7 ms·

Interesting idea. Except Disney would pay tens of millions to keep the original Mickey Mouse out of the public domain. Hell they might even pay much more to gua

• plorkyeran 9y ago
  Disney is already paying tens of millions to do that. The proposal is mostly to make them not keep everything else locked away too.
  • djsumdog 9y ago
    Yes, in lobbying costs. And their lobbying efforts hurt the rest of the industry. I really think Mickey, Donald and Goofy should be allowed to enter the public domain. Companies need to grow and old things need to be shared in the commons. They'll lose some initial money of course, if everyone could produce Mickey Mouse shirts, but Disney et. al. would have to come up with new tricks, new icons and try to make new things instead of the constant barrage of rehashed garbage media we get today.
    • kbenson 9y ago
      It's not the shirts that are the problem, it's a massive I Flux of random Mickey Mouse media that would saturate the market and dilute the media. Do any of us really doubt that there would be a bunch of Mickey Mouse porn? I'm not in favor of long copyrights, but I think in the case there would be a real cultural loss if there was unfettered access to this particular icon. Does that justify full control by Disney at this late stage? Probably not, but some middle ground with increasing costs (maybe an increasing percentage of profit from that brand?) might be worth trying. The whole system is pretty messed up at this point, so why not test out some interesting ideas? As a side benefit, maybe Disney and others like them won't fight it quite so hard, as it would be costly but not the existential threat to their core brand they see come up every couple evades.
      • yorwba 9y ago
        There already are lots of random Mickey Mouse media, they just aren't legal to sell in any place that respects Disney's copyright. But Rule 34 says that Mickey Mouse porn is out there, and some of it is probably legal (e.g. using a costume purchased in a Disney-licensed store as a fetish item).
        • djsumdog 9y ago
          Mickey Mouse porn is probably legal in the US too; if you wanted to try and argue that it's protected as parody or satire. I mean we have porn versions of Pirates of the Caribbean as well as Rick and Morty (Dick and Morty .. it's actually pretty hilarious)
          • bighi 9y ago
            The porn version of pirates of the caribbean, as far as I remember, doesn't use the name "Pirates of the Caribbean". Also doesn't use the name of important characters.
      • josho 9y ago
        > cultural loss if there was unfettered access to this particular icon As a counter argument look at Snow White. That story is in the public domain. I think you’d be hard pressed to make a case that that has harmed society. Regardless Disney will continue to have a trademark on the Mouse. So, it will continue to be a cultural icon for the company. We’ll just also have steamboat Willie generics in the marketplace as well.
      • reificator 9y ago
        > Do any of us really doubt that there would be a bunch of Mickey Mouse porn? Look: sight unseen, having no prior knowledge, I would put money down that I could find a thousand unique images of Mickey Mouse created in 2017 or earlier. That's just how the internet works, and copyright doesn't hold much sway on that front.
      • z3t4 9y ago
        Most culture is created by prior works. It's the fan art and spin offs that keeps culture alive.
• fatbird 9y ago
  Arguably, this is a good deal, especially if the renewal fees go to further public good like archiving of public domain works. Disney would pay tens of millions to keep Mickey, Goofy, and Donald under copyright, but they'll quickly triage their renewal budget and let most everything else go. The greater damage from blanket copyright extension is the long tail of works that no one would pay to keep copyright on, but are still protected with the same inflexible term as an ongoing piece of IP like Mickey.
• gutnor 9y ago
  Normally the bigger players are at least investing in their brand. Mickey Mouse is not a hidden asset locked in a vault, it is everywhere for everyone to see. Not ideal maybe but worth it to unlock the ton of asset that lies unexploited and will never be exploited because the generation that has some sort of emotional attachment to it has disappeared (retired or dead) by the time they could use it. The problem is still with the concentration of the media. There is no price you can put that Disney cannot bulk pay for everything they own that wouldn't be destroying any competition from the little copyright holders. So in effect it could decrease competition with the only upside of increasing the government income.
• to3m 9y ago
  Start the fee at $1 and double it each year?
  • bighi 9y ago
    The US is allowing Disney to become a behemoth of a company without competitors, so even if the price rises up to a million trillion gajillion dollars they would be able to pay without much effort.
    • ric2b 9y ago
      Under his proposal after 45 years they would be paying the entire US GDP. Global GDP before the 50 year mark.
  • ric2b 9y ago
    That sounds like a pretty cool idea. After 30 years if it's not generating $1B a year you let it go. That would make most creations pretty cheap to keep for the first 15 years, corporation level expensive from 15 years to 25 years and global phenomenon level only after 30 years. If that sounds too aggressive maybe double it only every 2 years.
• hinkley 9y ago
  Mickey and Winnie the Pooh make Disney tens of billions a year. They should trademark them, instead of relying on copyright.
  • LoSboccacc 9y ago
    copyright covers derivative work better