3 ms·

I'm not so concerned with access to the originals as I am with the restriction of derivative works. Look back through human history and you'll find people retel

I'm not so concerned with access to the originals as I am with the restriction of derivative works. Look back through human history and you'll find people retelling and adapting stories and songs freely. With our effectively-infinite copyright length, we've now locked our shared culture behind Disney's lawyers. That sucks.

jfengel 6y ago
I am unclear on how trademark interacts with copyright on this. Unlike copyright, trademarks really were intended to be infinite: they expire only when people stop using them (and paying the relevant fees). So even if Steamboat Willie were to become public domain, would trademark limit the derivative works that could be made? The movie might be public, but the main character isn't. Can you tell me how that would work?
hylaride 6y ago
This so much. When I first learned about how US copyright laws were extended (and then pushed on the rest of the world via trade deals, etc), my respect for IP rules plummeted. In college I had no qualms using Napster, and later bitorrent, etc. Even today, I get frustrated by geo-ip blocking (I'm Canadian) and I have no idea how I'm going to watch the Animaniacs reboot (Hulu isn't available here). Even worse, a lot of content gets licenced to Canadian media companies which then (if I legally want to) force me to watch through terrible apps with terrible commercial interruptions at bad times. The last movie I tried to legally watch via that last method has 20 minutes of commercials for every hour of the film. I pay for Netflix and Apple music because they're affordable and extremely convenient, but get in my way and I'll have no qualms finding a better way.
- tptacek 6y ago
  That's great and all, but has nothing to do with the fact that the Charlie Brown Halloween Special will be on Apple TV and not network TV. It's always been the case that nerds can watch pretty much whatever they want by ignoring copyright and just downloading stuff. It was that way all the way into the streaming wars. Streaming services aren't spending hundreds of millions of dollars on content catalogs because they're worried that you're going to upend their business with torrent sites.
tptacek 6y ago
I've been hearing forms of this argument on HN for a decade (usually, it's Star Wars we're "locked out of"). If your "shared culture" is confined to Olaf the Snowman and the Avengers, then, respectfully, you're the one with the problem, not Disney. Read a book! There are zillions of them. Meanwhile, if you're a parent that wants to put Olaf the Snowman on the TV, it has never, ever been easier or less expensive to do that.
- coldpie 6y ago
  I don't see how pointing out particular cultural examples is relevant. Most software from the 80s is commercially useless right now; should it still be protected by copyright? Books from the 1700s are still culturally relevant; is it OK that they aren't? What would society lose if I could create an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz that includes red shoes? Literally everyone involved in the original creation is dead, but WB owns it until 2035[1]. Is that ethical? There's a balance somewhere between the rights of the creator and the rights of society to adapt and disseminate our own culture, and the argument we're making is that the scales are currently tipped way too far on the side of the creator. I don't care how easy it is to watch Frozen in 2020, I care about what the children who grew up with that film can do with the culture they grew up in when they are adults. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_The_Wizard_of_Oz_and_related_works_in_the_United_States#1939_film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_The_Wizard...
  - tptacek 6y ago
    "Our own culture" is just handwaving. What makes one title "our culture" and another "intellectual property", unless you outright don't believe in IP at all? The latter would at least be a coherent argument.
    - coldpie 6y ago
      It's not a dichotomy. Culture is the environment you live in; if you have humans, you can't not have culture. IP is a set of laws that govern people's behavior. I'm saying we got the laws wrong and it impacts our culture negatively.

jfengel 6y ago

I am unclear on how trademark interacts with copyright on this. Unlike copyright, trademarks really were intended to be infinite: they expire only when people stop using them (and paying the relevant fees). So even if Steamboat Willie were to become public domain, would trademark limit the derivative works that could be made? The movie might be public, but the main character isn't. Can you tell me how that would work?

hylaride 6y ago

This so much. When I first learned about how US copyright laws were extended (and then pushed on the rest of the world via trade deals, etc), my respect for IP rules plummeted. In college I had no qualms using Napster, and later bitorrent, etc. Even today, I get frustrated by geo-ip blocking (I'm Canadian) and I have no idea how I'm going to watch the Animaniacs reboot (Hulu isn't available here). Even worse, a lot of content gets licenced to Canadian media companies which then (if I legally want to) force me to watch through terrible apps with terrible commercial interruptions at bad times. The last movie I tried to legally watch via that last method has 20 minutes of commercials for every hour of the film. I pay for Netflix and Apple music because they're affordable and extremely convenient, but get in my way and I'll have no qualms finding a better way.

tptacek 6y ago
That's great and all, but has nothing to do with the fact that the Charlie Brown Halloween Special will be on Apple TV and not network TV. It's always been the case that nerds can watch pretty much whatever they want by ignoring copyright and just downloading stuff. It was that way all the way into the streaming wars. Streaming services aren't spending hundreds of millions of dollars on content catalogs because they're worried that you're going to upend their business with torrent sites.

tptacek 6y ago

I've been hearing forms of this argument on HN for a decade (usually, it's Star Wars we're "locked out of"). If your "shared culture" is confined to Olaf the Snowman and the Avengers, then, respectfully, you're the one with the problem, not Disney. Read a book! There are zillions of them. Meanwhile, if you're a parent that wants to put Olaf the Snowman on the TV, it has never, ever been easier or less expensive to do that.

coldpie 6y ago
I don't see how pointing out particular cultural examples is relevant. Most software from the 80s is commercially useless right now; should it still be protected by copyright? Books from the 1700s are still culturally relevant; is it OK that they aren't? What would society lose if I could create an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz that includes red shoes? Literally everyone involved in the original creation is dead, but WB owns it until 2035[1]. Is that ethical? There's a balance somewhere between the rights of the creator and the rights of society to adapt and disseminate our own culture, and the argument we're making is that the scales are currently tipped way too far on the side of the creator. I don't care how easy it is to watch Frozen in 2020, I care about what the children who grew up with that film can do with the culture they grew up in when they are adults. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_The_Wizard_of_Oz_and_related_works_in_the_United_States#1939_film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_The_Wizard...
- tptacek 6y ago
  "Our own culture" is just handwaving. What makes one title "our culture" and another "intellectual property", unless you outright don't believe in IP at all? The latter would at least be a coherent argument.
  - coldpie 6y ago
    It's not a dichotomy. Culture is the environment you live in; if you have humans, you can't not have culture. IP is a set of laws that govern people's behavior. I'm saying we got the laws wrong and it impacts our culture negatively.