6 ms·

I can't really fault Disney for this. Mickey Mouse is one of the most recognizable symbols/brands on earth. The difference between Disney and McDonalds and Coc

I can't really fault Disney for this. Mickey Mouse is one of the most recognizable symbols/brands on earth. The difference between Disney and McDonalds and Coca Cola is that there isn't an expectation we all get unfettered access to use the Golden Arches or the Coke logo. Disney is still making new IP with Mickey Mouse; why should they be expected to give up their rights to their most recognizable character that they're still making things for? So I'd say this isn't so much the result of Disney, as it is the result of bad legislation and possibly outdated expectations about intellectual property that hasn't been updated to reflect reality.

salient 13y ago
I'm still not convinced any one entity deserves to keep a creation for so long under monopoly given by the society (some interesting discussions in 1869 [1] about this), but let's assume they do. I'd still like to see a system where you only get copyright for new works for 5 years. Then you have to pay $1,000 to renew it for another 5 years. And then the fee increases geometrically (and also adjusted to inflation), to something like $1 million+ after 50+ years, because if the work is worth that much to you after so much time, then you should be able to pay for it, and it would also "give back" to the society that keeps granting you the monopoly for that work. Then the average lifetime of copyright monopolies should be around 15 years, which is actually about what it was when copyright laws were first created (the average would be dragged down a lot by people who wouldn't care about stuff they made in a week enough to pay $1,000 5 years later, but most of the "real works" that would be worth it, will probably have it for around 30 years or so. We see it with books that after 10 years most of them are basically dead, and nobody cares about them anymore (can't find that link right now, but some of you probably know what I'm referring to). There are some "Mickeys" here and there that are relevant 100 years later under copyright, but it's more like 1 in a million works. The rest is abandoned - but it still retains the copyright on it so nobody can re-use it to improve the culture of the society (even if it just means having a company like Google find all the old books and digitize them, something they've barely won, and is actually getting appealed right now). I think that's just wrong. [1] - http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130503/17414322946/discussions-abolition-patents-uk-france-germany-netherlands-1869.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130503/17414322946/discus...
- acjohnson55 13y ago
  I like the sound of that a lot. If your copyright is really profitable, you should be able to afford to pay for its protection. Should this perhaps apply to patent law as well?
  - throwawaykf03 13y ago
    For patents, you do have to pay maintenance fees to renew a patent at the 3.5, 7.5 and 11.5 year marks after issuance to keep it active, else it goes abandoned. A vast number of patents go un-renewed and lapse that (1) few patents turn out to be "profitable", and (2) most patents don't last their full terms.
    - acjohnson55 13y ago
      The geometric part of the idea is what really caught my eye. I think there's something to be said for a steeply escalating cost for maintaining publicly protected monopoly rights.
- nitrogen 13y ago
  I'd prefer a fixed copyright term that applies to everyone, possibly with different terms for different industries. That way rich and powerful studios enjoy the same protections as starving first-time novelists. It would be grossly unfair for some small open source project to enter the public domain after five years, allowing commercial developers to fire most of their R&D staff and just assimilate five year old OSS without paying it forward. For that matter, any large publisher would just have to bury new authors in obscurity for five years to be able to steal their work for free. I understand a compounding registration fee is meant to appease the behemoths who can afford it, but such a plan would end up working in their favor. Copyright protects more than the ability to commercialize a work. The terms must be shortened, but they must also be blind to the wealth of the copyright owner. I propose instead, as an example for discussion, a fixed term for duplication rights of 14 years from publication (+/- some years depending on industry), with a single low-cost renewal. For moral rights, life of the author plus a few years, with a 100 year maximum (people are living longer these days).
stinkytaco 13y ago
They would not be relinquishing their trademarks or the rights to make more Mickey Mouse movies. Nor would this necessarily mean that the character of Mickey Mouse would go into the public domain. Simply that the discrete works would now be public domain. There are Donald Duck works in the public domain (Spirit of '43) and that doesn't seem to impact their bottom line terribly.
- Touche 13y ago
  These days kids barely know who Donald Duck or Mickey are. I wonder how much of that is because Disney intentionally invests in other IP that isn't under this threat.
  - Avenger42 13y ago
    There's a newly-created Mickey Mouse series on Disney Channel; from what little I've seen of it, Mickey's look is much more of a throwback to the Steamboat Willie age. Also, when I saw Frozen at the theater a couple of weeks ago, there was an old-style Mickey cartoon before the picture (albeit one that broke the fourth wall in ways I don't believe the old cartoons did).
    - Touche 13y ago
      Maybe I'm being nostalgic but Mickey used to be a big movie star and now he's relegated to mostly direct-to-dvd. He was still immensely popular through the 1980s with rereleases of Fantasia in theaters, Mickey's Christmas Carol, etc. Now it seems unimaginable that he'd star in a big budget Disney film. It seems reasonable to me that they are preferring IP that was created post-1976 for a reason.
      - judk 13y ago
        Does Disney have any long recurring characters in its new films? Most are threequels at most this generation.
  - grahamburger 13y ago
dmm 13y ago
Disney was never threatened with losing their trademarks only the copyrights on very old cartoons.
jessriedel 13y ago
I think you're confused. Disney is free to make new Mickey Mouse movies, and those will be protected by copyright. Likewise, they can register Mickey Mouse as a trademark for certain business situations so no one is ever tricked into thinking a 3rd party product is endorsed by Disney. Buy what they absolutely shouldn't have is the ability to prevent other people from writing new Mickey stories, from watching 70 year old Mickey cartoons on YouTube, or from selling black plastic hats with Mickey Mouse ears. How could you dispute this? If you do, why shouldn't Shakespeare's estate keep exclusive rights to all his works?
- stinkytaco 13y ago
  While I agree with you in principle, some of the specifics I take issue with: 1. Writing new Mickey stories - This is an odd legal/moral area for me. It's not unreasonable for Disney to want to protect Mickey and if you wrote a Mickey story, it's possible that people could feel that a 3rd party product is endorsed by Disney. That could affect Disney's future business. Distributing Steamboat Willy on YouTube will not. 2. Mickey Mouse ears - Pretty clearly a trademark violation. Outside of the domain of copyright entirely. I don't mean to nitpick, but I don't think it helps to confuse different types of intellectual property in this discussion. Steamboat Willy is a discreet work of art that should enter the public domain. As should all other works from that time. That is good for society and really has no bearing on anyone's ability to create commercially viable works of art (other than derivative works such as a Steamboat Willy stage play or novelization). The brand of Mickey is separate and Disney has a legitimate (though perhaps not legitimate enough, I'll admit) interest in protecting it. Part of the problem is they are deceiving people into conflating the two issues to protect a supplementary revenue stream and control their brand.
  - zanny 13y ago
    > t's possible that people could feel that a 3rd party product is endorsed by Disney. No it isn't, that isn't how the world works. If you take public domain material and utilize it in your own way there is no semblance of reason to think the original creator of said material endorsed you. I don't know if you are talking about how we are now living in a world where basically nobody alive has experienced material entering public domain, but it isn't a nebulous area.

salient 13y ago

I'm still not convinced any one entity deserves to keep a creation for so long under monopoly given by the society (some interesting discussions in 1869 [1] about this), but let's assume they do. I'd still like to see a system where you only get copyright for new works for 5 years. Then you have to pay $1,000 to renew it for another 5 years. And then the fee increases geometrically (and also adjusted to inflation), to something like $1 million+ after 50+ years, because if the work is worth that much to you after so much time, then you should be able to pay for it, and it would also "give back" to the society that keeps granting you the monopoly for that work. Then the average lifetime of copyright monopolies should be around 15 years, which is actually about what it was when copyright laws were first created (the average would be dragged down a lot by people who wouldn't care about stuff they made in a week enough to pay $1,000 5 years later, but most of the "real works" that would be worth it, will probably have it for around 30 years or so. We see it with books that after 10 years most of them are basically dead, and nobody cares about them anymore (can't find that link right now, but some of you probably know what I'm referring to). There are some "Mickeys" here and there that are relevant 100 years later under copyright, but it's more like 1 in a million works. The rest is abandoned - but it still retains the copyright on it so nobody can re-use it to improve the culture of the society (even if it just means having a company like Google find all the old books and digitize them, something they've barely won, and is actually getting appealed right now). I think that's just wrong. [1] - http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130503/17414322946/discussions-abolition-patents-uk-france-germany-netherlands-1869.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130503/17414322946/discus...

acjohnson55 13y ago
I like the sound of that a lot. If your copyright is really profitable, you should be able to afford to pay for its protection. Should this perhaps apply to patent law as well?
- throwawaykf03 13y ago
  For patents, you do have to pay maintenance fees to renew a patent at the 3.5, 7.5 and 11.5 year marks after issuance to keep it active, else it goes abandoned. A vast number of patents go un-renewed and lapse that (1) few patents turn out to be "profitable", and (2) most patents don't last their full terms.
  - acjohnson55 13y ago
    The geometric part of the idea is what really caught my eye. I think there's something to be said for a steeply escalating cost for maintaining publicly protected monopoly rights.
nitrogen 13y ago
I'd prefer a fixed copyright term that applies to everyone, possibly with different terms for different industries. That way rich and powerful studios enjoy the same protections as starving first-time novelists. It would be grossly unfair for some small open source project to enter the public domain after five years, allowing commercial developers to fire most of their R&D staff and just assimilate five year old OSS without paying it forward. For that matter, any large publisher would just have to bury new authors in obscurity for five years to be able to steal their work for free. I understand a compounding registration fee is meant to appease the behemoths who can afford it, but such a plan would end up working in their favor. Copyright protects more than the ability to commercialize a work. The terms must be shortened, but they must also be blind to the wealth of the copyright owner. I propose instead, as an example for discussion, a fixed term for duplication rights of 14 years from publication (+/- some years depending on industry), with a single low-cost renewal. For moral rights, life of the author plus a few years, with a 100 year maximum (people are living longer these days).

stinkytaco 13y ago

They would not be relinquishing their trademarks or the rights to make more Mickey Mouse movies. Nor would this necessarily mean that the character of Mickey Mouse would go into the public domain. Simply that the discrete works would now be public domain. There are Donald Duck works in the public domain (Spirit of '43) and that doesn't seem to impact their bottom line terribly.

Touche 13y ago
These days kids barely know who Donald Duck or Mickey are. I wonder how much of that is because Disney intentionally invests in other IP that isn't under this threat.
- Avenger42 13y ago
  There's a newly-created Mickey Mouse series on Disney Channel; from what little I've seen of it, Mickey's look is much more of a throwback to the Steamboat Willie age. Also, when I saw Frozen at the theater a couple of weeks ago, there was an old-style Mickey cartoon before the picture (albeit one that broke the fourth wall in ways I don't believe the old cartoons did).
  - Touche 13y ago
    Maybe I'm being nostalgic but Mickey used to be a big movie star and now he's relegated to mostly direct-to-dvd. He was still immensely popular through the 1980s with rereleases of Fantasia in theaters, Mickey's Christmas Carol, etc. Now it seems unimaginable that he'd star in a big budget Disney film. It seems reasonable to me that they are preferring IP that was created post-1976 for a reason.
    - judk 13y ago
      Does Disney have any long recurring characters in its new films? Most are threequels at most this generation.
- grahamburger 13y ago

dmm 13y ago

Disney was never threatened with losing their trademarks only the copyrights on very old cartoons.

jessriedel 13y ago

I think you're confused. Disney is free to make new Mickey Mouse movies, and those will be protected by copyright. Likewise, they can register Mickey Mouse as a trademark for certain business situations so no one is ever tricked into thinking a 3rd party product is endorsed by Disney. Buy what they absolutely shouldn't have is the ability to prevent other people from writing new Mickey stories, from watching 70 year old Mickey cartoons on YouTube, or from selling black plastic hats with Mickey Mouse ears. How could you dispute this? If you do, why shouldn't Shakespeare's estate keep exclusive rights to all his works?

stinkytaco 13y ago
While I agree with you in principle, some of the specifics I take issue with: 1. Writing new Mickey stories - This is an odd legal/moral area for me. It's not unreasonable for Disney to want to protect Mickey and if you wrote a Mickey story, it's possible that people could feel that a 3rd party product is endorsed by Disney. That could affect Disney's future business. Distributing Steamboat Willy on YouTube will not. 2. Mickey Mouse ears - Pretty clearly a trademark violation. Outside of the domain of copyright entirely. I don't mean to nitpick, but I don't think it helps to confuse different types of intellectual property in this discussion. Steamboat Willy is a discreet work of art that should enter the public domain. As should all other works from that time. That is good for society and really has no bearing on anyone's ability to create commercially viable works of art (other than derivative works such as a Steamboat Willy stage play or novelization). The brand of Mickey is separate and Disney has a legitimate (though perhaps not legitimate enough, I'll admit) interest in protecting it. Part of the problem is they are deceiving people into conflating the two issues to protect a supplementary revenue stream and control their brand.
- zanny 13y ago
  > t's possible that people could feel that a 3rd party product is endorsed by Disney. No it isn't, that isn't how the world works. If you take public domain material and utilize it in your own way there is no semblance of reason to think the original creator of said material endorsed you. I don't know if you are talking about how we are now living in a world where basically nobody alive has experienced material entering public domain, but it isn't a nebulous area.