Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦Jan 2, 2023

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!

Show threadA Film Worth Fighting For
@rysiek
The evil Disney company aside, copyright is also there so someone can't just take something I made (book, film, comic, art, etc.), claim it as their own and make money off of it. In theory, the length of time is so I can make as much money from my creation.
So, sure, Disney took public domain stories and Dinsneyfied them. This does not mean I can't make an Aladdin movie. It means it can't resemble the Disney version whatsoever.
Jan 3, 2023 at 2:08amWeb
Show threadMichał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦Jan 3, 2023

@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.

Show threadA Film Worth Fighting ForJan 3, 2023
@rysiek
That makes total sense. Whereas in a lot of cases, like comic books, a creator creates a character for DC or Marvel it's not their character. I think now after decades of creators protests for change they get something and some, depending on their contracts, get a cut of the inevitable movie that will be made. Except for Len Wein. If I remember correctly he said he never saw a dime from any of the movies.