If you're excited that things are entering the #PublicDomain — which you should be! — perhaps it's worth considering reforming copyright.
In many places currently it's 70 years after the death of the author, or longer. This is insanity.
An important piece of culture made by a young author could be locked behind copyright (with rights usually held by publishers, not authors themselves anyway) for over a *century*.
That's how you get #Disney to own almost everything.
Reform #copyright!
...and Disney of course used lots of public domain material while at the same time trying to extend copyright indefinitely on its own creations.
Cinderella, Aladdin, Snow White, Little Mermaid, The Jungle Book, Beauty & The Beast, Alice In Wonderland, Pocahontas, Frozen (based on the Ice Queen), Mulan, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty, Robin Hood etc etc etc were all PD, but Disney has done everything it can to try to stop cartoons they made almost 100 years ago become PD themselves.
Disney have even started using their first Mickey Mouse cartoon "Steamboat Willie" as an animated logo to try to stop it going public domain in January 2024.
The theory is that if a logo is trademarked, then the contents of the logo also remains out of the public domain while the trademark continues to be used.
It's not clear yet if they will get away with it, but it's clear they are trying to.
a key feature here is that trademarks lack an expiration date, even a nominal, ridiculously extended one.
most maintenance is accomplished through the process that generates those cease-and-desist letters that are being sent out anyway
@toxtethogrady @FediThing @rysiek
They've been coming up short for years! look at all the shitty remakes and 'sequels'. Do we really need another remake/sequel of Home Alone?
This isn't 'retelling the stories of oour culture', this is recycling shit content because they still have the copyright, and a brand new audience every generation.
@sparseMatrix imagine the explosion of creativity if all Disney content got put in the Public Domain today.
@toxtethogrady @BillySmith @rysiek @FediThing
Porn? You guys have lost me lol
@toxtethogrady @BillySmith @rysiek @FediThing
Wait that's going to require a substantial amount of lubrication, I'm not sure the supply lines are up to that kind of demand rn
@rysiek Disney is well known for lobbying the US Congress about copyright extension. And it's not just about books or movies. The major music companies do pretty much the same. Their weapons are the #DMCA and ownership of platforms like #Spotify. The average costs of a copyright infringement lawsuit is around 400K USD, which is completely unaffordable, and a great part of copyrighted material is published via US based platforms. This system is perfectly built for massive corporations that are actively and effectively manipulating and exploiting a basic human right.
- just a thought.
It's infuriating. How much art have we lost *because* it was not allowed to be preserved for posterity due to corporate copyright gobblers.
even with fairly recent TV programmes made in 90s and 00s aimed at youth audiences in Europe, particularly those featuring pop music any archives are often deliberately wiped (or not even kept in the first place) despite tech being able to preserve them due to the risk of copyright lawsuits. Worse still, a lot of producers of 90s rave music sold out to major labels (at least here in UK) so stuff constantly disappears from YouTube etc..
@MachineGrrrl I wondered why I saw very little archive stuff from MTV Europe. Was the archive that burned in UK, PL or USA when it happened? I've only heard about archive stores in USA burning, but I read a lot of "999/112 news from UK/Europe and don't recall any news reports about any incidents in UK/Europe (but they could I guess just have been reported as a "normal" fire in business premises)
> rights made by those who donate
this truth, that restrictions established through agreements even *exist*, often gets smothered entirely by copyright discourse
copyright law, for all its problems, can be seen as an attempt to harmonize an even messier and often more restrictive thicket of disparate private practices.
It's like people ignore entirely the very existence of contract law.
Great page here about works entering the public domain - and including some extra analysis about copyright generally:
* an analysis about attempts to keep Sherlock Holmes locked down that should (🤞) be guide for Disney
* section on saving silent films and the inadvertent destruction due to copyright
* the effects of copyright harmonisation due to trade deals between countries.
Tweet By Jennifer Jenkins, Director of Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain January 1, 2023 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1927 are open to all! On January 1, 2023, copyrighted works from 1927 will enter the US public domain. 1 They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. These include Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse and the final Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, the German science-fiction film Metropolis and Alfred Hitchcock’s first thriller, compositions by Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller, and a novelty song about ice cream.
@Bafty fantastic resource, thank you!
@rysiek
Another thing to note is that in copyright cases (thanks to the often abused DMCA?), the "innocent until proven guilty" principle is reversed.
Additionally, because computer software falls under copyright, the first computer programs that are going to officially arise to public domain will probably not do so until most of us are dead. Which means that much of it will, by nature, be useless and/or will not be retrievable.
Also, there are some pretty generous assumptions for authors who have gone missing. For example, https://pl.wikisource.org/wiki/Pami%C4%99tniki_lekarzy is affected by that in a somewhat ridiculous way.
@iffybooks I am not convinced abolishing copyright completely without other systemic changes would not be a cure that is worse than the disease.
What copyright *does* enable is copyleft licenses (like CC By-SA, or AGPL), and these proved to be a powerful tool in building a commons (be it cultural or code-related) that makes it very difficult for corporate rights hoggers to appropriate it.
And appropriate it they will whenever they get the chance.
@iffybooks but we absolutely do need to reform copyright dramatically.
@rysiek @iffybooks @dantescanline
I am convinced that abolishing copyright entirely would be better than the current state of affairs.
Not *optimal* -- that would be a shorter and more-limited copyright, IMHO. But abolition is better than the status quo.
@rysiek While totally agreed, I don't trust it to happen quickly
Stuff like this is why I'm adamant of folks creating new content under CC0, if only to help expand the public domain without having to wait for term expirations
I make chip music, and am based in Brooklyn, NY, USA. My mother, Dorothy Siegel, did the same back in 1978 (seen here: http://www.vintagecomputermusic.com/ ), making me a second generation chip musician. I play the Game Boy with LSDJ, as well as other retro game systems. Photo © 2012 Marjorie Becker, http://www.chiptography.com
@rysiek I've been hesitant in doing the same, if only bc I want as few restrictions as possible for the benefit of the greater culture.
That said, I've also heard tell of a P2P license hiding under the sofa. From what I understand about it, it's similar to CC, but requires derivatives to be made on an individual basis -- thus keeping corporate vultures out of it
@Ispod4 I would want some serious lawyers to have a look at this license. CC has been around for decades and is legally sound. I do not have that same confidence in many new "anticapitalist" licenses. Plus, they fracture the commons.
But that's a separate debate I guess. 🙂
@rysiek The thing that gets me is all the claims that we can't relax copyright, not even after the creator's death, because it 'protects' creators.
When... there are so, so, so many cases of copyright laws actively or passively screwing creators over. Even more cases of creators being bullied or tricked into signing away the rights, or never really holding them to begin with.
And in all of these fights? The courts don't give a shit about creators. The law doesn't. Public outcry rarely goes anywhere either.
I went looking for examples and honestly it's worse than I even remembered.
@skquinn @rysiek That term would make plenty of sense; usually within that kind of time frame, things change enough that there's a nonzero chance that the original software will become unusable for the majority of people (and those enthusiasts who want to keep it going are likely to have already paid for a copy anyway).
Was the term extended from original release date, or last update date? Because the latter would make even more sense - if a piece of software hasn't received an update in 28 years, it's doubtful that further protection achieves anything at all.
Hardware definitely needs some help, but I think that would be covered by patent law and that's a whole other beast.
@dartigen
I mean, it sure isn't protecting creators if the creators are dead. The idea that copyright lasts even a second longer than the author does is kind of crazy, but I can see cases where the author functionally doesn't get paid for their work if they publish it just before they die, and they had been counting on that income to take care of their family or what have you. Like, if my employer kept 3 years of wages from me and only paid them out up until I quit or died, that would be fucked up, and my family would be screwed. But 70 years after death?
That's crazy, and it's completely detached from the reality of any *creator*.
@rysiek
@Kichae @rysiek And I can bet you'd find cases where the estate got screwed out of the rights too.
Most likely because the creator never actually owned them to begin with, that happens a lot.
EDIT: Remember how I said I bet there'd be cases?
Search for 'Jack Kirby Marvel copyright'. Or even just 'Marvel copyright estates'.
They're trying to pull the same thing that Disney is pulling on living creators, but they're going after the estates of some of the creators who basically made them, all of whom are deceased too. And I bet it's in no small part because those creators aren't able to defend themselves or provide their own information anymore.
(Jack Kirby's estate's case started around 2009-10 and took until 2014 to settle, but part of that was that the estate had to withdraw a petition for a higher court review of a 2011 ruling that agreed with Marvel. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-marvel-kirby-idUSKCN0HL2EZ20140926)
It's actually kind of fascinating, it's drawn a ton of attention because it all hinges on some details of a 1960 ruling to do with The Game of Life and a review of that ruling for clarification. Depending on what that outcome is, it could affect... well, virtually everything copyrighted before 1976 (which would be covered by an earlier version of the Copyright Act). https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/how-the-supreme-court-could-shake-up-disneys-spider-man-plans-1235065460/
But I guess everyone post-1976 is kind of screwed if they didn't go out of their way to secure the rights, since it seems like the work-for-hire test is extremely broad.
The legal war between comic book art great Jack Kirby's heirs and Marvel Entertainment over the rights to Iron Man, Captain America and other superhero icons has ended, not with a climactic final battle but with a settlement announced Friday by both sides.
@rysiek Like, this is just a selection from little things I vaguely half-remembered:
- the Disney Must Pay campaign, which started with one writer and has now ballooned beyond a joke. But that's just one of the big cases that's blown up how badly work-for-hire screws creators - Marvel is under fire from the estates of multiple high-profile creators who've passed away, and this is after Jack Kirby's estate went after them. I'm no expert but it looks like it's a systemic practice among media companies going back an awfully long way.
- The music industry. I don't even know where to start. It goes back throughout its history, it goes all the way up to today. Even listening to one tiny music podcast - A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs - has brought plenty of cases, and I fell off of listening regularly around episode 120. For example, Episode 92. https://500songs.com/podcast/episode-92-the-lion-sleeps-tonight-by-the-tokens/ (and see also https://traxploitation.com/solomon-linda). You can basically just search 'music industry copyright screwing artists' and it'd probably take you years just to get a reasonable sample of cases. It gets worse.
- There is literally a fucking satirical sci-fi novel coming out about... music industry copyright. I am not making this up. I'm sure it isn't even the first satirical media about the music industry and copyright. https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2012/07/05/156311483/aliens-have-landed-hoping-to-license-all-of-humanitys-music
I'd be surprised to find an industry where copyright isn't screwing creators.
Earlier today, I saw someone complaining about "Public Domain Laws" [there is no such thing, of course -- PD is the default, copyright is a legally-mandated monopoly], "breathing life into out-dated colonialist attitudes."
Would not be NEARLY as much of a problem if copyright only lasted 20 years!
@amindonfire sure, that's one of the reasons I said "reform", not "abolish" copyright.
In many jurisdictions, including Poland, copyright is split into two separate pieces:
- economical rights
- moral rights
One of the most important moral rights is the right to correct attribution. And in Poland that is non-transferable. Even if Disney paid you to buy your work, they would *still* have to attribute it to you.
That, I feel, would be a good step to take globally, too.
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