11 ms·

Love Zombies? Thank the Public Domain

117 points by betamaxthetape 7y ago

betamaxthetape 7y ago
I find it fascinating that prior to the Copyright Act of 1976, any work without the correct copyright notice would automatically enter the public domain. In this case, it's interesting to see how the incentives for preventing such a mistake are skewed. It was the responsibility of the distributor to ensure the correct copyright notice, but they stood to gain when they didn't (and reportedly[1] kept all of the profits). [1] https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2011/10/10/how-a-copyright-mistake-created-the-modern-zombie/ https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2011/10/10/how-a-copyright-m...
- ghaff 7y ago
  What you're describing is the basic argument against orphan works legislature of various types. Disney won't forget to renew. But lots of individual authors and their estates will and the big corporations will sweep in and profit. Not saying I endorse that view--especially with reasonably long protections prior to renewal--but that's the argument.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
I hate zombies and despise zombie movies. If only copyright lasted longer, we would not have had these zombie movies. I used to be in favor of shorter copyrights, but I guess I will have to rethink my support for that given the information in this article.
- Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
  You speak like a victim of abuse, forces to watch zombie movies in the past.
  - zpallin 7y ago
    Sometimes it is. For example, if you can ever stomach watching "Vampires vs. Zombies", potentially the worst movie ever made, then you may qualify for hospice care.
- throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
  That is because you have not seen One Cut of the Dead https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Cut_of_the_Dead https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Cut_of_the_Dead
Polylactic_acid 7y ago
imo copyright should last 30 years from creation. Thats plenty of time to make a profit and it also allows things to fall in to public domain while they are still culturally relevant. Currently anything made within your lifetime will not be public until well after you have died which is a shame. It would be great if all of the past content which is now slipping in to irrelevancy could be revived by the public domain.
- DrPhish 7y ago
  I think its fair that renewals would be allowed beyond that, but that the cost of doing so should increase on an exponential scale. That way the value of keeping a thing copyrighted would eventually be eclipsed by its value as a public property, fulfilling the social contract of limited protection in exchange for eventual public ownership.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    That probably makes copyright renewals cost-effective for corporations making millions but not so for an author getting a nice $5k/yr annuity. (Or pick your numbers. But making cost a decision point for renewal definitely favors the big guys.)
    - marcosdumay 7y ago
      Yes, and adds a nice tax to the mix. From the tone of your post, you seem to think this is a problem. If so, why?
      - ghaff 7y ago
        So corporations can renew copyrights but not most individuals in practice. That seems problematic. Because, I don't know, the cards are already so stacked against individual content creators we don't want to make things worse? If we really care about getting the content released to the commons as early as possible, just apply a single shortened date to everyone.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
baby 7y ago
I love zombies and I don’t really want to watch old movies. What are you guys list of best zombie movies? I’ve watched a ton in the emule days but unfortunately don’t know the name of most of these. My favorite weirdly is not a true zombie movie but a parody called shaun of the dead. Anyway I hope I’m starting a thread of good zombie movies :)
- flanbiscuit 7y ago
  I just watched The Dead Don't Die which was directed by Jim Jarmusch. It was kinda weird and was more of a dark comedy. Not like Shaun, more subdued. Was interesting if you like his films https://m.imdb.com/title/tt8695030/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt8695030/
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  Juan of the Dead, if you can stand subtitles. EDIT: While looking up the trailer, I noticed another one that looks, well...unique. It's named Fido from 2006.
  - baby 7y ago
    Fido is interesting! It was novel enough to watch it if you like zombie movies, not the movie of the year though :)
ZoomZoomZoom 7y ago
I know a lot of artists and musicians (I work with them every day) and for considerable amount of them Copyright is absolutely NOT about money, it's about values. The work of art is a part of a creator which is at the same part separated but lacks its own will, so it's natural for the creator to wish some control over said part's faith. They don't want their work to be used in ads, printed on cheap paper with atrocious covers, being used in a political context, heard in hold music or in elevators, and the list goes on and on. I'm conmpletely split up on the issue. I'm pro-pirating when it comes to academia papers and textbooks, pro-copyleft, anti-streaming, wholeheartedly support freedom of information, and all of that, but I deeply respect the notions mentioned in the first part of my post and I don't know what would be a sound combination of these views.
- buckminster 7y ago
  Most of the arguments for long copyright terms apply to creative work by one or a few named individuals. Perhaps a start would be to slash copyright terms on works created by businesses. Companies would try to game this but the problems don't seem insurmountable.
giorgioz 7y ago
I did an exam in European and International Copyright Law in college even though I studied Computer Science. Based on my knowledge this whole story about forgetting the copyright logo and entering the publich domain sounds like a myth/fictional. Copyright of movies covers the video frames but it does not cover the concept of the story. The only part that could be protected are maybe fictional names of characters, cities and maybe special breeds. But the movie does not even mention the word zombie. So anyone would have been able to use the word zombie freely. The general concept of someone dead coming back alive is not protected by copyright simply because general concepts are not protected. Even if somehow the movie was called ZOMBIE and they copyrighted and patent it, others would have been able to do movies/comics/books WITHOUT using the word zombie. In the Walking Dead, zombies are called walkers so they would have got around the zombie patent by calling zombies something else.
- giorgioz 7y ago
  Also Shawn of the dead is a parody and copyright has a special section to allow parody/satire of other works if it's clear they are not the original work but are a parody of it.
  - giorgioz 7y ago
    To sum up I think more than a failure on copyright notice it was a failure in BRANDING. Branding requires special names. Terminator can be easily protected but if the movie was called Rising of the robots it would have not been possible to protect it. BRANDING is an important way to create a moat of defence around the product. Others can copy the product but not the branding
    - dpwm 7y ago
      I'm not even sure that Terminator can be so easily protected. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminators_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminators_(film)
      - 7y ago
ackshually 7y ago
The mouse has caused a creative dark age with it's aggressive legal pursual of the extension of copyright. Every time the original mickey mouse cartoon approaches public domain copyright gets more mutated and unwieldy. Shameful.
JollyKennedy 7y ago
Funny

I find it fascinating that prior to the Copyright Act of 1976, any work without the correct copyright notice would automatically enter the public domain. In this case, it's interesting to see how the incentives for preventing such a mistake are skewed. It was the responsibility of the distributor to ensure the correct copyright notice, but they stood to gain when they didn't (and reportedly[1] kept all of the profits). [1] https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2011/10/10/how-a-copyright-mistake-created-the-modern-zombie/ https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2011/10/10/how-a-copyright-m...

ghaff 7y ago
What you're describing is the basic argument against orphan works legislature of various types. Disney won't forget to renew. But lots of individual authors and their estates will and the big corporations will sweep in and profit. Not saying I endorse that view--especially with reasonably long protections prior to renewal--but that's the argument.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago

I hate zombies and despise zombie movies. If only copyright lasted longer, we would not have had these zombie movies. I used to be in favor of shorter copyrights, but I guess I will have to rethink my support for that given the information in this article.

Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
You speak like a victim of abuse, forces to watch zombie movies in the past.
- zpallin 7y ago
  Sometimes it is. For example, if you can ever stomach watching "Vampires vs. Zombies", potentially the worst movie ever made, then you may qualify for hospice care.
throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
That is because you have not seen One Cut of the Dead https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Cut_of_the_Dead https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Cut_of_the_Dead

Polylactic_acid 7y ago

imo copyright should last 30 years from creation. Thats plenty of time to make a profit and it also allows things to fall in to public domain while they are still culturally relevant. Currently anything made within your lifetime will not be public until well after you have died which is a shame. It would be great if all of the past content which is now slipping in to irrelevancy could be revived by the public domain.

DrPhish 7y ago
I think its fair that renewals would be allowed beyond that, but that the cost of doing so should increase on an exponential scale. That way the value of keeping a thing copyrighted would eventually be eclipsed by its value as a public property, fulfilling the social contract of limited protection in exchange for eventual public ownership.
- ghaff 7y ago
  That probably makes copyright renewals cost-effective for corporations making millions but not so for an author getting a nice $5k/yr annuity. (Or pick your numbers. But making cost a decision point for renewal definitely favors the big guys.)
  - marcosdumay 7y ago
    Yes, and adds a nice tax to the mix. From the tone of your post, you seem to think this is a problem. If so, why?
    - ghaff 7y ago
      So corporations can renew copyrights but not most individuals in practice. That seems problematic. Because, I don't know, the cards are already so stacked against individual content creators we don't want to make things worse? If we really care about getting the content released to the commons as early as possible, just apply a single shortened date to everyone.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

baby 7y ago

I love zombies and I don’t really want to watch old movies. What are you guys list of best zombie movies? I’ve watched a ton in the emule days but unfortunately don’t know the name of most of these. My favorite weirdly is not a true zombie movie but a parody called shaun of the dead. Anyway I hope I’m starting a thread of good zombie movies :)

flanbiscuit 7y ago
I just watched The Dead Don't Die which was directed by Jim Jarmusch. It was kinda weird and was more of a dark comedy. Not like Shaun, more subdued. Was interesting if you like his films https://m.imdb.com/title/tt8695030/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt8695030/
stronglikedan 7y ago
Juan of the Dead, if you can stand subtitles. EDIT: While looking up the trailer, I noticed another one that looks, well...unique. It's named Fido from 2006.
- baby 7y ago
  Fido is interesting! It was novel enough to watch it if you like zombie movies, not the movie of the year though :)

ZoomZoomZoom 7y ago

I know a lot of artists and musicians (I work with them every day) and for considerable amount of them Copyright is absolutely NOT about money, it's about values. The work of art is a part of a creator which is at the same part separated but lacks its own will, so it's natural for the creator to wish some control over said part's faith. They don't want their work to be used in ads, printed on cheap paper with atrocious covers, being used in a political context, heard in hold music or in elevators, and the list goes on and on. I'm conmpletely split up on the issue. I'm pro-pirating when it comes to academia papers and textbooks, pro-copyleft, anti-streaming, wholeheartedly support freedom of information, and all of that, but I deeply respect the notions mentioned in the first part of my post and I don't know what would be a sound combination of these views.

buckminster 7y ago
Most of the arguments for long copyright terms apply to creative work by one or a few named individuals. Perhaps a start would be to slash copyright terms on works created by businesses. Companies would try to game this but the problems don't seem insurmountable.

giorgioz 7y ago

I did an exam in European and International Copyright Law in college even though I studied Computer Science. Based on my knowledge this whole story about forgetting the copyright logo and entering the publich domain sounds like a myth/fictional. Copyright of movies covers the video frames but it does not cover the concept of the story. The only part that could be protected are maybe fictional names of characters, cities and maybe special breeds. But the movie does not even mention the word zombie. So anyone would have been able to use the word zombie freely. The general concept of someone dead coming back alive is not protected by copyright simply because general concepts are not protected. Even if somehow the movie was called ZOMBIE and they copyrighted and patent it, others would have been able to do movies/comics/books WITHOUT using the word zombie. In the Walking Dead, zombies are called walkers so they would have got around the zombie patent by calling zombies something else.

giorgioz 7y ago
Also Shawn of the dead is a parody and copyright has a special section to allow parody/satire of other works if it's clear they are not the original work but are a parody of it.
- giorgioz 7y ago
  To sum up I think more than a failure on copyright notice it was a failure in BRANDING. Branding requires special names. Terminator can be easily protected but if the movie was called Rising of the robots it would have not been possible to protect it. BRANDING is an important way to create a moat of defence around the product. Others can copy the product but not the branding
  - dpwm 7y ago
    I'm not even sure that Terminator can be so easily protected. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminators_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminators_(film)
    - 7y ago

ackshually 7y ago

The mouse has caused a creative dark age with it's aggressive legal pursual of the extension of copyright. Every time the original mickey mouse cartoon approaches public domain copyright gets more mutated and unwieldy. Shameful.

JollyKennedy 7y ago

Funny