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In my opinion, at the root of a lot of these problems is the fact that copyright has moved from being something designed to have a very limited duration and the

In my opinion, at the root of a lot of these problems is the fact that copyright has moved from being something designed to have a very limited duration and then expire, to something that lasts far more than a lifetime. If copyright still expired in 14 or 28 years, we'd have a rich public domain from which to draw from. Think about all of the "fan fiction" that could be commercialized, or the textbooks which could be freely modified and redistributed by students and the academic community. Because the public domain has been cheated out of such wealth (in no small part due to lobbying by Disney and other IP-based corporations) it really doesn't surprise me that piracy is so popular.

Noos 9y ago
What wealth? We already have plenty of public domain works, and they get bundled 50 to 100 movies in a set for ten dollars. We already have plenty of things you can make fan fiction of an monetize, but very little public domain stuff gets that. There was a spate of this in comics, with people attempting to do that with The Shadow or Green Hornet, or other lapsed properties. What people really want to do is make money by piggybacking off established brands that spend a lot of money to remain relevant. They don't want public domain in general, they want disney to be stripped of copyright protections so they can milk them dry through parasitical works. But they don't get that once that happens, the works because worthless precisely because no one is willing to spend more than the bare minimum on something they can't protect. It just winds up on youtube for free; who cares about spending money restoring or advertising for it?
- deleted 9y ago
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- dannypgh 9y ago
  You're telling me star wars would have never been made if Lucas only had 28 years of exclusive rights to the franchise? Please. Here's some public domain characters that have ended up in works that have given a lot of people entertainment: Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Dolittle... that Mickey Mouse and C3PO haven't joined this list is only because of relatively recent extension of copyright terms, which have amounted to a transfer of wealth towards those who didn't need more of it to be artistically creative...

Noos 9y ago

What wealth? We already have plenty of public domain works, and they get bundled 50 to 100 movies in a set for ten dollars. We already have plenty of things you can make fan fiction of an monetize, but very little public domain stuff gets that. There was a spate of this in comics, with people attempting to do that with The Shadow or Green Hornet, or other lapsed properties. What people really want to do is make money by piggybacking off established brands that spend a lot of money to remain relevant. They don't want public domain in general, they want disney to be stripped of copyright protections so they can milk them dry through parasitical works. But they don't get that once that happens, the works because worthless precisely because no one is willing to spend more than the bare minimum on something they can't protect. It just winds up on youtube for free; who cares about spending money restoring or advertising for it?

deleted 9y ago
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dannypgh 9y ago
You're telling me star wars would have never been made if Lucas only had 28 years of exclusive rights to the franchise? Please. Here's some public domain characters that have ended up in works that have given a lot of people entertainment: Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Dolittle... that Mickey Mouse and C3PO haven't joined this list is only because of relatively recent extension of copyright terms, which have amounted to a transfer of wealth towards those who didn't need more of it to be artistically creative...