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Copyright Act of 1790 "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the passing of this act, the author and authors of any map, chart, book or books already printed within these United States...shall have the sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing and vending such map, chart, book or books, for the like term of fourteen years from the time of recording the title thereof in the clerk’s office as aforesaid." Copyright Act of 1831 "shall have the sole right ... in whole or in part, for the term of twenty-eight years from the time of recording the title thereof, in the manner hereinafter directed." The Copyright Extension Act of 1998 "This title may be referred to as the ‘‘Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act’...  PREEMPTION WITH RESPECT TO OTHER LAWS.—Section 301(c) of title 17, United States Code, is amended by striking ‘‘February 15, 2047’’ each place it appears and inserting ‘‘February 15, 2067’’.(b) DURATION OF COPYRIGHT: WORKS CREATED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 1978.—Section 302 of title 17, United States Code, is amended— (1) in subsection (a) by striking ‘‘fifty’’ and inserting ‘‘70’’; (2) in subsection (b) by striking ‘‘fifty’’ and inserting ‘‘70’’; (3) in subsection (c) in the first sentence— (A) by striking ‘‘seventy-five’’ and inserting ‘‘95’’; and (B) by striking ‘‘one hundred’’ and inserting ‘‘120’’; and (4) in subsection (e) in the first sentence— (A) by striking ‘‘seventy-five’’ and inserting ‘‘95’’; (B) by striking ‘‘one hundred’’ and inserting ‘‘120’’; and (C) by striking ‘‘fifty’’ each place it appears and inserting ‘‘70’’. (c) DURATION OF COPYRIGHT: WORKS CREATED BUT NOT PUBLISHED OR COPYRIGHTED BEFORE JANUARY 1, 1978.—Section 303 of title 17, United States Code, is amended in the second sentence by striking ‘‘December 31, 2027’’ and inserting ‘‘December 31, 2047’’’ ..."The idea of granting a copyright, or the right to exclusively control the publication and sale of an authored work, has been around since even before the USA was a thing. We didn't technically enact our own legal verbiage about it till a couple decades after the Revolutionary War, but that was more just finally getting through the more important paperwork of having basic laws and making whiskey drunk farmers pay their loving taxes. The history of copyright law can be quickly summed up as this: 1790: 14 years from publication/registration, plus a second 14 year renewal. Just one. 1831: 28 years + 14 year renewal. Can also transfer your copyright. 1909: 28 year term + 28 year renewal. Added Motion Pictures explicitly as a thing (1912 amendment) 1976: 75 year term or death + 50, whichever is first. AND A RENEWAL OF THE SAME PERIOD IF YOU loving LIVED THAT LONG. Preempted state copyright laws. Extended an automatic federal copyright to any unpublished works. 1992: Removed the renewal period since goddamn dude. 1998: Sonny Bono and Mickey Mouse gently caress you in the rear end in a top hat. Extends copyright to 120 years for single authored works, 95 years for corporate controlled works, or death of the author + 70 years. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! It also completely froze ANY works published in 1923 or later from entering the Public Domain until January 1, 2019. At that point (assuming no further fuckery) entering the Public Domain will proceed according to the above rules for works published on January 1, 1923. This does not include works that were explicitly granted to the Public Domain or works that never registered for a copyright. The vast majority of the effort for these massive extensions have been at the hands of Disney. They've been keeping Mickey Mouse just out of reach of the Public Domain for nearly 100 years. But there is a dark side to this beyond just wanting to be able to legally sell your bomb rear end vaporwave remix of Steamboat Willie: These copyright laws also cover scientific papers, discoveries, technology, advances in computer code development, and countless other scientific areas of study. Those papers are kept behind academic and corporate paywalls far longer than they ever should have been. Free access to that information is going to be vital considering just how much has been advanced in just the last 20 years since the 1998 act was passed. But that's not all, remember the 1976 act extended copyright to unpublished works as well. So there is tons of research that could be valuable sitting in University and think tank archives that no one is allowed to go through. These orphaned works could prove crazy useful, but because the author may have died before reaching publication or before finishing a final draft, no one can touch them. In the face of the internet however this all becomes extra stupid. With the advances in streaming services, image hosting, and the proliferation of edit and creation software we already live in a world where anything released is simply treated as being in the Public Domain. Youtube, reddit, here on SA, and social media in general has basically just taken published works and run with using them as they see fit. Piracy aside: Remix culture, memes, movie parodies, podcasts, twitter quote bots, and god knows how many other things all operate on the idea that published works are free to be used for anything you want. For example some loving nerds just remade all of Shrek in varying styles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM70TROZQsI They also did this with the Looney Toons classic "The Dover Boys": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0U8iL38xfM Even your dumb, culturally illiterate, corporate bootlicking, conservative aunt does it with Minion memes on facebook:  This is the whole idea of the Public Domain: for the masses to build onto the works of the previous generation without restriction. Now you might retort "Well that's all covered by Fair Use!". Well hold on now, up until 2015 "Fair Use" was merely an affirmative defense in the face of a copyright claim against your own work. In 2015's "Lenz v. Universal Music Corp." this was expanded to an explicit right based on a very vague 4 factor test. Now again you might say "Well yeah, there you go, Parody/Educational use/etc are good to go". HAHAHA, no. In reality nothing has changed since corporate media interests still sue you and just claim that you're in violation of any of those 4 vague criteria. In the face of the DMCA this is even worse since they just throw you a copyright claim via youtube or whatever content host you're on, and your poo poo is taken down unless you want to get into court with a billion dollar multinational entity. Now with the European Union's "Article 13" things stand to get back to legal reality. This anti-copyright infringement focused law will basically force any internet content hosts to simply stop hosting...content. This is due to the requirement for a hitherto non-existent technology that scans for and verifies the absence of copyrighted content. Of everything. This is even beyond even Youtube's ContentID system. Basically for the EU this means unless the content hosts verify that no copyrighted content is present in an upload then they are liable for damages. Killing the concept of "Safe Harbor" that so far had kept them safe from liability. So that's where we pretty much are. Any published work is out of the reach of legal use for the masses for 120 years from publication (or if you're lucky 70 years if the author dies right after publishing it), and corporate controlled works are locked away for 95 years. That means SteamBoat Willie is still out of reach for another 9 years from January 1, 2019 and Avengers: Infinity War is out of reach till the year 2113. As are any medical research, physics papers, technical documents, and even up to date maps. To finish off here are some noteworthy pieces of media that will enter the Public Domain on January 1, 2019: -Charlie Chaplin's The Pilgrim -Cecil B. Demille's The Ten -Commandments -Churchill's The World Crisis -Various Felix the Cat shorts -"The Charleston", the song written to accompany the Charleston dance -Igor Stravinsky’s “Octet for Wind Instruments” -Tarzan and the Golden Lion
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Dec 7, 2018 03:04
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Reserved for potential future use.
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Dec 7, 2018 03:05
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k (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 7, 2018 04:11
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I take the radical position that admittedly libertarian shitheads like that we should go back to the "14 years + one-time 14 year extension" rule for all copyrighted works. And I could absolutely be persuaded even that is absurdly long in the modern Internet era. Also, that proposed EU rule is probably unenforceable and will likely just be used to slap American tech companies for some fines. Or sites will just pull access from the EU even faster and further contribute to the global Internet's ever worsening balkanization.
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Dec 7, 2018 04:35
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Crain posted:Reserved for potential future use. Mods please make this post editable by any user on Jan 1, 2019, in accordance with the Sonny Bono law. Fun copywrite stories: Night of the Living Dead somehow failed to copywrite itself, which is why there's a million bootleg (not technically bootleg, but whatever) versions out there - and arguably made it more accessible and popular at the dawn of VHS sales, when VHS tapes were selling for $100+ to video rental chains. Little Shop of Horrors (the 1960 one) famously wasn't copywritten on purpose by Roger Corman since he was convinced a 75 minute movie about a killer plant made in two weeks for $3000 was never going to be profitable enough to matter. Shrecknet fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Dec 7, 2018 |
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Dec 7, 2018 04:38
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Kerning Chameleon posted:I take the radical position that admittedly libertarian shitheads like that we should go back to the "14 years + one-time 14 year extension" rule for all copyrighted works. And I could absolutely be persuaded even that is absurdly long in the modern Internet era. Yeah. Realistically I think just editing the current Fair Use rules to explicitly allow for non-commercial transformative use of copyrighted works and going back to the 14+14 rule for commercial use. We already act that way in the face of current legislation. There's no reason that Nintendo should be able to bully people making Pokemon memes on youtube just because they don't like how the brand is being used, or movie studios shutting down review channels. As for the EU rule: No one really knows and that's the worst part of it. The language is so vague and such a potential burden that websites are going to be scrambling to find a safe space to exist first and then worry about reaching out if at all. Best case scenario for non EU countries is like you said: just locking off the EU. Worst case is they try to use it as a least common denominator like they did with the recent GDPR laws that were passed. Even non EU facing sites just decided to comply in case. Easy Diff posted:Mods please make this post editable by any user on Jan 1, 2019, in accordance with the Sonny Bono law. Technically that'll be 2138. 120 years or death + 70 for new works.
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Dec 7, 2018 04:45
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This is a great post and a promising thread. Looking forward to enjoying some new public domain films in a few weeks! I read up about public domain every few years and it’s always absolutely infuriating to see what a clusterfuck the Sonny Bono act has been. Do you anticipate Disney trying to pull these shenanigans again to keep the dumb mouse out of the public domain? I mean gently caress just get them to pass a law protecting the mouse if you have you, leave the rest of us in peace ffs.
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Dec 7, 2018 04:55
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Delthalaz posted:This is a great post and a promising thread. Looking forward to enjoying some new public domain films in a few weeks! I read up about public domain every few years and it’s always absolutely infuriating to see what a clusterfuck the Sonny Bono act has been. As it stands they don't have time to stop the current clock from running out. There isn't any time in the legislative schedule to extend the Public Domain freeze between now and January 1st. That said, they still have until January 1, 2028 to protect Steamboat Willie, which would formally release the characters of Mickey Mouse, Pete (Peg-leg Pete), and Minnie Mouse to the Public Domain. Assuming they don't get an extension to save it there could still be arguments made that only their 1928 depiction is public domain, so modern Micky, Minnie, and Pete are still off limits but considering the fact that so far Disney has more or else explicitly enshrined that modern Mickey is the exact same character as Steamboat Willie they'd have a hard legal fight to get that case judged in their favor. So between now and New Years 2028 they have the time to try and push for it to be extended again, but I can't even imagine the political shitshow that would ensue if they tried for another Sonny Bono Act. EDIT: Actually I just looked up Pete, and technically he'll be release in 2025 because he was in a 1925 short called Alice Solves the Puzzle. Once again the same "is it the same Pete" question lingers as to if just that depiction or all of Pete's current evolution is released. Crain fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Dec 7, 2018 |
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Dec 7, 2018 05:07
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Crain posted:As it stands they don't have time to stop the current clock from running out. There isn't any time in the legislative schedule to extend the Public Domain freeze between now and January 1st. That said, they still have until January 1, 2028 to protect Steamboat Willie, which would formally release the characters of Mickey Mouse, Pete (Peg-leg Pete), and Minnie Mouse to the Public Domain. Yeah I meant before 2028. I was young but I do remember the uproar over the Sonny Bono act. My teachers were certainly pretty outraged.
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Dec 7, 2018 05:16
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Delthalaz posted:Yeah I meant before 2028. I was young but I do remember the uproar over the Sonny Bono act. My teachers were certainly pretty outraged. A really lovely quote, that illustrates just how bad it could have gone: "Actually, Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution. ... As you know, there is also [then-MPAA president] Jack Valenti's proposal for term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress." -Mary Bono (Wife of Sonny/Congresswoman) Like FUUUUUUUUUCCKKKK OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOFFFFFFFFFF. This is 100% just a grift to corporations since no single author or artist can actually benefit from that. Like just imagine if there was still a "DaVinci Estate" siphoning off royalties for the Mona Lisa. Like the art world is already insane enough without literal dynasties existing on the back of it.
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Dec 7, 2018 05:21
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Crain posted:So between now and New Years 2028 they have the time to try and push for it to be extended again, but I can't even imagine the political shitshow that would ensue if they tried for another Sonny Bono Act. That's awfully optimistic. It didn't matter how much of a shitshow it caused, the similarly consumer-centric net neutrality issue still plowed ahead against overwhelming public condemnation. That was for an issue where there was actually big money opposed to the negative changes, since tech companies opposed it. There is no well financed opposition to copyright laws. You'll have to rely entirely on grassroots opposition in a country where democracy is barely relevant, to fight a law that will be sponsored by companies that own most of the media and therefore largely control the dialogue (and in Disney's case have a massively popular reputation amongst the general public, unlike telcos and ISPs).
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Dec 7, 2018 05:24
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the whiskey rebellion was good op
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Dec 7, 2018 05:36
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14 years is too long. gently caress copyright.  for life.
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Dec 7, 2018 21:41
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I realize that copyright law generally is used by giant companies to bludgeon people to death, but is there any benefit to copyright law for small-time creators?
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Dec 7, 2018 21:59
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To not have your creation stolen by the big guys.
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Dec 7, 2018 22:11
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Star Man posted:I realize that copyright law generally is used by giant companies to bludgeon people to death, but is there any benefit to copyright law for small-time creators?
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Dec 7, 2018 22:11
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feedmyleg posted:To not have your creation stolen by the big guys. Or other little guys. The answer likely depends significantly on the type of content. If you're an author whose income comes from a small number of books then being the sole person able to sell that work is really important. If you're a musician then you may get your income from live performance and the copyright matters less. If you're a sculptor or painter and the value comes from the "authenticity" of the item then presumably next to zero.
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Dec 7, 2018 22:43
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:14 years is too long. gently caress copyright. Yeah I agree there's not really any goddamn point to intellectual property rights because if we had a just society in the first place then artists and creative types wouldn't have to worry about starving after all their poo poo gets appropriated by capitalists. Which they do anyway as large corporations that actually own the copyright make all the money so really it is just all a protection of corporate profits at the expense of art and human culture.
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Dec 7, 2018 22:46
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Star Man posted:I realize that copyright law generally is used by giant companies to bludgeon people to death, but is there any benefit to copyright law for small-time creators? Much like patents, copyright was supposed to be a right to exclusive commercial use (or just use in general as you see fit, with licensing in mind) for the creator. This was supposed to be a protection FROM big companies that could otherwise more quickly get to market or print due to larger operating budgets and work bandwidth. However like most things in our system of government this is supposed to just played in good faith and obviously over the last several hundred years we've seen big business just loophole the gently caress out of this and abuse (and otherwise rewrite them to their own benefit) these systems. The idea that you get a certain amount of time to control your work and benefit from it is fine on it's face. The problem is with how the legal language has not kept up with the reality of business and technology. Fun fact on this: The 1909 Copyright act, amended in 1912, was the first time that "Motion Pictures" were defined as a singular entity. Before that any motion pictures that were created had to be copyrighted by registering each individual frame of the movie, the title, and the sound track separately. Which obviously was creating insane bloat and is why many early films didn't have any copyright at all since it was so complicated and time consuming that some parts usually slipped through and blew the whole copyright to shreds.
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Dec 7, 2018 22:46
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Copyright should not be allowed to last longer than patents. It's nuts.
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Dec 7, 2018 22:52
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suck my woke dick posted:Copyright should not be allowed to last longer than patents. It's nuts. Like, after seventeen years, no one is making money on 2 Fast 2 Furious. It's not in theaters and no one who wants to buy the DVD doesn't own it. BUT "Roman Pierce," the character in 2F2F is still in use, in Fast 10: Fast to the Future (the time-travel one). So what do you do? In my opinion/a sane world, anyone selling bootleg copies of 2F2F, godspeed you crazy diamond, good luck. Have at. But I do think there's a case that people shouldn't be allowed to make fan-films that directly include existing, still-in-use characters. I don't know what the solution is there.
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Dec 7, 2018 23:11
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Easy Diff posted:But I do think there's a case that people shouldn't be allowed to make fan-films that directly include existing, still-in-use characters. I don't like when advertisers create purposely misleading products, and that certainly would cover attempting to pass a fan work off as created by the original artist, but beyond that I don't think there's any reason to prevent those things from existing.
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Dec 7, 2018 23:21
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Easy Diff posted:It kind of should, but only for certain things. I don't think fan-films are worth regulating, even if you're for continued copyrighting of an in-use character or talking about a film that literally came out yesterday, there should be an extremely wide and generous noncommercial (including minor attempts at crowdfunding/youtube ads to recoup cost) exemption. Regarding characters, the more permissive route would be having only the 'updates' of a character gain a new copyright protection terms so that derivative works with an earlier reference point wouldn't be affected. More restrictive but somewhat defensible would be a term within which the next installment needs to come out, otherwise protection expires.
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Dec 7, 2018 23:28
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Lawrence Lessig used to be a pretty cool dude but the Disney trial broke his brain into a trillion tiny law-pieces
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Dec 7, 2018 23:39
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Easy Diff posted:It kind of should, but only for certain things. suck my woke dick posted:Regarding characters, the more permissive route would be having only the 'updates' of a character gain a new copyright protection terms so that derivative works with an earlier reference point wouldn't be affected. More restrictive but somewhat defensible would be a term within which the next installment needs to come out, otherwise protection expires. This is the really interesting thing about Disney's current situation. Is "Steamboat Willie" the same as "Mickey Mouse" as it exists in the modern day? 1928:  "Modern":  On top of that what about the current animated version which is starting to take more influence from the early animations:  Then there's the case of "Peg-Leg Pete". He was the bad guy in Steamboat Willie, but he was also used by Walt Disney as a bad guy in his early "Alice" shorts at Laugh-O-Gram before he started his own animation studio. So will Pete be public domain in 1925 (his first Alice appearance) or 1928 and does one version mean all versions are free game? 1925:  1928:  "Modern":  For Pete his design has changed much more. Initially he looked like a bear of some sort, then in SBW he's cat like with a tail, since then he's transitioned to being more of a Goofy Dog antagonist and is usually ID'd similarly as a vague dog amalgam. Also even though he's officially "Peg-Leg Pete" only a few of his versions have him in an actual peg leg. I think as it exists now, copyright law means that all those versions of those characters are covered. This could also be successfully argued in court since Disney has made a very vocal case that "in universe" modern mickey and crew are the same characters since they treat them like actual "actor beings" with a living history instead of just iterations of designs. EDIT: AH! I forgot about Trademark rights. As Mickey is no longer just a character but also a Trademarked logo/mascot/media brand/etc that could muddy the waters. More here: http://copyright.nova.edu/mickey-public-domain/ Crain fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Dec 8, 2018 |
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Dec 7, 2018 23:56
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Crain posted:Mickey Mice I think it's important to take a step back and ask if this gives copyright holders disproportionate power, regardless of internal character continuity.
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Dec 8, 2018 00:03
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suck my woke dick posted:I don't think fan-films are worth regulating, even if you're for continued copyrighting of an in-use character or talking about a film that literally came out yesterday, there should be an extremely wide and generous noncommercial (including minor attempts at crowdfunding/youtube ads to recoup cost) exemption. Why or why not? How long should webhead be protected?
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Dec 8, 2018 00:31
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suck my woke dick posted:I think it's important to take a step back and ask if this gives copyright holders disproportionate power, regardless of internal character continuity. I'm just sorta "calling the shot" as it were. Disney definitely has been spending a LOT of time and money building cases as to why all of their IP can never be used even in the face of US law. Personally: They should all be fair game already. I think there's no good reason that Disney should be able to use the legal system to grow their media monopoly. I see the end game for this simply being "Disney owns modern culture and we just license it from them". They have Marvel, Star Wars, The Disney Catalog, and at some estimates about 27% of the motion picture industry already. If it keeps going this way...
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Dec 8, 2018 00:39
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Property is theft and intellectual property is the specific form of theft that allowed Superman's creators to die penniless and for Disney to continue existing.
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Dec 8, 2018 00:42
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suck my woke dick posted:I think it's important to take a step back and ask if this gives copyright holders disproportionate power, regardless of internal character continuity. I think from a practical standpoint of actually getting a law passed the idea of short-term protection for the work, long-term protection for the content (characters or art or whatever) is the most likely to avoid some really obvious pitfalls that would sink change. If people place value on the "sanctity" of a character then opening the door to shredding that could be a likely harm to those people. Like of the market got flooded with Harry Potter books by Joe Kerr Rawling in 2001 deliberately designed to fool unaware customers into thinking that Hermione kills Ron in a homophobic fit at the end of Harry Potter 5: Harry Potter and the Chunder from Down Under.
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Dec 8, 2018 00:51
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EdithUpwards posted:Property is theft and intellectual property is the specific form of theft that allowed Superman's creators to die penniless and for Disney to continue existing. I don't see how abolishing copyright would have made Siegel or Schuster any more money.
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Dec 8, 2018 00:58
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I think the whole IP system should be reworked now that I think about it. There's no reason that a scientific research paper should be held in the same category as Prof. X and Magneto. Copyright: Only for creative works. Fair Use heavily expanded for non-monetized use, Parody/Education/Critique exemptions for monetized works. Patent: For technical developments and scientific studies. XX year exclusive commercial and monetized use period then it goes Public Domain with no renewals. Also heavily revamp the patent office to allow it to better police patent trolls. Trademark: Purely for business iconography associated with a specific item or brand, only applies for the life of actively marketing said brand or product. If it ever goes off the shelves the trademark is canceled. Provision stipulating minimum market presence so companies can't camp a single instance of a product in a shop in the middle of nowhere. Only applies to publicly available products with no barriers to entry (so no private club only brands). Also no double dipping. You can't have Mickey Mouse be both a copyrighted character and a company trademark.
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Dec 8, 2018 01:38
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Forgive me if this is a dumb thing to ask but could a lot of this tension with copyright be solved if corporations couldn't hold them beyond the life of the original creator, even if the creator signed it away? I mean I see it as not unreasonable that they could licence from a living creator but I think it's a good idea to stop at the literal death of the author.
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Dec 8, 2018 02:18
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RuanGacho posted:Forgive me if this is a dumb thing to ask but could a lot of this tension with copyright be solved if corporations couldn't hold them beyond the life of the original creator, even if the creator signed it away? I mean I see it as not unreasonable that they could licence from a living creator but I think it's a good idea to stop at the literal death of the author. So you don't think Disney would see it as unreasonable that as of month ago anyone could make a Spider-Man movie? While I agree with you, it's easy to see why corporations actively making products would not.
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Dec 8, 2018 02:31
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RuanGacho posted:Forgive me if this is a dumb thing to ask but could a lot of this tension with copyright be solved if corporations couldn't hold them beyond the life of the original creator, even if the creator signed it away? I mean I see it as not unreasonable that they could licence from a living creator but I think it's a good idea to stop at the literal death of the author. Generally yes. The problem comes in with incorporated works. Take Avengers: Infinity War (Or any major motion picture) for example: Who is "the author" in that context? Currently I don't think that a copyright is "divisible", that's what a corporation is for. It's legal personhood gives it the ability to own the copyright of a product of hundreds of individuals. All those individuals get their contracted compensation and share of the profits (although that's rarely "fair" compensation), granted, but if there is going to be "copyrights" then there has to be some way of applying it to situations like that. Now the easy answer, for major motion pictures, is: 3-4 months. Avengers: IW made $257 million it's opening day. A week later it was taking in $155 million a day. A month later it was about $27 million a day. And by the time it got to August, 4 months later, it was making $55 thousand a day. The budget for the movie was at the top end around $400 million dollars. It made that back in a week. Everything after that is pure profit. The vast majority of major motion pictures box office revenues go flat within about 2 months, and after 3-4 they're done. Most people have seen it, new movies come out, theaters make more room for newer releases so the steam has just run out. So if we want to take this approach we can define Corporate media as a kind of "consumer good" with a shelf life. Your corporation makes it's money back, makes it's profit, and then we can move on. Single author works can be defined similarly to before, but corporate commercial media can gently caress off. Since the main crux of copyright was to allow the creator to benefit from their work, we can just move the time table up for something that makes so loving much money that it generates the GDP of a small nation in a month.
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Dec 8, 2018 02:57
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Crain posted:So if we want to take this approach we can define Corporate media as a kind of "consumer good" with a shelf life. Your corporation makes it's money back, makes it's profit, and then we can move on. Single author works can be defined similarly to before, but corporate commercial media can gently caress off. Since the main crux of copyright was to allow the creator to benefit from their work, we can just move the time table up for something that makes so loving much money that it generates the GDP of a small nation in a month. Your proposed law would be a tome of exceptions for every variation for every type of creative work. Just from your example, are all but a extremely tiny handful of movies single author? What about DTV movies, or Netflix/Hulu movies? What about a studio like A24 that releases a lot of low-cost films and every now and then hits it big, and probably relies on DVD sales or selling streaming rights or whatever? The first Fast Furious movie made $200M worldwide, and the 7th made $1.5B - did the 3-4 month copyright expiration on FF1 mean that FF7 is now competing with FF7 Cum Police and FF7 Mission to Moscow and #FFFFFFF-2? Disney got the laws changed to their benefit but rewriting the laws to specifically target Disney or any other ultra-extreme outlier isn't really much better. You'd almost be better off writing into law that Disney owns Mickey Mouse and Elsa until the sun explodes just to keep them out of the process. quote:So you don't think Disney would see it as unreasonable that as of month ago anyone could make a Spider-Man movie? While I agree with you, it's easy to see why corporations actively making products would not.
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Dec 8, 2018 03:30
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Zachack posted:The first Fast Furious movie made $200M worldwide, and the 7th made $1.5B - did the 3-4 month copyright expiration on FF1 mean that FF7 is now competing with FF7 Cum Police and FF7 Mission to Moscow and #FFFFFFF-2? I think there's an argument around authenticity in there. Because with studios like The Asylum that skirt copyright your example is already the case in all but the title and character names. The Transmorphers movies didn't really supply any competition to the Transformers movies. Zachack posted:I think DC/Warner Bros might not like it if Fox News starts airing The Adventures of Superman as he Builds a Superwall Along the Mexican Border. I doubt they would care if anyone could print and sell Action Comics #1, though. Again, we kinda deal with this in comics as it is. See the Mark Miller version of Captain America, Frank Miller's Batman who are extremely right wing versions of those characters that kind of spit in the face of the established "ethos" of those characters. The audience already differentiates between many different versions. Other than a commercial argument here, you're running into "Death of the Author" territory. Crain fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Dec 8, 2018 |
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Dec 8, 2018 03:43
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I'm pretty sure that in the current political environment another copyright extension isn't getting passed. So we're getting some new public domain works for the first time in a century. 
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Dec 8, 2018 03:44
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Dr Pepper posted:I'm pretty sure that in the current political environment another copyright extension isn't getting passed. So we're getting some new public domain works for the first time in a century. What do you base this on? I suspect this is one of the few things bipartisan agreement will exist on, even with the most progressive Democratic caucus in decades. The corporate pressure to do this will be overwhelming. edit: okay yeah for the January 1 deadline the steamboat has sailed, there's no way that is happening. But when the Mickey Mouse event horizon approaches once again, there will be a bill to extend the 120 years to 200 or something like that. Sulphagnist fucked around with this message at 08:38 on Dec 8, 2018 |
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Dec 8, 2018 08:34
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 14:00 |
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When the last copyright extension was passed, the internet as a mainstream thing was really just getting going, and broadband was essentially non-existent. Apart from the probably significant ramifications this has for public opposition to another copyright extension, the corporate media landscape has really changed. Even Netflix has a market cap close to Disney, Amazon and Google absolutely dwarf it. Those companies have a lot more to gain by older works entering the public domain than they do from indefinite copyright protection.
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Dec 8, 2018 10:06
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