3 ms·

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 forget

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)
    - giorgioz 7y ago
      Yes indeed is very difficult to protect names without trademark them. That's why many startups/companies invent completely new names (ex Google). Once you trademark them it's easier to protecte them than a word that was already existing in the English language like terminator.
dwild 7y ago
I thought the same as you, but I think what they means is that it lack of copyright made the zombie concept popular, not that it allowed to make more Zombie movies. If you can distribute a good movie without any copyright, for sure you'll do it instead of one that will be more costly.

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)
  - giorgioz 7y ago
    Yes indeed is very difficult to protect names without trademark them. That's why many startups/companies invent completely new names (ex Google). Once you trademark them it's easier to protecte them than a word that was already existing in the English language like terminator.

dwild 7y ago

I thought the same as you, but I think what they means is that it lack of copyright made the zombie concept popular, not that it allowed to make more Zombie movies. If you can distribute a good movie without any copyright, for sure you'll do it instead of one that will be more costly.