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Disney robbed us, our children, their children, and possibly generations beyond that with their more-than-a-century copyright terms. I thought about posting th

Disney robbed us, our children, their children, and possibly generations beyond that with their more-than-a-century copyright terms. I thought about posting this comment the other day and decided not to, but your mention of Disney+ stirred the idea in me again. We have so much modern media about Dracula, Sherlock, Cthulhu, etc, a thousand flowers bloom... new movies, new games, new art of all kinds. Disney & friends stole that from us. We won't have a million new takes on (for example) The Hobbit for decades because of them. We have copyright terms of up to 120 years... stuff like Pong was made before I was born and won't be public domain until long after I'm dead. Disney kills culture by ensuring that by the time the copyright expires, no one cares anymore, because no-one was exposed to it in the many decades after it's initial-release profitability (think abandonware, not-in-print books, etc). I think this is true for 99.999% of all works, not the outliers that the corporation milked for a century or more.

op00to 5y ago
Man, what a bummer. People have to come up with new ideas rather than rehashing old ones. How will we ever stay entertained?
- mahogany 5y ago
  Except... Disney heavily relies on rehashing old ideas from the public domain. That same public domain that they fight against. If the Brothers Grimm were still under copyright, would Disney even have been started? For example, you may want to take a look at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Disney_animated_films_based_on_fairy_tales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Disney_animated_films_...
  - yissp 5y ago
    Huh, Snow White (1937) was released 74 years after the death of Jacob Grimm (1863). Didn't Disney lobby for the extension of copyright to 70 years after the author's death? I wonder if that's why they decided on that number.
- andybak 5y ago
  That's not how culture works. Nothing is truly new and most creative works have been variations on those that precede them. The obsession with originality is remarkably recent and doesn't withstand much scrutiny.
- rexreed 5y ago
  No new idea emerges in a vacuum. Every idea builds upon other ideas. Ever heard of the phrase "on the shoulders of giants"?
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  It gets boring re-inventing the wheel over and over again.
josho 5y ago
Really great points. It also manifests in other strange ways that I'd summarize as killing our culture. Think of nursery songs as an example. Recall Little Miss Muffet sitting on a tuffet eating her curds and whey. I mean what is a tuffet, who eats curds and whey? The reason we don't have nursery rhymes in present day is that any of those songs are wrapped up in copyright and can't legally be shared. The only saving grace about your Pong example is that game mechanics aren't copyrightable, so we thankfully have countless clones of Pong to play. Interestingly the same doesn't apply to Tetris, for some reason EA seems to have been able to succeed in largely removing Tetris clones. https://www.gamedesigning.org/gaming/copyright/ https://www.gamedesigning.org/gaming/copyright/
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Sebguer 5y ago
  Here's a case on why Tetris is not copied as easily: https://publicknowledge.org/tetris-copyright-decision-shows-how-complicated-copyright-for-games-can-be/ https://publicknowledge.org/tetris-copyright-decision-shows-... Also, game mechanics can't be copyrighted but they can be patented: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-02-08-warner-bros-finally-secures-patent-for-shadow-of-mordors-nemesis-system https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-02-08-warner-bro...
MugaSofer 5y ago
Kind of funny that you mentioned the Hobbit, given that half the fantasy genre is takes on LotR with the serial numbers filed off. So people have found some partial workarounds.
oehpr 5y ago
There was an was an incident with Games Workshop and fan animation. Games Workshop has set up their own animation studio and decided to go hard against the fan community that grew around the setting. The whole incident made me mad, sure. But what it really made me feel was disenfranchised under the regime we live, as it is. We... are not allowed to LIKE things, unless we do so under a capricious mega corps terms. And whatever release valves our society have are guarded behind financial, logistical, legal barriers, that are just inaccessibly to all but the largest fish with the most to lose. The fact that you like something is and can only be, as far as our culture is concerned, an asset to some corps bottom line. That's it. You're chattel and chattel only. Sit there Consume passively Do not do anything. Every time I see a thing that I like, this thought just stews in the back of my mind. Fandoms are cattle pens. Liking things is a mistake.

op00to 5y ago

Man, what a bummer. People have to come up with new ideas rather than rehashing old ones. How will we ever stay entertained?

mahogany 5y ago
Except... Disney heavily relies on rehashing old ideas from the public domain. That same public domain that they fight against. If the Brothers Grimm were still under copyright, would Disney even have been started? For example, you may want to take a look at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Disney_animated_films_based_on_fairy_tales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Disney_animated_films_...
- yissp 5y ago
  Huh, Snow White (1937) was released 74 years after the death of Jacob Grimm (1863). Didn't Disney lobby for the extension of copyright to 70 years after the author's death? I wonder if that's why they decided on that number.
andybak 5y ago
That's not how culture works. Nothing is truly new and most creative works have been variations on those that precede them. The obsession with originality is remarkably recent and doesn't withstand much scrutiny.
rexreed 5y ago
No new idea emerges in a vacuum. Every idea builds upon other ideas. Ever heard of the phrase "on the shoulders of giants"?
heavyset_go 5y ago
It gets boring re-inventing the wheel over and over again.

josho 5y ago

Really great points. It also manifests in other strange ways that I'd summarize as killing our culture. Think of nursery songs as an example. Recall Little Miss Muffet sitting on a tuffet eating her curds and whey. I mean what is a tuffet, who eats curds and whey? The reason we don't have nursery rhymes in present day is that any of those songs are wrapped up in copyright and can't legally be shared. The only saving grace about your Pong example is that game mechanics aren't copyrightable, so we thankfully have countless clones of Pong to play. Interestingly the same doesn't apply to Tetris, for some reason EA seems to have been able to succeed in largely removing Tetris clones. https://www.gamedesigning.org/gaming/copyright/ https://www.gamedesigning.org/gaming/copyright/

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Sebguer 5y ago
Here's a case on why Tetris is not copied as easily: https://publicknowledge.org/tetris-copyright-decision-shows-how-complicated-copyright-for-games-can-be/ https://publicknowledge.org/tetris-copyright-decision-shows-... Also, game mechanics can't be copyrighted but they can be patented: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-02-08-warner-bros-finally-secures-patent-for-shadow-of-mordors-nemesis-system https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-02-08-warner-bro...

MugaSofer 5y ago

Kind of funny that you mentioned the Hobbit, given that half the fantasy genre is takes on LotR with the serial numbers filed off. So people have found some partial workarounds.

oehpr 5y ago

There was an was an incident with Games Workshop and fan animation. Games Workshop has set up their own animation studio and decided to go hard against the fan community that grew around the setting. The whole incident made me mad, sure. But what it really made me feel was disenfranchised under the regime we live, as it is. We... are not allowed to LIKE things, unless we do so under a capricious mega corps terms. And whatever release valves our society have are guarded behind financial, logistical, legal barriers, that are just inaccessibly to all but the largest fish with the most to lose. The fact that you like something is and can only be, as far as our culture is concerned, an asset to some corps bottom line. That's it. You're chattel and chattel only. Sit there Consume passively Do not do anything. Every time I see a thing that I like, this thought just stews in the back of my mind. Fandoms are cattle pens. Liking things is a mistake.