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I think the best example to work with is Star Wars, or maybe The Lord of the Rings. The harm of eternal copyright is probably best demonstrated with these. Th
by retrac 4y ago
I think the best example to work with is Star Wars, or maybe The Lord of the Rings. The harm of eternal copyright is probably best demonstrated with these. They've both entered popular understanding, becoming casually referenced all over the place. "We need to make a little stop in Mordor first" is probably more widely-understood than most references to Greek mythology at this point.
The people who grew up in the culture permeated with such stories are stunted expressively. Because they're denied the use of an ever-growing share of the tropes and characters of the common culture. Many Disney films themselves are retellings of classic stories in the public domain. If you want to reference the original Cindarella, or Greek mythology, or Oliver Twist, you're free to do so.
You cannot do that with Luke Skywalker, or Aragorn. Now, maybe you shouldn't be able to within the author's life. But how many centuries should we keep this privilege? Would you or I (or Disney) be able to tell a new story about Hercules if copyright had been around 2000 years ago? Imagine Shakespeare still under copyright! No Hamlet or Macbeth characters in any other works without permission. We can strike several important 20th century books right there. In the future, the equivalent of Shakespeare will still be under copyright long, long after they are dead. Derivation and reuse are normal in art. Disney can borrow from the public domain to make Cindarella, but it in turn will never become public domain.
- anjbe 4y agoStar Wars is a particularly salient example because the original cuts that made the films such cultural icons are completely unavailable from anyone other than third‐party sellers, due to the wishes of the (former) rights holder. After the Special Editions were released, the theatrical editions made it onto DVD one time, and never did again. J.J. Abrams has indicated that there are difficulties behind the scenes (perhaps some clause in the Disney purchase) that prevent the originals from being made available for sale. So people who want to avoid the CGI and bad redubs of the Special Editions are stuck scrounging eBay, or more likely, grabbing an “unofficial” scan of the theatrical editions.
- thefringthing 4y ago> the theatrical editions made it onto DVD one time Even then, it wasn't really what was being asked for by fans. The goal at that time was to get LucasFilm to release the pre-Special Edition versions of the movies, which were available on VHS and Laserdisc, on DVD at DVD resolution. LucasFilm insisted that it was impossible to reassemble the negatives and that they had no suitable print from which to produce a new digital scan. Instead, they released digitized copies of the Laserdiscs on DVD bonus discs. Since then, enthusiasts have managed to produce Blu-ray resolution versions of the original movies first by piecing together a variety of sources and later by acquiring and scanning surviving prints.
- gibspaulding 4y agoYou may have avoided mentioning this on purpose, but I'll go for it. The "Despecialized Editions" [1] of the original Star Wars trilogy are an amazing project to take the HD special editions and edit out all of the changes to match the theatrical edition. They look a lot better than the scans I've seen, but still match the old VHS box set I grew up watching. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmy's_Despecialized_Edition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmy's_Despecialized_Edition
- FlingPoo 4y agoAnother project to fully restore the original Star Wars trilogy is 4K77/4K80/4K83 [1] [1] https://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/ https://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/
- pvaldes 4y agoLord of the Rings drinks from European mythology, and Star Wars toke more than a few clues from a particular film of Kurosawa. Both evolved in interesting histories, innovated a lot and add their own work and merit, of course. This happened in part because they were not sued by former authors.
- pvaldes 4y agoOh, I almost forgot it... and Star wars toke also "more than inspiration" from the french comic Valerian. The designs from the imperial probe droid in Hoth or the Leia's bikini were taken directly from the comics with minimum changes, and without asking anybody. This, lets call it, "cross pollination" would be much more difficult today.