Almost a century of government-granted monopoly on a cartoon character. During this time, Disney earned multiple fortunes and was more than adequately rewarded for its creations. It still wants copyright to last even longer.
I guess I just don't understand this. I'm all for patents expiring and I'm against "monopolies". But why does anyone think that Disney, who created Mickey and is actively developing him, should have to let anyone else use him?
This isn't something, like a medical device or drug, that would save lives or make anything better if it was more widely available. Disney didn't go crazy with copyright, like copyrighting the concept of an animated mouse. All that will happen is we'll get a bunch of knockoff Mickey Mouse products.
> All that will happen is we'll get a bunch of knockoff Mickey Mouse products.
For me, this was never about Disney. It was always about the gigantic amounts of non-Disney works that Disney has prevented from falling into the public domain.
My vote as an author and software developer is that copyright lasts 14 years plus a one time 14-year renewal, the original term.
I might agree to 28+14, but anything more is a net loss when considering the greater good.
It isn’t about “knock-off” Mickey Mouse products. It’s about anyone being able to re-tell culturally important stories. I would argue that we do not want a society where a single company/entity is the only one legally allowed to create stories using characters and settings that are important to the society.
As for “knockoff” products. Imagine where Disney would be if the Brothers Grimm had maintained copyright over the stories they put into writing.
Being allowed to borrow from the past (as Walt Disney did) is extremely important. For those not familiar, Lawrence Lessig has written and spoken about this extensively.
Morally I don't see why "Disney", the legal entity, should have any right to prevent anyone from creating derivative works today. Disney , the creative artist, has been fully compensated for his contribution, is long dead, but held hostage like some copyright mummy by this abominable company. Nobody can argue he would have lacked the motivation to create these characters if he'd known his copyright would expire already in the 70s.
It's ridiculous to argue copyright incentivizes innovation when Disney/Marvel/etc are comically uncreative, despite their vast resources. Sequel upon sequel...
> It's ridiculous to argue copyright incentivizes innovation when Disney/Marvel/etc are comically uncreative, despite their vast resources. Sequel upon sequel...
Completely agree. They've already been compensated. If these corporations want to keep making money, they should have to create new works. They shouldn't be able to strike gold once then enjoy the monopoly for 500 years. Stuff like Star Wars should already have entered the public domain.
Bands can do covers because there's an existing structure in the US for compulsory mechanical licensing. No such thing exists for anything other than non-dramatic music, as far as I know.
And even then the compulsory licensing only covers relatively "straight" cover versions – you can change the arrangement and the general style of the song, but you need to keep the basic melody and the lyrics more or less intact.
Now Dylan also did a number of those relatively straight cover versions as well, but there are also quite a few instances where he more liberally took (occasionally self-admittedly "stole", see the sibling post by mikojan) parts of a melody (or sometimes even the whole melody) and re-worked it with new lyrics, or incorporated text fragments from other works into his lyrics, etc. etc.
If it's a popular artist, they're paying for the rights to perform and/or record those songs. I helped a band that isn't even popular, nor signed to a label, but they wanted to post their cover to youtube and they ended up paying a popular 90's band for the rights to do the cover.
Because creators should get 5-10 years at most to make money off of their work before it enters the public domain where it belongs whether they like it or not. Anything else means we've been robbed of our public domain and fair use rights.
Copyright is time-limited and meant only to reward creators, not to allow billionaire corporations to coast on past successes for literal centuries. Copyright was actually tolerable before the monopolists corrupted it with their lobbying, now it's gotten to the point where copyright infringement is a moral good.
I don't get how you can say Disney is coasting. You can dislike them, but they're actively creating new things all the time and expanding on existing IP in genuine ways.
I know you're being sarcastic, but Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway at Hollywood Studios opened recently. It's really well done. There's also a new uber-stylized show called The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse on Disney+.
(That being said, there's never really been much Mickey media. This is the first ride featuring him, and he's never had his own full-length movie. Mickey is way closer to a trademark, in my opinion, and has always been that way.)
Fun fact: the guy who plays the Tres Commas VC in Silicon Valley is the current voice of Mickey Mouse.
Remember, Disney can still do what they like with Mickey.
All that is happening is that the government is finally saying, after 95 years, they will no longer stop anyone else creating Mickey Mouse works.
I mean really, just how long can a company expect the world to police whether anyone else is allowed draw a picture similar to one a long dead person once drew ?
> But why does anyone think that Disney, who created Mickey and is actively developing him, should have to let anyone else use him?
After a few decades it has become part of our culture, and culture should not be gatekeeped by private companies forever. Disney itself constantly produces derivatives of private works that entered the public domain.
On a side note, copyright is absurdly long in USA, 95 years is longer than the life expectancy of most people.
I believe they haven't even bothered extending it after the last one. Disney seem to be moving Mickey out of the limelight, and no longer using the ears as often in branding. They have lots of new and old IP to milk anyway.
