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Mickey, Disney, and the public domain: A 95-year love triangle
- wdb 3y agoThis going to cause so much problems as it is only the steamboat willie’s Mickey which looks different from modern Mickey.
- simonblack 3y agoDisney has a lot to answer for. They may have gained from the constant increase of the copyright period, but the World of Performing Arts has lost decades and decades of books, film and music that was too good to lose but not popular enough to be preserved. They've all fallen into the dead hole of oblivion. The World's loss, but Disney doesn't care. Everything they get their grubby little fingers on turns to shit. There is a reason a lot of us boycott Disney.
- shmerl 3y agoMickey Mouse curve finally is defeated. Now it should be beaten back down which is harder.
- b112 3y agoYou could freeze it, sorta. So it is 94, then 93, then 92 and so on, years. People with copyrights today, don't lose anything. Only new ones have shorter terms.
- shmerl 3y agoThat's better than nothing, but since it was pushed so aggressively before, it can as well be pushed backwards the same way.
- ronsor 3y agoAt this point, I think the only way copyright terms could be reduced is a Constitutional amendment (not going to happen).
- shmerl 3y agoWere increases considered constitutional amendments? If they could happen, then what's the problem to revert it?
- ronsor 3y agoI think it's more so that you're not going to convince politicians to reduce it (they have no incentive), and even if they do reduce it, there's no way to stop them from raising it again.
- bentley 3y agoPrevious copyright extensions were not constitutional amendments. Decreasing the length of new copyright terms could be done the same way, without any need for an amendment. Reducing the length of existing copyright terms might be considered an ex post facto law. Those are explicitly prohibited by the Constitution. The Constitution states that copyrights must be limited in length. Retroactively extending the duration of existing copyrights (as opposed to new copyrights) should be unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court said in Eldred v. Ashcroft that it’s fine—wrongly, in my opinion. Correcting them would require an amendment.
- ronsor 3y ago> Reducing the length of existing copyright terms might be considered an ex post facto law. It's arguable that "about a century" was not what the drafters of the Constitution had in mind when writing "a limited time", but convincing the Supreme Court of that would be harder than an actual amendment. But isn't the ex post facto prohibition mainly related to consequences of past actions rather than general public policy? No one is going to jail because copyright terms were reduced to 15 years from 95. I think such a reduction would definitely be constitutional if it were phrased as "all new copyright terms will be XYZ, and existing ones will expire XYZ from the effective date of this act," but I'm not totally convinced that's necessary.
- maxerickson 3y agoYou aren't taking away anything from grants that don't exist yet, so just reduce the term for new copyrights and Steamboat Willy is your uncle. Takes longer than changing the terms of existing grants, but so what.
- bfeist 3y agoUnfortunately there’s no lobby paying the bills equivalent to Disney to go the other way.
- bentley 3y agoIt’s difficult because the most recent extensions were put in place to synchronize US copyright with the absurd durations pioneered by Europe and the Berne Convention. In effect, the US has allowed international treaties to supersede the Constitution’s requirement that copyright last “for limited times.”
- shmerl 3y agoI think it went the other way around. Corrupt US industries first pushed those conventions and then pressured US legislature to "synchronize" with them. It's all a big pile of corrupt BS that tries to bypass normal lawmaking, so pushing back against it should be only natural.
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- pinkmuffinere 3y agoI'm not familiar with the background here, so I just checked on Wikipedia. It says "After the United States' accession to the Berne convention, a number of copyright owners successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress for another extension of the term of copyright, to provide for the same term of protection that exists in Europe." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act#:~:text=After%20the%20United%20States%27%20accession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act#:...) This would seem to indicate that the parent was right -- the long extension to copyright is because the US decided to match Europe's protections. Although, on second reading of your comment, I wonder if you mean that US companies convinced Europe to provide longer protections, with the intent to then make the US match the policies they pushed in Europe? That seems very elaborate
- shmerl 3y agoIt's not far fetched and is a known trick in their book. Example: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/ustr-secret-copyright-agreements-worldwide https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/ustr-secret-copyright-...
- andsoitis 3y agoOn the other hand, Disney itself is a talented and successful practitioner of building upon the public domain. In fact, the public domain is Disney’s bread and butter. Frozen was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. The Lion King draws from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Biblical stories, and possibly an epic poem about the founder of the Mali Empire.[3] Fantasia showcases public domain classical music, and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” segment comes from a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, and Pinocchio came from stories by Lewis Carroll, The Brothers Grimm, Victor Hugo, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Anderson, and Carlo Collodi.
- cocacola1 3y agoDisney is both the best and worst when it comes to the public domain. It shows what you should do with it: take something that exists, remix it, release it, and even create a successful media & entertainment company. But efforts to aid extensions to the term of copyright expiration will – if they haven't already – have a deleterious effect.
- chii 3y ago> shows what you should do with it: take something that exists, remix it, release it, and even create a successful media & entertainment company. and also shows you what to do to prevent other people from doing the same so that you get a monopoly.
- ddingus 3y agoHad the Brothers Grimm taken the Disney view, there would have been no Disney, or at the least, a very different, far less compelling one.
- goto11 3y agoThe Grimm Brothers didn't write the stories, they collected and published folktales. In any case they would have been been out of copyright since Jacob Grimm died in 1863. Disney didn't mind paying for the rights if they wanted to use material still under copyright, like they did for Bambi or Dumbo or many others.
- Joel_Mckay 3y agoUse its likeness to summon Disney trademark lawyers in a shamanistic ritual. =)
- candiddevmike 3y agoWas there a copyright reason for Disney changing their opening logo sequence to the steamboat willy thing? Some kind of "it's now our trademark" claim?
- OedipusRex 3y agoI think it was to mirror Marvel's intro showing the history of the brand.
- eddieroger 3y agoThis was my more generous, less cynical take as well. Disney has been approaching their 100 year anniversary (not passed), and Steamboat Willie was the first animated short under the banner of Walt Disney Animation Studios. It makes sense to honor one's first at one's hundredth.
- EvanAnderson 3y agoI've seen a lot of speculation that they've been slowly pivoting Steamboat Willie in preparation to use trademark litigation where copyright will no longer be effective.
- bentley 3y agoThis kind of thing has been attempted in the past. For example, after the Lego brick patents expired, Lego sued Mega Bloks (in Canada) claiming a trademark over the design of the brick. They lost the case, because the Supreme Court (of Canada) ruled you can’t double‐dip on IP protection by turning a functional (i.e., patentable) design into a trademark. Disney putting Steamboat Willie in their logo is unlikely to actually allow Disney to effectively extend restrictions on the cartoon—but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a calculated move to deter people from reproducing Steamboat Willie after its liberation simply by the implicit threat of expensive litigation from a very large team of lawyers.
- JoshTriplett 3y ago
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- foob 3y agoMy pet theory is that the only reason we didn't see a copyright extension act this year, like we've seen every time Steamboat Willy was about to enter the public domain in the past, is that Disney ended up on one side of the culture wars with what went on in Florida. It's far more difficult to get bipartisan support for robbing the public of what should be in the public domain once you've involved yourself in partisan politics.
- raincole 3y agoIt might not be the only reason, but I think it's a good insight. It's also a reminder that when something "has bipartisan support" should be a red flag: it usually means it's another way the government is robbing from you (the public).
- smsm42 3y agoWell, if it doesn't have bipartisan support it still could be - and often is - another way the government is robbing from you, just only one set of partisans gets to benefit from it for some reason, so the other set is objecting.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jancsika 3y agoHow was the government robbing us with the First Step Act? That's smack dab in the middle of the Trump Administration, complete with Democratic support and Koch Foundation support. Also, the recent bipartisan bill to keep the government open literally did the opposite of robbing the public. Here's a good one to check your insight: the so-called "Bipartisan Safer Communities Act." You've got Republicans helping to pass gun-control legislation of all things during the Biden administration! That's certainly a red flag if I ever saw one. So what is the way this law is being used to fleece people?
- raincole 3y ago> Here's a good one to check your insight: the so-called "Bipartisan Safer Communities Act." You've got Republicans helping to pass gun-control legislation of all things during the Biden administration! That's certainly a red flag if I ever saw one. So what is the way this law is being used to fleece people? It's a good example, but (to me) for the opposite reason of what you implied. Let's see if gun violence and mass shootings stats will actually decrease in 5 or 10 years from now then.
- airstrike 3y ago(Someone else had referenced this but their comment has vanished for some reason...) Maybe you can make an FPS game with it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av3K-PEEF1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av3K-PEEF1c
- Dwedit 3y agoYou need to look at the contemporary advertisements for Mickey Mouse from the era. Were they in color? Was he red? According to what is stated to be a 1928 poster, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mickey-mouse-poster_n_2149610 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mickey-mouse-poster_n_2149610 , he is depicted with a red shirt, white buttons, yellow gloves, and brown shoes.
- qingcharles 3y agoWow, good find. That poster could be huge for IP lawyers in the next few weeks.
- logicallee 3y agowhat is in the middle of his palm?
- inejge 3y agoHe's wearing dress gloves with a cutout and button closure. When closed, the cutout leaves a small opening, which is a bit stylized and exaggerated here.
- muzani 3y agoWas it originally yellow gloves? That's an old poster.
- masfuerte 3y agoThe estimate of $20,000 for that poster seemed surprisingly low. It went for $101,000. (This was back in 2012.) https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-20552258 https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-20552258
- dclowd9901 3y agoI’m curious as to how the copyright pertains to the 2013 iteration of Mickey, which is similar in design to the original Mickey Mouse design.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- inkcapmushroom 3y agoThe article covers it. If the 2013 Mickey is similar enough to Steamboat Willie to consider it the same character, then the 2013 version is a derivative work and does nothing to change Steamboat Willie entering the public domain. If it's substantially different enough to constitute a new character then it does nothing to change Steamboat Willie entering public domain. So either way it does not change what's happening in the new year, but Disney lawyers could argue that the new character is substantially different, so if you want to avoid getting sued base any of your works on the original Steamboat Willie and avoid any characteristics that make the 2013 version different.
- m3kw9 3y agoSo is using mickey full of land mines? If you use it incorrectly and accidentally use variations of it that still have copyright, you risk getting sued
- m3kw9 3y agoDamn you better be a copyright lawyer to use this, I just read at least 2-3 gotchas by skimming the article
- kshacker 3y agoI can see people taking 2-3 paths 1. Wait 5-10 years to see how others do it, then follow their path 2. Line up some copyright lawyers and maybe EFF etc 3. Defeat someone smaller, someone with 1/100 the clout of Disney and build a case law there
- sircastor 3y agoIt's important to remember that none of these laws give you permission to do anything. The only thing the law does is give a judge, or a panel of judges, or a jury, a set of guidelines to evaluate whether or not you violated that law and can be fined or punished. If you use it in a way that violates copyright, or in a way that a lawyer responsible for the IP thinks violates copyright then you can hire a lawyer to try to convince someone that your use of the IP doesn't violate copyright.
- gnopgnip 3y agoIn Lenz v. Universal the courts found that the rights holder does need to consider fair use, and if they do not before sending a DMCA takedown they are liable
- Dwedit 3y agoThere's only one thing required in a DMCA takedown, and that is the claim that the person issuing the takedown is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright holder. That's it. No requirement to consider fair use, or even any requirement that the allegedly infringed work is correctly identified.
- sharkski 3y agoI plan on uploading a BD rip of Steamboat Willie to YouTube at midnight January 1st, 2024. I'm curious if a copyright strike will happen and if I can defeat it.
- qingcharles 3y agoNot all heroes wear capes! Taking one for the team, my good fellow! p.s. make sure to exfiltrate everything of value from your attached Google account before you hit Upload.
- ISL 3y agoMight be careful about discerning which midnight applies.
- simondotau 3y agoSuch nuance only matters if you end up in a courtroom, which you never would because it would be beyond absurd.
- ISL 3y agoAbsurd court cases exist.
- CSSer 3y agoIf I recall correctly, it will and there’s nothing you can do about it. This came up recently on HN. Someone tried to post something that is definitely in the public domain as of this year, got a strike, and was asking how they’re supposed to appeal but was told the system is designed to be abused. It implicitly favors copyright holders even when it shouldn’t. There’s no built-in fairness, and to be honest I’m posting this because I hope someone will tell me I’m wrong.
- joshspankit 3y agoIt sounds like the “malicious compliance” move is to mark Steamboat Willie as your own copyright work so that you are the one to decide whether it sticks. For those that don’t know, this is based off an often-abused tactic: take the original music of someone who has not registered it and register it instead of them. Once done, they file copyright strikes and/or file to have the creator’s monetization funds deposited in to the abuser’s account since the abuser is the “rightful owner”.
- DarkmSparks 3y agojust realised, apart from the 3 circles, i wouldn't recognise any of the "authentic" mickeys.
- dehrmann 3y agoDisney has put so much effort into building Mickey Mouse as a brand that I don't mind all the protections they get. Plus, he's more of an icon than a character, so he's more likely to be an already-allowed stand-in for commentary on Disney (a la South Park) than people telling new stories with him.
- feider 3y agoYou don’t seem to be bothered by the ramifications of this. Really short sighted thinking.
- coldtea 3y ago>Disney has put so much effort into building Mickey Mouse as a brand that I don't mind all the protections they get. The law wasn't meant to extend protections based on "effort", but based on time, - for reasons of enriching the public domain and general culture. Also Disney isn't a person, it's a company, and as such it put zero effort. People working at Disney put the effort, including many people fired, discriminated, compensated badly, and generally fucked over by Disney.
- ioblomov 3y agoSurprised the article didn’t mention what for me (as a horror fan) was the most famous example of the public domain immediately benefiting the culture. Due to repeated edits requested by a demanding distributor, the final cut of Night of the Living Dead was released without a copyright notice. In 1968, unfortunately, this meant the work automatically went into the public domain. The film’s subsequent unexpected success led to zombies becoming a pop-culture phenomenon, but perhaps at George Romero’s expense.
- zinekeller 3y ago> unfortunately, this meant the work automatically went into the public domain To clarify, only in the US (and a few others not following the Berne convention). Night of the Living Dead is still in copyright for 95%-ish of the world (unlike some people insisting that "It's Public Domain worldwide." because sadly that doesn't how copyright works.) This is of course more complicated (rule of shorter term may be applied here but that's a can of worms), but generally US copyright regime was weird (and still kind of is since that other countries do have a separate moral and economic rights).
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- skrebbel 3y agoI’m confused that not adding a copyright notice automatically donates something to the public domain. This is not how I learned copyright works. I always believed that you own the copyright to everything you produce unless explicitly noted otherwise. A sister comment suggests that this was some feature (bug?) of US copyright law at the time, can anyone elaborate?
- valleyer 3y agoAutomatic application of copyright law to creative works came about in the U.S. after it became a signatory to the Berne Convention, in 1988. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_Implementation_Act_of_1988 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_Implementatio...
- pie_flavor 3y agoIt's incredibly ironic that under the copyright terms Disney has helped get enacted, several earlier films in particular Alice in Wonderland would have been infringement. Crossing a rope bridge and cutting it down behind you.
- HenryBemis 3y ago> Crossing a rope bridge and cutting it down behind you. Heads they win. Tails you lose.
- bazoom42 3y agoThis isn’t some clever gotcha. Disney didn’t mind paying for the rights to adapt copyrighted material, like they did for Bambi, Dumbo, Peter Pan etc.
- oblio 3y ago> Disney didn’t mind paying for the rights to adapt copyrighted material, like they did for Bambi, Dumbo, Peter Pan etc. Because the copyright holders at the time were much smaller and less astute. You try to get the rights for a TV show based on Frozen. Disney will probably not sell those rights to you at any price.
- bazoom42 3y agoProbabably not - do you think they should?
- oblio 3y agoHave you seen the post I was replying to?
- bazoom42 3y agoYou mean the comment written by me? This is a very tedious way of arguing - if you have a point, why dont you make it? You think Disney IP should be free for all to use? Just remember this would go both ways - Disney could take the work of any independent author or artist and use freely without crediting.
- sparrowInHand 3y agoUnfair compromise suggestion: Exempt Disney from the law and shrink the public domain? Acknowledge reality and create competition for those who are beyond the law, instead of them destroying the law for all?
- Mindwipe 3y agoThe idea that the current lengths of copyright law are anything to do with Disney is a nice fiction but it's not true. The US has the copyright terms they have is because they were obligated to match the EU's by international treaty (where copyright is, in most cases, the end of the year 70 years after the author dies). The EU adopted that term to harmonise it's copyright with that of Germany. Disney certainly didn't object to a copyright extension in the US, but they weren't the driving force behind it, trade deals with the EU were, and the EU is not going to allow the US to reduce their term in a million years (and nor are the many other international signatories who have harmonised their term at a similar period since).
- tialaramex 3y ago> they were obligated to match the EU's by international treaty Nope. "We have to align to the more generous terms in territory X" is almost always one rationale offered for expansions, everywhere. There is no such treaty requirement. What the US is obligated to do by treaty is give everybody else's copyrights the same benefits their own get in their country. The reason this rationale is used is that it's cover to grow copyright indefinitely because you insist on "aligning" only with other people's more favourable terms, but of course in the process you also uprate the places where your terms were already most favourable, thus ensuring other countries with the same practice will likewise re-align, so this ping-pongs forever.
- amiga386 3y agoThe USA unilaterally passed the Copyright Act of 1976, extending copyright to life + 50 years. The reason it did this was because the oldest works still enjoying copyright protection would have expired in 1977. Only in 1988 did the USA accede to the Berne Convention, and in 1990 acceded to the WTO TRIPS agreement. The EU didn't exist until 1993 (the EEC preceeded it) and the EU didn't try harmonising copyright law even among its own member states until 1993. The EU and USA don't have any trade deals, their last attempt (TTIP) went down in flames. And then came the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act In 1998, the USA extended its copyright terms - not because any international convention or trade agreement required them to. Again, the timing was because the oldest works still enjoying copyright protection would have expired in 1998. As Disney was openly lobbying Congress, and Mickey was due to enter the public domain in 1999, it becomes fairly clear why the USA did this. Nothing to do with Europe.
- praveen9920 3y agoIt feels like openAI and LLMs are going through similar phase as Disney and Mickey did 95 years ago. OpenAI pushing for regulation in AI, they benefiting from external research etc
- User23 3y agoDisney will still C&D and sue anyone that uses Mickey in a way they disapprove of and 99% will fold because otherwise Disney will bankrupt them with the legal process.
- tacocataco 3y agoSo some are more equal then others?
- jbverschoor 3y agoSo Mickey expired. But how does it work for creations by Disney? Will they expire on an ongoing basis? By creation I mean: - The actual drawings - The animations - The story lines
- delecti 3y agoYes, on an ongoing basis. It's why (for example) there are now non-Disney adaptations of Winnie the Pooh, but none of them have him in a red shirt, which is a detail added later by Disney.
- throw7 3y agoMy cynical take: Disney let copyrights expire so they could mine for newer ideas for their films. Presumably, rebooting stories and changing the skin color wasn't cutting it.
- bannedbybros 3y ago[dead]
- jfengel 3y agoIt sounds like Disney lawyers are gearing up to issue thousands of trademark infringement suits. They have lost copyright on "Steamboat Willie" but they haven't lost trademark of Mickey Mouse, which lasts forever. I don't know where the limits of Steamboat Willie end, but I bet an awful lot of people are going to read headlines like "Disney about to lose Mickey Mouse copyright" and find themselves in very hot water very quickly. I don't even really know why Disney bothered to go to such lengths for a short film that makes them no money. But I suspect it saves the legal department money compared to giving a lot of very expensive lessons on the difference between copyright and trademark.