Title of this post is a bit misleading. You’re suggesting the article spells out how Disney’s, and other companies’, rabid protection of its IP is a Bad Thing, when it’s really more of a history and primer on what’s changed with Steamboat Willie entering PD.
this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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Thanks to the so-called “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” of 1998, Disney, along with other entertainment companies, permanently damaged the collective creative landscape by walling off the public domain.
The great irony, of course, is that Disney built its library of animated classics by adapting European fairy tales that exist in the public domain. Despite Disney benefiting from the free use of old stories, the studio has never hesitated to take legal action to protect its most iconic character, several decades after Walt Disney created him.
Over the decades, Disney’s brutal copyright take-downs have become the stuff of legend. The litigious studio famously forced daycare centers to remove murals featuring Mickey and Minnie; for Disney, copyright law even applies to a child’s tombstone.
[...] the mouse is symbolic of a decades-long battle over the public domain, which the public lost. Today, the battleground has shifted, as powerful corporations no longer view tight copyright protection as beneficial, thanks to the requirements of generative AI.
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It's still a valid sentiment. IP law as it is today protects established propert at the cost of both innovation and a robust public domain, which were both mission parameters of copyright as established in the Constitution of the United States. (Other nations may be more deliberately feudal with their foundational IP laws, but I don't know.)
The public would be better served to abolish intellectual property entirely than retain the system we have, but our regulatory agencies are long captured to preserve the property rights of the wealthy, even when it harms or kills the public.
Exactly. In the end it should and will always be the consumers choice to either go with a cheap knock-of product or pay a bit extra to support the original creator. People who illegally buy cheap copies will continue to do so in the future but those who really want to see progress will spare some money to push their favourite projects.
No, IP should absolutely have some protections. Invent a hot new thing and giant-corp immediately out markets and produces you into oblivion. With zero protections innovation would be completely stamped out. Totally gone, not just harmed. No more new things because it would be immediately stolen so why bother.
That said, current IP laws are absolute BS and need to be cut back tenfold. None of this century of protection BS. For the lifetime of the creator, non-transferable. You can sell rights to use it but you cannot relinquish your ownership and creator status. Those are my hills but I'm not willing to die on them either.
Thirty years from publication.
No exceptions.
Copyright is only an incentive to create new works for the public. For us. Once you've sold it, it's ours. That's what the money is for. If thirty years isn't enough then it's just not gonna happen.
People have a right to culture. Anything you grew up with is yours to build on.
Thirty years from publication.
The original was 14 years renewable for another 14. I like that better. It means that abandonware goes into the public domain faster, but it's easy to renew a copyright if it's still being used.
No exceptions.
I disagree. Exceptions for sports and software: shorter. Sports is most relevant when it's live, and copyright-holders for sports content are much more vicious when it comes to taking down tiny clips of goals or something. So, make a special category that gives them extra protection when it comes to tiny clips in exchange for much shorter copyright terms. For software, it's essential to be able to maintain old equipment, especially old industrial equipment. That soft of software could be used in power plants, medical equipment, water purification plants, etc. Companies are notoriously bad at keeping that stuff safe especially decades later. Instead, make it public domain faster.
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Fuck Disney, we should put a sledgehammer through Walt's frozen brain
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https://walledculture.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Walled-Culture-the-Book.epub
Free book about copyright and IP stealing our culture with great citations and examples.
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I have zero respect for any IP laws, the one thing I agree with China on. They only serve to inhibit innovation and make the rich richer.
What article? Is it not showing cause I'm on Mobile or something?
Sry, edited (I forgot that choosing an image will replace the URL aswell)
The edit isn't showing up on kbin. Mind replying with the URL?
Evolutions are copyrighted? Wat? So if they give Mickey a red nose, that's copyrighted just because they changed the color? That makes no sense at all.
That... actually makes a lot of sense? And is what we should want?
Copyrighting The Monkey King in the 16th century (just roll with it, this is going somewhere) made sense. Over time, that copyright would expire.
Fast forward to the 1980s where Akira Toriyama and Shonen Jump basically retold the story but with a lot more robots, werewolves, kaiju fights, and noseless bald cops. Goku is based on The Monkey King but is not The Monkey King and has gone on a much stupider trajectory to become an alien who is too dumb to live and regularly threatens all of existence with his idiocy. And has canonically fucked two babies into his wife without ever kissing her. That is a new character.
As for "change the color of the nose": (Disclaimer: I am an anime bitch so I am sure this color was already used for Goku as opposed to just Broly but whatever). If you make Goku's hair Green because he went Super Saiyan Fury Happy Dance Now With The Divine Gods, that is not a new character and the rights-holders for Dragon Ball would rightfully send you a C&D. Whereas, if you make an identical clone of Goku but is evil then you have Turles (or Black Goku (or, honestly, Bardok)) and it can be argued as a new character. Whether a third party could get away with that starts to get incredibly messy and dangerous.
wtf did I just read XD
There are a lot of weird anime fans I've encountered who seem to think that everyone is as familiar with anime as they are. I don't get it. I'm a massive Trekkie, but I wouldn't expect strangers that aren't on a Star Trek forum or something to understand what I'm talking about when I discuss Rick Berman's role in preventing queer characters from being a major presence on Star Trek shows until the kiss between Jadzia and another Trill host in the late 1990s being a microcosm of the television landscape of the 1980s and 1990s as a whole including the acceptability of queer women (such as Ellen) on TV vs. queer men... Because they have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about or who Rick Berman is or what a Jadzia could possibly be even if I could expand upon that and write a nice tight little essay.
Rick Berman is a petaQ.
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The reality is, though, that everything is an evolution of something else. "House, MD" is an evolution of Sherlock Holmes. Superman is an evolution of Hercules. If you couldn't copyright evolutions, you wouldn't be able to copyright anything at all.
In fact, creative commons licenses (like you shared) already address evolutions in the form of derivative works, which you can reserve in CC with the "ND" license type.
The reality is, though, that everything is an evolution of something else.
As a kopimist, there is no problem with that statement. However, I do live in the real world where nigh everything is nuanced. I could understand a copyright on an evolution of Mickey Mouse that were recognizable as being inspired by Mickey Mouse, but different enough to be its own entity. Simply adding color should not be considered a copyrightable evolution IMO.
That's a question that I don't know is answerable, because it comes down to the judgement of the courts; and I certainly wouldn't want to be on the business end of the Disney legal division in that fight.
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Of all the new uses of Mickey we're now seeing, one thing I really hope is to see Mickey showing up on murals in kindergartens and daycares. This is really what it means for the character to be entering the public domain. He's has been a part of American, if not world culture for decades, but that part of the culture has been illegal for people to use.
Finally, after nearly a century of Disney getting absolute control, that cultural element finally belongs to everyone. Now parents and caregivers can paint images of Mickey and make kids happy without having to get permission from Disney.
Just a public announcement, you don't have to believe in IP.
But I still suffer from it :(
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