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Disney has bought legislation to extend copyright term every time MM has been up for expiry. Do you have reason to believe history won’t repeat itself this tim

Disney has bought legislation to extend copyright term every time MM has been up for expiry. Do you have reason to believe history won’t repeat itself this time?

Freak_NL 5y ago
They have to balance the willingness of people to accept copyright as fair with the few benefits extending copyright even further would have. At this point the few bits of intellectual property that will become public domain are so few and mainly of historic interest, that a protracted lobbying attempt (which could fail) would do more harm to their brand than just defending trademarks and existing copyrighted works. I think the generally held view of the major content owners is that the current (absurdly protracted) limits are good enough.
- bruce511 5y ago
  Sucking a statistic out of thin air, I'd be amazed if you can get 1% of people to even be aware of copyright terms, much less feel politically motivated to spend political capital fighting Disney. It's the easiest lobbying in the world to extend copyright terms. There are waaay more important one-issue topics on the table than to worry about mickey mouse. If Disney wants to extend it, they will. And if they do there might be 15 seconds of bad press, then the next big story will come along...
  - echelon 5y ago
    Google and other tech companies exist now that would like to see copyright contracted. But maybe none of it matters anyway. As tech improves, the cost to create approaches zero.
    - joshspankit 5y ago
      This is the most concerning part to me: The cost to create will be essentially zero, but the cost to create something that does not already infringe copyright is going to be astronomical since it’s inversely proportional. Imagine if Disney could push a button and create 100 billion characters. You’d probably be infringing the moment you draw your first concept. “20000 of our works have that exact same ‘distinctive’ hairstyle. Cease and desist.”
- joshspankit 5y ago
  This would be a great argument except they’ve already done it. Did people push back when it was expanded past the creator’s death? Or when it was 20 years past? Or when it was pushed worldwide? We’re now at 70 years after the creator’s death, and there’s just far too much money being made. They come up with terms like “modern copyright” and use words like “protection” and “investment”, but at the end of the day it’s big companies using whatever leverage they can in order to stay big.
Seattle3503 5y ago
The last time copyright was extended was in 1998. Copyright was considered a boring topic then, so no one but a few librarians cared about a copyright extension. The political landscape has changed since then. Organizations such as the EFF and even Google would present strong resistance to another extension of copyright.
- joshspankit 5y ago
  I can’t find it now, but I think you’ve missed something important: 1998 may have been the last extension in the US, but they’ve successfully steamrolled that extension in to other countries in the past decade. If someone knows what I’m talking about, please cite. I do not have enough memory shreds for a good Google search. I think it was a “mild” coercion to “bring other countries up to date”, talking about how artists were essentially being robbed in countries where the copyright had not fallen in line with this 50-70 years past the creator’s death.

Disney has bought legislation to extend copyright term every time MM has been up for expiry. Do you have reason to believe history won’t repeat itself this time?

Freak_NL 5y ago

They have to balance the willingness of people to accept copyright as fair with the few benefits extending copyright even further would have. At this point the few bits of intellectual property that will become public domain are so few and mainly of historic interest, that a protracted lobbying attempt (which could fail) would do more harm to their brand than just defending trademarks and existing copyrighted works. I think the generally held view of the major content owners is that the current (absurdly protracted) limits are good enough.

bruce511 5y ago
Sucking a statistic out of thin air, I'd be amazed if you can get 1% of people to even be aware of copyright terms, much less feel politically motivated to spend political capital fighting Disney. It's the easiest lobbying in the world to extend copyright terms. There are waaay more important one-issue topics on the table than to worry about mickey mouse. If Disney wants to extend it, they will. And if they do there might be 15 seconds of bad press, then the next big story will come along...
- echelon 5y ago
  Google and other tech companies exist now that would like to see copyright contracted. But maybe none of it matters anyway. As tech improves, the cost to create approaches zero.
  - joshspankit 5y ago
    This is the most concerning part to me: The cost to create will be essentially zero, but the cost to create something that does not already infringe copyright is going to be astronomical since it’s inversely proportional. Imagine if Disney could push a button and create 100 billion characters. You’d probably be infringing the moment you draw your first concept. “20000 of our works have that exact same ‘distinctive’ hairstyle. Cease and desist.”
joshspankit 5y ago
This would be a great argument except they’ve already done it. Did people push back when it was expanded past the creator’s death? Or when it was 20 years past? Or when it was pushed worldwide? We’re now at 70 years after the creator’s death, and there’s just far too much money being made. They come up with terms like “modern copyright” and use words like “protection” and “investment”, but at the end of the day it’s big companies using whatever leverage they can in order to stay big.

Seattle3503 5y ago

The last time copyright was extended was in 1998. Copyright was considered a boring topic then, so no one but a few librarians cared about a copyright extension. The political landscape has changed since then. Organizations such as the EFF and even Google would present strong resistance to another extension of copyright.

joshspankit 5y ago
I can’t find it now, but I think you’ve missed something important: 1998 may have been the last extension in the US, but they’ve successfully steamrolled that extension in to other countries in the past decade. If someone knows what I’m talking about, please cite. I do not have enough memory shreds for a good Google search. I think it was a “mild” coercion to “bring other countries up to date”, talking about how artists were essentially being robbed in countries where the copyright had not fallen in line with this 50-70 years past the creator’s death.