- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
This iconic mouse is weeks away fromn being in the public domain Jan. 1, 2024, is the day when ‘Steamboat Willie’ enters the public domain
You must log in or register to comment.
If Disney doesn’t keep illegally extending the copyright dates, continuing to ruin the way copyrights are supposed to actually work, I will legitimately be surprised.
It’s not illegal if you change the laws… 🙃
But if you change the laws via illegal means…
illegally
The problem is that they’re doing it legally.
I refuse to believe they are not bribing judges and lawmakers. Its not possible that Disney is doing this without doing anything illegal.
They might be doing that… but not possible? Come on dude. That’s just a failure of imagination. There are plenty of legal ways to corrupt the government. Lobbying is the most common one, and very legal. Insisting that they’re committing crimes without any evidence of it is just silly.
Lawful Evil
Even if they wanted, there is not much time left to change anything at this point
Not with that attitude…
[̲̅$̲̅(̲̅ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°̲̅)̲̅$̲̅]
need to revert it back to 20 years with one extension allowed.
deleted by creator
Mickey Mouse is no longer as relevant in Disney’s dominance anymore. They got bigger cash cows to milk.
Sure, but it is still the icon and mascot of disney.
That’s why it’s trademarked. Unlike a copyright, trademarks can last forever.
But from what I’m understanding third parties will be able to use it at will to some extent, right? Disney must have an interest in keeping something so representative under tight control, even if it’s just the first version.
You can use the character without infringing the trademark. Part of the reason they scatter the hidden Mickey shape everywhere is because that’s part of the branding.
A good example of using the character without infringing trademark is the “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” movie.
Thanks, it seems I had quite the wrong idea, I’ll have to read up on the topic.
Even less so for the version in Steamboat Willy, which is all that would be released. Modern Mickey is not being released anytime soon.
(sigh) Just a little bit longer and I’ll finally be able to release my Steamboat Willy tentacle hentai comic.
Where do I sign up
Even with the character in Public Domain, I doubt Disney would be particularly happy with anyone using it.
They can send cease and desist letter left and right, claiming that “the use of the mouse is fine, but the elements X, Y and Z were introduced in a later work of ours that’s still protected”, even if it’s a plain lie.
Trying to take Disney to court is suicide.
The have enough money to hire half the lawyers in the world and make them come up with a lawsuit even if there’s no basis for one. They can stretch the lawsuit process to last years, and yet the fees would be but a fraction of a fraction of a percent in their yearly spending. Almost any defendant, meanwhile, would be financially ruined by it, even if they end up winning.
claiming that “the use of the mouse is fine, but the elements X, Y and Z were introduced in a later work of ours that’s still protected”, even if it’s a plain lie.
Isn’t that exactly what the law says? A popular example with that problem is Sherlock.
I find it insane that anyone should be allowed to use Mickey Mouse. Similarly, the 30s version of Superman is in public domain, soon, and that is similarly insane to me.
These are still Active properties closely tied with a company’s marketing and image. We badly need to update our IP laws.
Companies last longer than a hundred years, now. It’s silly we allow these things.
You do know that Disney made money from other people’s works like the brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen right? Their works are in public domain
They made money off of their version of those works, yes. They’re quite different from the originals.
This is what I mean about our laws needing updating - time alone is not enough any more. We need to define levels of differentiation that are commercially acceptable. Right now, that essentially just includes parody, which clearly is not a thorough enough accounting of the many ways IP can be varied.
The point of patents and copyrights is to promote and reward creative artists and inventors, not create a permanent revenue stream for corporations. Walt Disney died in 1966 and he, his investors, his heirs, and even their heirs have all been handsomely rewarded.
Now let’s get Steamboat Mickey in Smash Bros.
Steamboat Mickey could be in Smash Bros if Nintendo wanted to license it, but IIRC Smash Bros is specifically only properties owned by Nintendo on purpose. Smash Bros is effectively free advertising for other Nintendo games, in addition to a fighter.
I don’t see why Disney, rather than Walt himself, shouldnt own the copyright on Mickey Mouse.
Because the whole point of copyrights is to promote creativity. No one at Disney today had anything to do with creating Mickey Mouse. Why should they have the exclusive right to create derivative works? The people who are there seem perfectly capable of coming up with new characters. And the copyright expiring will push them to do so.
And besides, it’s not really about Mickey Mouse. It’s also about art, music, and literature. Beethoven’s heirs shouldn’t be getting a check every time an orchestra plays the 5th Symphony.
Why should they have the exclusive right to create derivative works?
Because Mickey Mouse is a core brand to the company. It’s literally referred to as the “House of Mouse”
You do realize there’s a metric ton of non-Nintendo characters in Smash, right? It’s essentially a celebration of gaming as a whole. Mickey isn’t a video game character though, that’s why they used Sora. Same reason Goku and Superman aren’t in Smash.
Mickey is kinda a video game character if you think about it.
He’s been in games, but he’s definitely not a ‘video game character’ in the way that Mario, Sonic, and Cloud Strife are.
Sorry it was just a joke. I didn’t think I needed a /j, but I should know better. Poe’s law.
Edit: just gonna leave this here as proof of Mickey’s hardcore game roots…
The public must gain it’s share of the revenue for allowing a private company to use public domain IP exclusively.
Hold a yearly auction to see who is granted rights to the property which is now the public’s.
The public must gain it’s share of the revenue for allowing a private company to use public domain IP exclusively.
Pretty strongly disagree with the idea of a company’s product just becoming the public’s because a certain amount of time has passed.
I cannot even conceive of what the argument for this could possibly be.
Copyright was never meant to be used how it is today. It was specifically made to protect small creators from having big companies come in and rip them off. Companies were never meant to be the beneficiaries. But lot of lobbying plus corporations are people too bullshit changed that.
Copyright is meant to last roughly the lifetime of the artist, but organizations can live forever. And then nothing ever goes in the public domain, a shared culture dissolves in to nothingness.
Copyright is meant to last roughly the lifetime of the artist, but organizations can live forever.
This is why I think it needs to be updated.
And then nothing ever goes in the public domain, a shared culture dissolves in to nothingness.
I don’t see how these two things relate to one another at all. We currently have a shared culture.
the argument is that the people, and the political system the people put in place enabled the company to create and benefit off its creations.
“we live in a society” but unironically.
enabled the company to create and benefit off its creations.
And you want to… Stop that?
I want to limit the amount of benefit they can reap.
Why?
Literally how it’s worked forever, how do you think books and films become public domain? Blame the Romans.
“this is the way it’s always been” is never an acceptable defense of anything
I’m confused, are you actually advocating for companies to retain control of their properties forever? Public domain exists for the benefit of all people, to keep knowledge and art open and available, and to allow future generations to build on existing work.
Sure not a huge deal for Mickey mouse because it’s not as important as research work or whatever, BUT considering Disney was literally built on repacking public domain stories (Pinocchio / Snow White / Beauty and Beast directly taken from previous works, Lion King is basically Hamlet with animals), it’s past time they contributed back.
Sure not a huge deal for Mickey mouse because it’s not as important as research work or whatever, BUT considering Disney was literally built on repacking public domain stories (Pinocchio / Snow White / Beauty and Beast directly taken from previous works, Lion King is basically Hamlet with animals), it’s past time they contributed back.
I’m not sure how updating IP laws get in the way of this and no one seems able to article it for me.
And yes, I believe that any trademark characters/IPs should be protected forever. I don’t see how letting me write and publish independent Doctor Who stories benefits anyone but me, while damaging the “real” Doctor Who universe.
Do you have a reason for the alternative view?
I find it insane that tvshows regularly show people watching 70+ year old tvshows. Nobody does that in real life. Doesn’t feel authentic.
I find it insane that we’ve reused characters in stories for thousands of years, but just a century ago it suddenly became illegal until almost every character was old enough to be forgotten and culturally irrelevant.
Fan fiction of relatively new IPs should be sellable, imho, without having to beg a corporation for permission. Its stuff we’ve grown up on. Disney and others are literally holding our culture hostage and dictates terms.
Fan fiction being sellable would require significant changes to copyright. It seems like you’re agreeing with me?
Idk what you mean by Disney “holding our culture hostage” - that seems weirdly hyperbolic.
That we’ve retold and improved stories for the most of human existence, suddenly we don’t. Thats what I mean with holding culture hostage.
I agree there should be some protections for artists, but not a hundred years. It should be close enough that the media is still relevant to the generation that it was presented to. Yeah, it would take drastic changes, but we got ourselves into this, we should be able to turn it back.
That we’ve retold and improved stories for the most of human existence, suddenly we don’t.
In what way is this not happening?
Like, Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time and is the exact same story as Fern Gully, retold in space.
If your idea of retelling and improving upon a story is to carefully create a similar-ish general plotline in a different setting that doesn’t overlap enough to be sued by the previous author, for “retelling and improving”… You miss out.
How crazy it is that creators have to go out of their way to not name something that looks and act like a lightsaber, a lightsaber. For a century! Everyone knows what a lightsaber is. It is part of our culture now. But we cant re-use them as is in any creative work (except for parodies) without begging Disney to pay for the privilege to use it if we are well-known enough. Its silly.
I feel.like you keep bringing up stifling creativity being a reason to not enforce copyright, but then you suggest that there is simply no room for creativity outside of established universes.
This really doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t see how anyone benefits by a glut of terrible Star Wars fanfiction being published, throwing the entire canon into disarray, and fundamentally changing what the material is about.
Are you for real? The creators have been dead for decades. Apart from the discussion of who was actually creatively responsible for Disney’s as significant characters. Copyright was invented to protect them, not to be a gravy train for their useless descendants or the faceless companies owning the right for some (often murky) reason.
This doesn’t contain any reasoning behind why copyright shouldn’t be that.
We agree on updating IP laws, but I think they should be curtailed rather than extended. You should not have the monopoly on an idea your entire life. If you can’t milk a fortune from it in 50 years it wasn’t that good an idea, so everyone else should be free to build on and improve it after that point.
And even if you absolutely kill it and your brand is still going strong decades later, that 50 years will cover anything new your did in that time. Plus it’s not like people wouldn’t know yours is the original even after the copyright expire; something entering public domain doesn’t make it legal to claim you invented it if you didn’t.
If you make something, it should be yours to disseminate as you wish. It’s silly to suggest otherwise. You literally created it.
Copyright isn’t just paying for an idea, its giving a complete monopoly over a concept. We came up with the idea of copyright to give creators a much easier way to profit off their creation (not having to compete after its created) to make sure innovation is very rewarded. That said, its still a government enforced monopoly, with all the issues that come with that, and with how much its been extended, its far past the point of encouraging innovation and instead just works to cement large companies in place, resting on their laurals rather than making anything new. Even when a copyright ends, the current copyright holder wouldn’t lose the idea, they just no longer have a monopoly on it. Disney can and will keep making Micky Mouse content, and the mouse will probably keep being accociated with them for centuries to come unless someone makes something that dwarfs the impact of Disney’s work with the character, in which case its best that it was released anyway.
I don’t disagree with this necessarily (obviously, I think Mickey Mouse should belong to Disney forever) but this is why I recommend reform rather than throwing it out
Well, why should the government protect their monopoly? The original creator is dead, so he doesn’t benifit from it. The cartoon is 95 years old, and I doubt Walt Disney factored in the profit his company would make 60+ after he died, when deciding to make the original animation. The only reason to let Disney maintain their monopoly on it is to allow a massive coorperation to get more money without doing any new work.
Except they do create new works using that same IP, quite regularly.
No-one creates something from whole cloth. All ideas are based on things that came before them. Locking those ideas up indefinitely will stifle creativity and stagnate culture.
Locking those ideas up indefinitely will stifle creativity and stagnate culture.
How? I don’t see any evidence of this. Can you point some out?
As mentioned elsewhere
Like, Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time and is the exact same story as Fern Gully, retold in space.
We badly need to update our IP laws.
Yes, by abolishing IP as a concept entirely. You cannot own an idea after you published it, that’s insane.
I mean, IP isn’t all bad. I can’t start selling p*ss in a bottle and label it with Coca-Cola branding. I’d get sued into oblivion. In this particular case, that would be a good thing. It also means that if you find a rat in your coke, you can sue CocaCola. If there were no IP, everyone could make it and it would be almost impossible to know where it came from.
There would also be no widely distributed film, TV, music, books, etc. Do you really want to live in a world where WattPad is the engine of literature?
I don’t feel that this would have the positive impact you seem to think it would - and I cannot even picture how you think this would be a positive.
EXPECT legislative-shenanigans, people…
EITHER they’ll extend copyright again,
XOR they’ll just “conveniently” have copyright apply in court, even-though it doesn’t apply on-paper.
Never believe a career-criminal, or Dark Triad entity, has changed, unless you see robust, consistent, years-long, actual, objective proof of that change having-happened.
Extraordinary-claims require extraordinary backing/evidence.
_ /\ _
They don’t have to do any of those. They own most of the content pipe so anyone who wants to do their own spin on Mickey is going to be inherently limited on their publishing reach.
Plus with all the acquisitions they’ve made, the copyright to Mickey and other legacy characters is worth a much smaller portion of their empire.
And they still own the TM.
Basically I’m regurgitating a rather good video recently published by Corridor Crew so go here for more facts and fewer hacks: https://youtu.be/u2dIvUAd5QE?si=IK5wOEpSDOPyIwJz
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/u2dIvUAd5QE?si=IK5wOEpSDOPyIwJz
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
. Later forms of the mouse, including the iconic white-gloved version with red shorts, will still be protected by copyright, according to The New York Times.
WTF is this shitty loophole? “Well, we changed his clothes, that’s a whole new different character!” This makes no sense. Copyright should be abolished.
I disagree. That would just result in corporations like Disney ripping off independent artists.
But limit it to the artist’s life time or perhaps 25 years.
IRC drug patents last only 20 years, and those often cost a lot of money to develop, research and bring to market.
That would just result in corporations like Disney ripping off independent artists.
Fucking thank you.
The whole “copyrights should be abolished” trope is regurgitated by people who have clearly never created anything in their life. For artists, musicians, and other content creators, copyright is vital to our lives.
If you think Disney is powerful now, imagine what Disney would be like if no other creators had any legal protection at all.
The problem is that copyright law is never used by the small artists to protect their work, it’s only used by big corporations to put down the small artists, fuck with each other and find loop holes to abuse of it.
There’s what it should be for and what it’s actually used for.
You’re approaching a relevant part (that big corporations have an overwhelming power advantage in this “negotiation”), but “small artists never use copyright law” is just wrong:
Without copyright law they couldn’t even sell their content (or more accurately: they could sell it, but the big corp could simply copy it and sell it better/cheaper due to the economics of scale).
So without copyright the smaller artists would be even more boned than they are right now.
There should be real punishments for companies that do stuff like issue fraudulent DMCA takedowns.
That I can get behind!
Right now the law allows them to basically say, “oops, we kinda thought we owned that. Our bad.” And walk away only to issue an identical takedown the next week.
I have a video series that gets a DMCA claim on the intro (that I made) every single time that I have to submit a counter claim. It’s always overturned, but I have zero recourse to stop it from happening.
I know numerous small artists who use copyright to protect their work and get paid when people use their music in streams/videos, take down misuse of their graphic work, work with publishers to license their work, etc.
Copyright works fairly well for small creators.
Of course corporations abuse it like every other law. We don’t say that home ownership should be abolished because landlords are shitty.
copyright law is never used by the small artists to protect their work
Tell me you’re not an artist without telling me you’re not an artist.
My friend, this is precisely the kind of thing I was alluding to in my previous post when I said “regurgitated by people who have clearly never created anything in their life.” I promise you that as an artist I have used copyright law to protect my work, and so has just about every artist I know. I don’t even know what you’re imagining to make you say something so patently false.
It’s funny how often that argument comes up in FOSS (Free and open source software) circles where people just claim copyright is fundamentally wrong, but at the same time complain when someone violates any FOSS license (all of which depend on copyright to be enforcable).
These two takes aren’t incompatible. It is possible to want to abolish copyright, while wanting everyone to comply to existing rules while they aren’t abolished yet.
Sure, but in most of these discussions the ones arguing for “getting rid of copyright” mostly just mean “stop big companies from owning everything”. When mentioning that FOSS licenses depend on copyright to work it’s usually some form of “we’d have to find a way to still make them work …”.
Right but this is a child’s solution to an adult problem, as you point out
Easy. Just make open source mandatory.
“Easy.” You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
You say Disney would be better without copyright at the same time we see Disney spending billions on lobby to make copyright almost eternal.
To think that Disney would be happy if every artist could create, enhance and improve a Marvel version for themselves
???
That’s not what I said at all.
Did you reply to the wrong person?
It’s because this entire take is just from the “corporations bad” crowd and that’s literally as far as they take their thought process.
Any serious look at copyright and IP laws shows they badly need updating, across the spectrum.
IMO copyright as a concept makes sense, but it’s duration should be significantly shortened. In todays short-lived world most works lose the majority of their financial value after a few years (let’s say ~10) anyways. So to allow artists to benefit from their creations while still allowing remixing or reasonably recent content I’d say some sane compromise is necessary.
Either that or massively expand (and codify) what qualifies as fair use: let anyone reinterpret anything, but don’t allow verbatim copying.
Current copyright law is ridiculously long. Life +70 years in many countries. So my grandfather’s books who passed away last year, will be locked up until most of his great grandchildren are in their 80’s or older.
It should be moved to a flat 45 years, the expected career length of a working person.
Easy problem to solve: abolish corporations.
Simple solutions are not the same thing as easy solutions.
War bad? Simple solution: End wars.
Disney would find a way to dig up walt and reanimate him.
…or assassinate artists to steal their work.
Public domain can get weird. The works of Mozart are obviously public domain. But if I record myself performing some of them, that recording is copyrighted. It doesn’t stop you from doing the same, which would also be copyrighted. Now let’s say I add a few of my own touches to my performance- which would be a derivative work. You cannot copy those in your own performance without my permission. In effect, it’s the changes themselves that are copyrighted.
Once I’ve made my recording, you can face an uphill battle to prove that you either didn’t know about mine, or that it was so obvious that it wasn’t creative.
All of this ignores trademark law, which is related but distinct.
Copyright should be abolished.
Completely agree, not just copyrights but patents too.
Open environments are way more productive and creative then lock stuff for decades.
Patents were invented to make things more open. Before patents, companies and people relied on trade secrets. They would go out of their way to hide how everything worked. At least with a patent things needed to be in the open and eventually became public domain.
Open environments are way more productive and creative then lock stuff for decades.
Source?
The idea of copyright and patents is to ensure that you can get compensated for your own work. There’s no point in creating a unique idea when Disney can just copy it and take all the money for themselves.
There are flaws with how copyright and patents are implemented, but that doesn’t mean they’re fundamentally broken. The alternative would be much worse.
You should look at how creative commons works. It’s the best alternative imo
CC is a great alternative for some cases, but far from all. Most artists want to protect their work, and CC don’t help with that.
How much Creative Commons media do you consume?
Look at Linux and open source projects as a whole, like Lemmy, or how 3D printer community flourished after some 80s patents lost their validity and so on…
Disney can just copy it
They are the ones who most profit from this CR and patent scheme, if they would profit from open projects they would lobby in that direction not the other way around
I find copyright and patents very different, at least in the U.S. I support copyright, but not patents. Patents are used to stifle creativity and generate lawsuits.
Example, I designed something and was urged to patent it. It combines hardware, electronics, and in some iterations software as well. I released it copyleft instead. People make it in their garage, cottage industry sells it, a multinational profits from it.
The current designs are much better than my original. If I had patented it it might stagnate, or I could litigate and try to prevent innovation.
The cynic in me would argue Capitalism is the problem here.
So sounds like we should be arguing to abolish the need for employment to survive instead of defending the status quo.
Who would make the stuff that you buy and consume?
Donald Duck’s copyright expires in 2029 and we’ll finally be able to walk around pantsless in a sailor hat/shirt without being harassed by Walt Disney’s widow.
I guarantee that on January 1st there will be a ton of Mickey videos on the internet and it will be glorious
And I guarantee that the majority of it will simply copy todays Mickey Mouse as opposed to the one in steamboat Willie.
But that version isn’t entering the public domain any time soon.
That will be funny
I didn’t see here the obvious answer: never.
