4 ms·

They stopped doing that a while ago. They realized it didn't matter and was more beneficial for them so they can scoop up more public domain and make more movi

They stopped doing that a while ago. They realized it didn't matter and was more beneficial for them so they can scoop up more public domain and make more movies out of it.

phist_mcgee 4y ago
Kids don't care about Mickey they care about Rocket Raccoon.
- Pet_Ant 4y ago
  Yeah, I realised my children, barely a decade old, don't really know the cartoon characters I took for evergreen as a child: Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry, Yogi Bear, Woody Woodpecker and Rocky & Bullwinkle. I mean they could probably name all of them, but don't really have an attachment or think they belong to a pantheon of any sorts. I assume that companies foresaw this coming and decided not to invest in further developing or promoting characters that they couldn't have exclusive merchandising rights for the foreseeable future. Just making money off a new movie isn't enough if you can't have sole rights to license the t-shirts and have the current children introduce it to their children.
  - jedberg 4y ago
    They aren't stuck with 6 TV channels to choose from and they don't have the privilege of Saturday morning cartoons to introduce all of them. They have curated experiences on streaming apps.
  - gus_massa 4y ago
    I tested with my 5 years old daughter: * She knows Mikey and Minie, I was sure about that, but I asked her anyway what kind of animal they are. [Hi from Argentina. In Spanish(es-ar) it's not obvious that "Mikey Mouse" is a "ratón".] She likes them. * Surprisingly, she knows Tom and Jerry, but she thinks it's a cat and two mice (??). I guess my brother show her a few cartoons (??), and in some of them Jerry has a friend (??). * All the other are dead. They have been good characters.
    - flobosg 4y ago
      > but she thinks it's a cat and two mice (??) > and in some of them Jerry has a friend (??) That’s probably Nibbles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibbles_(Tom_and_Jerry) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibbles_(Tom_and_Jerry)
  - joshspankit 4y ago
    And yet; if those characters were public domain they might be alive and well in the imagination of children today.
jonny_eh 4y ago
It's incredible the amount of damage they've done in the meantime. If only they can rollback the changes they, and their lackeys, pushed through.
- weregiraffe 4y ago
  >It's incredible the amount of damage they've done in the meantime How can you quantify this damage?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
MaxBarraclough 4y ago
> They realized it didn't matter and was more beneficial for them so they can scoop up more public domain and make more movies out of it. I don't have anything concrete to back this up, but it seems more likely to me that they just don't see much potential revenue in content from the 1920's, so they see little to be gained from further spending on copyright-extension lobbying. Put another way, they've already succeeded. Copyright terms aren't actually unending, but in profit terms (or practical terms more broadly) the difference is minimal.
- zerocrates 4y ago
  Doesn't really make sense, as these same 20s works were the ones that were kept out of the public domain the first time around with the Copyright Term Extension Act.
  - MaxBarraclough 4y ago
    Good point. Follow-on question then: why did they push for it last time? Was 1920's content more valuable at that time?

They stopped doing that a while ago. They realized it didn't matter and was more beneficial for them so they can scoop up more public domain and make more movies out of it.

phist_mcgee 4y ago

Kids don't care about Mickey they care about Rocket Raccoon.

Pet_Ant 4y ago
Yeah, I realised my children, barely a decade old, don't really know the cartoon characters I took for evergreen as a child: Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry, Yogi Bear, Woody Woodpecker and Rocky & Bullwinkle. I mean they could probably name all of them, but don't really have an attachment or think they belong to a pantheon of any sorts. I assume that companies foresaw this coming and decided not to invest in further developing or promoting characters that they couldn't have exclusive merchandising rights for the foreseeable future. Just making money off a new movie isn't enough if you can't have sole rights to license the t-shirts and have the current children introduce it to their children.
- jedberg 4y ago
  They aren't stuck with 6 TV channels to choose from and they don't have the privilege of Saturday morning cartoons to introduce all of them. They have curated experiences on streaming apps.
- gus_massa 4y ago
  I tested with my 5 years old daughter: * She knows Mikey and Minie, I was sure about that, but I asked her anyway what kind of animal they are. [Hi from Argentina. In Spanish(es-ar) it's not obvious that "Mikey Mouse" is a "ratón".] She likes them. * Surprisingly, she knows Tom and Jerry, but she thinks it's a cat and two mice (??). I guess my brother show her a few cartoons (??), and in some of them Jerry has a friend (??). * All the other are dead. They have been good characters.
  - flobosg 4y ago
    > but she thinks it's a cat and two mice (??) > and in some of them Jerry has a friend (??) That’s probably Nibbles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibbles_(Tom_and_Jerry) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibbles_(Tom_and_Jerry)
- joshspankit 4y ago
  And yet; if those characters were public domain they might be alive and well in the imagination of children today.

jonny_eh 4y ago

It's incredible the amount of damage they've done in the meantime. If only they can rollback the changes they, and their lackeys, pushed through.

weregiraffe 4y ago
>It's incredible the amount of damage they've done in the meantime How can you quantify this damage?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

MaxBarraclough 4y ago

> They realized it didn't matter and was more beneficial for them so they can scoop up more public domain and make more movies out of it. I don't have anything concrete to back this up, but it seems more likely to me that they just don't see much potential revenue in content from the 1920's, so they see little to be gained from further spending on copyright-extension lobbying. Put another way, they've already succeeded. Copyright terms aren't actually unending, but in profit terms (or practical terms more broadly) the difference is minimal.

zerocrates 4y ago
Doesn't really make sense, as these same 20s works were the ones that were kept out of the public domain the first time around with the Copyright Term Extension Act.
- MaxBarraclough 4y ago
  Good point. Follow-on question then: why did they push for it last time? Was 1920's content more valuable at that time?