybrid copyright and trademark that will solve the mickey mouse problem. So that a company can keep their actually used characters, but that unused stuff goes into the public domain after 25 years plus not being used in the past 5 years. That way Disney can keep their mickey mouse, but someone can find a book written 40 years ago that isn't in circulation anymore and reprint it. Or create unauthorized sequels, riffs, whatever.
- krasin 11y agoNope. We need to make the copyright to last 5 years for exclusive monopoly, and more 10 years for making profit out of the copyrighted work. And make Mickey Mouse public domain.
- acomjean 11y agoI always thought an easy solution amenable to people and companies is you should have to pay to keep up the copyright after a certain time. Maybe start copyright at 40 years. If you find the work valuable you could register to extend it. If you don't find it valuable and don't bother to register the work it falls into public domain. Seems like an easy solution.
- Retric 11y agoIMO, copyright does two things. Protects direct income, and prevents derivative works. I think ~5-20 years to prevent copying is reasonable, but derivative works could benefit from longer term protection. As in, you can't make a movie based on a book in that author’s lifespan. IMO, this is not about profit, so much as artistic integrity. It's also likely to pass the Disney test. They are not making money from Steamboat Willy it's all about protecting the image.
- thescriptkiddie 11y ago> but derivative works could benefit from longer term protection. As in, you can't make a movie based on a book in that author’s lifespan. Why? If no derivative works can be made within the original author's lifespan, that would mean that the author's audience would likewise rarely live to see any. By the time the author is dead, their works are might be irrelevant or forgotten. Who is going to remix them then? Copyright terms lasting lifetimes rob entire generations of their culture. The original length of copyright in the US was only 14 years.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Jtsummers 11y agoThe problem is not a lack of two-bit cartoon mice in the public domain. It's that this one particular two-bit cartoon mouse is being protected by a very wealthy corporation that has lobbied for extending copyrights to the point that very little will enter into the public domain anymore by aging out. Want to do something with a story or novel or song from 80 years ago that no living person was involved in producing? Sorry, you have to license it. We don't know who the license holder is, but we won't fund you because we're afraid someone might turn up once we release your remixed story/movie/song and then there'd be a lawsuit and that's just a mess. Our cultural heritage (for better or worse, not sure I like seeing Disney and company like that) are locked away so that it's very difficult to do anything with it, compared to properties from anytime before Mickey came into existence.
- douche 11y agoEh, I don't care a whit about Mickey Mouse. I do care about all of the post-1923 literature that is really hard to find because it is locked up under copyright, but not profitable enough to get reprinted by the rightsholders[1]. I'm also concerned about all of the film, television, audio, and software that is in similar copyright limbo. There's a lot of stuff out there that there simply is no legitimate way to get access to. [1] http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/the-hole-in-our-collective-memory-how-copyright-made-mid-century-books-vanish/278209/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/the-ho...
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoThe Sonny Bono (Mickey Mouse) Copyright Extension Act was in 1998. It extended copyright by 20 years. It's now (almost) 18 years later. In the next 2-3 years, the next copyright extension fight is going to happen. Hopefully we have a more educated Congress these days (though I kind of doubt it). But at least we need to try to make it an issue in the 2016 election cycle.
- panglott 11y agoOh man, time to get organized. Who will do the lobbying on this? The EFF? Wiki says amici briefs to Eldred v. Ashcroft were filed by the Free Software Foundation, the American Association of Law Libraries, the Bureau of National Affairs, and the College Art Association. RBG's majority opinion there framed the plaintiffs as "individuals and businesses whose products or services build on copyrighted works that have gone into the public domain." I wish there was some kind of group advocating for users of public domain materials, whose access to our literary heritage is so hampered by copyright.
- ohitsdom 11y agoDisney & copyrights are really interesting. The linked site has a lot of info about why releasing to public domain doesn't harm content. But is there a Mickey/Disney equivalent internationally? I can't think of one, but I'm American...
- icebraining 11y agoIt seems your "but" has the hidden assumption "since the US has longer term copyright", but in fact, when Mickey was created and for a long time, the US was actually one of the countries with shorter copyright terms. The Berne convention, which sets the copyright length to Life + 50 years, was signed by most developed countries before 1930, but the US only did so in 1988: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Duration_of_copyright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St...
- ohitsdom 11y agoThis doesn't prove that Disney hasn't benefited enormously from extended copyright terms. Their stock growth is huge since '88, but it's impossible to say how much of that growth would have occurred without their copyright [0]. We can speculate, but it's hard to even imagine how Disney would be different today without certain copyrights. That's why I was looking for a comparable media empire internationally. [0] https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:DIS https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:DIS
- icebraining 11y agoOf course Disney benefited enormously from extended copyright. But what it does show is that long copyright terms are neither necessary nor sufficient for a Disney to appear and become successful, since the US at that time didn't have them. What I don't understand is what finding a comparable media empire internationally would give you, since most of the world has the same copyright terms as the US, and so it wouldn't be helpful to judge the results of different terms.
- zanny 11y agoNo, we cannot have nice things because the largest international media conglomerate can influence government to give them permanent monopoly to their ideas, and because people are apathetic to both the money in politics and the perpetual monopoly on information being issues.
- Eric_WVGG 11y agoWhat is the point of belittling a person who is making the same point as you are?
- zanny 11y agoI'm not belittling the OP, its just that the animators and writers and creative people behind Steamboat Willie are in no way responsible for the monster Disney corporation became, and neither is the character. Put blame where blame belongs, and all that.
- panglott 11y ago"Wondering what will enter the public domain through copyright expiration in the U.S.? Like last year, and the year before…Nothing." So wonderful to see new works enter the public domain, and then there's the gutpunch. So depressing.
- daveguy 11y agoNext year in the "life plus 50 years" countries (including Canada): Walt Disney. I hope people in those countries make a mockery of mickey.
- timdellinger 11y agoBlind Willie Johnson's song "Dark Was the Night" was among those put on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 and launched out towards interstellar space.
- realityking 11y agoOf interest to Europeans is also that the group "died in 1945" also includes Aldof Hitler. Up until now the Bavarian government (as the copyright owner) blocked any and all reprints in Germany and wherever else they could. I'm looking forward to reading it, admittedly primarily because I'm curios whe they were so hellbend on keeping it away from the general public.
- TillE 11y agoNazi propaganda is illegal in Germany. That's pretty much all there is to it.
- SuperKlaus 11y agoYet "Mein Kampf" will be available again starting January 1st. see: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34980701 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34980701
- arbitrage 11y agoIt's incredibly tedious and poorly written. I wouldn't waste my time time again, if I were you.
- zanny 11y agoI hope in a millennia copyright is looked back upon with the same disgust and insanity that human sacrifice, child wives, and genital mutilation are (mostly) today. In a society unbounded by information scarcity, to intentionally and systemically stymie it is to intentionally cripple yourself. The immediate magnitude may be less significant, but the long slow death of culture to perpetual copyright is having absolute consequences on our modern society today, with escalating damage as time goes on. The longer we as a people are culturally stunted walking a tightrope of legal bureaucracy established and maintained to protect monopoly and corporate profit the more of our history we lose, and the more of our bonds are lost or never formed amongst one another in common knowledge. But because the suffering is scattered across our collective conscious, and because it requires an understanding of how information and culture are made beyond the average wit, the movement is limited and rife with a never-ending uphill battle against one another rather than against the aggressors, because we were all raised in this system and to see outside it requires great effort and a sacrifice of established ethos many are not willing to engage in. It is the same outside thought that kept slavery the norm, or subjugated women, or made great thinkers like Giordano Bruno heretics to be burned rather than celebrated. People are born into systems of oppression and will fight for them because it is what they know, even if it is to us now what is not right. And I firmly believe intellectual property protectionism falls into that history of oppression - much more muted, much less immediately harmful, but backwards and self-defeatist all the same.
- anigbrowl 11y agoI'm very much for copyright change, but equating copyright monopolies with human sacrifice and genital mutilation is specious bullshit that makes people less sympathetic to the cause of reform. The injustices of copyright are a minor annoyance by comparison to other kinds of abuse and trauma. because it requires an understanding of how information and culture are made beyond the average wit Bah, humblebrag. Almost everyone I've ever discussed copyright with is perfectly capable of appreciating the systemic perpetuation of privilege that inheres in copyright monopolies. You're waving a bloody shirt for the moral equivalent of a paper cut; it's not OK to borrow the vastly more intense sufferings of others to make more of an emotional impact.
- ARothfusz 11y agoDoes anyone track the quantity of work under Creative Commons? How does that compare to the volume and quality of public domain works lost to draconian Copyright extensions?
- jononor 11y agoPassed 1 billion now, http://creativecommons.org/weblog/2015/12/08/46651 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/2015/12/08/46651
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoCopyright terms should be 20 years at most.
- nitrogen 11y agoIt was said below (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10719751 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10719751) but it's worth a top-level comment: the TPP may ruin the public domain for countries currently enjoying annual PD growth.