Was there a copyright reason for Disney changing their opening logo sequence to the steamboat willy thing? Some kind of "it's now our trademark" claim?
Was there a copyright reason for Disney changing their opening logo sequence to the steamboat willy thing? Some kind of "it's now our trademark" claim?
My pet theory is that the only reason we didn't see a copyright extension act this year, like we've seen every time Steamboat Willy was about to enter the public domain in the past, is that Disney ended up on one side of the culture wars with what went on in Florida. It's far more difficult to get bipartisan support for robbing the public of what should be in the public domain once you've involved yourself in partisan politics.
What exactly went on in Florida? Sorry, I'm not across this.
Florida passed the "Don't Say Gay" bill, to which Disney publicly stood against. Since then, GOP led Florida government has decided that Disney is the enemy and has taken active measures to bludgeon them.
How much influence does the Florida legislature have over federal copyright law, really?
Very little overall, but conservatives it got a fair amount of press and conservative media in particular started echoing a sentiment of “Disney doesn’t share your values”.
Additionally the current governor of Florida (who pushed forwards the bill) is running for the republican nomination for president so its made a pretty big splash regarding the “culture wars”
“Running” is being rather generous to his campaign.
Realistically, this might be a primary issue for a few key Republican seats elsewhere though. The question is whether “owning the libs” via acting against what Disney wants or “owning the libs” via acting against what Google want is more compelling to those people.
Probably very little. This theory is pretty bad from many angles, including timing.
It is an "anti-woke" law, which is likely to become a purity test in next year's election. GOP lawmakers who come in favor of Disney would have a harder time in a race against a similar candidate who is against. Add in a little dose of "owning the libs", and that's that.
The people driving GOP policy these days aren’t exactly rational.
This happened too recently for it to change Disney's calculus. They would've had to start a lobbying campaign close to a decade ago to get it taken up in the Senate in time.
The short version is a bunch of conservatives were/are irate because Disney exercised their freedom of speech and it wasn't aligned with their own beliefs
It might not be the only reason, but I think it's a good insight. It's also a reminder that when something "has bipartisan support" should be a red flag: it usually means it's another way the government is robbing from you (the public).
How was the government robbing us with the First Step Act? That's smack dab in the middle of the Trump Administration, complete with Democratic support and Koch Foundation support.
Also, the recent bipartisan bill to keep the government open literally did the opposite of robbing the public.
Here's a good one to check your insight: the so-called "Bipartisan Safer Communities Act." You've got Republicans helping to pass gun-control legislation of all things during the Biden administration! That's certainly a red flag if I ever saw one. So what is the way this law is being used to fleece people?
Here's a good one to check your insight: the so-called "Bipartisan Safer Communities Act." You've got Republicans helping to pass gun-control legislation of all things during the Biden administration! That's certainly a red flag if I ever saw one. So what is the way this law is being used to fleece people?
It's a good example, but (to me) for the opposite reason of what you implied.
Let's see if gun violence and mass shootings stats will actually decrease in 5 or 10 years from now then.
Well, if it doesn't have bipartisan support it still could be - and often is - another way the government is robbing from you, just only one set of partisans gets to benefit from it for some reason, so the other set is objecting.
I doubt it played a very big role. Consider: the last general copyright extension in the US was the CTEA in 1998. Back then, the movie and music industries were among the biggest players in the copyright space. Since 1998, though, Silicon Valley companies (most obviously Google) have become powerhouses with lots of money and lots of incentive to fight future copyright extensions.
Do silicon valley companies still have a big incentive to fight copyright extension?
The public domain and copyright expiry is one more set of requirements for SV code to have to implement and support. It's way easier if the owner stays for ever, and that there is a single owner
Yes. They have every reason to want it. The more raw material isn't covered by copyright, the more they can feed into anything.
And that's not even counting the relevance of organizations like the Internet Archive, which was not nearly as meaningful in 1998.
The public domain and copyright expiry is one more set of requirements for SV code to have to implement and support. It's way easier if the owner stays for ever, and that there is a single owner
And this makes no sense. Applications are not required to recognize public domain content and make it unrestricted when copyright expires. Having it remain under ownership forever doesn't make anything easier. And, in fact, copyrights having a single, simple owner is just... not the case. So to whatever extent there is a need to keep track of owners, copyright expiration only makes things easier (because if a work is in the public domain, you can no longer screw it up).
There have only been two copyright extensions that affected the copyright on Mickey Mouse, and I haven't been able to find any significant Disney involvement with the first one.
The first one was when the Copyright Act of 1909 was replaced with the Copyright Act of 1976. Between 1909 and 1976 there had been a lot of changes in technology, such as the rise of radio, TV, movies, and computers, and it was widely agreed that the 1909 Act was not up to handling it. Also international distribution was more common, and most thought the US needed its copyright law to be more compatible with the rest of the world. The 1976 Act started that harmonization (although it left a lot of it for the Berne Implementation Act of 1988).
The second was the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. That one Disney was a significant force in its creation and passing.
The 1976 act was also useful in settling the idea of a "work for hire". There'd previously been a lot of bespoke, confusing contacts and promises made around ownership of IP and the 1976 act settled it. It didn't make artists who'd been ripped off (Siegel and Schuster) whole, but it cleared up delineations. This paved the way for future artists to actually know what they were seeking, and keep some of the good stuff for themselves
I recall a few years ago there was something published where the MPAA basically said "We don't think we have enough public support to pull it off" I may be mixing my signals, but I think it was just a year or two after the whole SOPA/PIPA win.
Yes, that was the takeaway by the MPAA-aligned laywers at the time.
robbing the public of what should be in the public domain
I love your choice of words. These copyright monopolists are robbing and defrauding us of our rights. Literal robber barons.
The social contract was we'd pretend their stuff wasn't trivially copyable so they could make some money and then the works would enter the public domain. They have repeatedly failed to keep up their ends of the bargain while making fortunes off of government enabled monopolies on information. Therefore we should not be obligated to keep honoring their monopolies either.
They would have started the lobbying long before this year.
They seem to have given up on making copyright law even more absurd, there's no public support for it, instead they seem to be attempting to use trademark law to keep control over their characters (which only requires you to keep using and defending the trademark)
Notice how they use a clip from Steamboat Willie as the intro logo for Walt Disney Animation Studios, this keeps that design of Mickey as an active trademark of Disney, and they could sue anyone using it for trademark confusion. ("Mickey is the logo for Walt Disney Animation Studios, anyone else using it might confuse consumers into thinking they are Walt Disney Animation Studios and must be stopped!")
If there is some influence I think it’s much more likely to be because Disney hoovered up so much other IP and now Mickey is a tiny slice of a much much larger pie.
The timing is off. The analysis I read that I found more convincing is that now you have other moneyed interests like Google who do NOT favor the extension.
On the other hand, Disney itself is a talented and successful practitioner of building upon the public domain. In fact, the public domain is Disney’s bread and butter. Frozen was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. The Lion King draws from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Biblical stories, and possibly an epic poem about the founder of the Mali Empire.[3] Fantasia showcases public domain classical music, and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” segment comes from a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, and Pinocchio came from stories by Lewis Carroll, The Brothers Grimm, Victor Hugo, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Anderson, and Carlo Collodi.
Wasn't The Lion King a rip off of the Japanese anime Kimba? https://12tomatoes.com/kimba-similarity-lion-king/
Basically - no, the Kimba / Lion King controversy is fake (the Kimba movie often cited as the work copied was actually released 3 years after the Lion King). Check out YMS's review on this exact topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5B1mIfQuo4
The Kimba anime is almost 30 years older than the Lion King movie. The Kimba manga is 15 years older than that.
Yes, the Kimba TV show is about 30 years older, but this show has basically 0 similarities with TLK. It's like saying The Simpsons is the same as The Princess Bride - yes, some individual shots and scenes are comparable but its only when those are taken out of context, and it completely misses the overarching story/themes/characters. And it also misses the fact that the anime has ~3,000 hours of content in comparison to the 90 minute runtime of TLK.
Seriously, watch the YMS video about it. Apart from some superficial similarities Kimba and The Lion King are majorly different. And Kimba is just bizarre, The Lion King never had humans genocide elephants with tanks and helicopters, Kimba did. The Lion King never had weird racist stuff, Kimba did. Simba never wore Mufasa's hide around to boost his confidence, Kimba did with his father's hide.
Tezuka's work is much earlier than the Lion King. You have been misled
This is addressed in the video. Tezuka's work has very little in common with The Lion King. The bulk of the apparent similarity comes from the 1997 movie; if one ignores that there's very little.
The Lion King is an adaptation of Hamlet.
Disney is both the best and worst when it comes to the public domain. It shows what you should do with it: take something that exists, remix it, release it, and even create a successful media & entertainment company. But efforts to aid extensions to the term of copyright expiration will – if they haven't already – have a deleterious effect.
Had the Brothers Grimm taken the Disney view, there would have been no Disney, or at the least, a very different, far less compelling one.
The Grimm Brothers didn't write the stories, they collected and published folktales. In any case they would have been been out of copyright since Jacob Grimm died in 1863.
Disney didn't mind paying for the rights if they wanted to use material still under copyright, like they did for Bambi or Dumbo or many others.
shows what you should do with it: take something that exists, remix it, release it, and even create a successful media & entertainment company.
and also shows you what to do to prevent other people from doing the same so that you get a monopoly.
Yes, that’s an important point. When my kids were small, I remember being struck by how much public-domain material I noticed in Disney videos and at Disneyland. Few of the Disney properties were based on original ideas; almost everything was built quite explicitly on other people’s creations, many of which Disney could use for free. This was in the 1990s, when Disney was lobbying to extend copyright terms in order to protect their rights in Mickey Mouse.
And what's Disney doing now? Rehashing its own movies.
Unlimited profits for zero effort
They're also not above taking stuff that isn't in the public domain, like Peter Pan (copyright owned by a children's hospital).
That's only in the UK where the children's hospital has perpetual copyright to the first peter pan book/play (I'm not sure about the other works in the series). Outside of the UK it is no longer under copyright. Performances/etc. of it in the UK require royalty payments to the children's hospital. Presumably performances/etc. of derivative works (such as the Disney film) require the same.
The same applies to the King James Bible where the UK Crown (and Cambridge Press) hold the copyright to it, where you can't publish that text without permission.
The Lion King draws from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Biblical stories, and possibly an epic poem about the founder of the Mali Empire.[3]
I was curious so I researched some more. The story of the founding of the Mali Empire is often told through the epic of Sundiata - born frail and unable to walk, Sundiata faced scorn from his half-brothers in the Mandinka kingdom. Guided by a prophetic destiny, Sundiata and his mother were exiled after the death of his father. During his exile, Sundiata transformed into a formidable leader, forming alliances and gathering supporters. He returned to the kingdom, defeated the oppressive forces and established the Mali Empire
Mickey Mouse curve finally is defeated. Now it should be beaten back down which is harder.
You could freeze it, sorta. So it is 94, then 93, then 92 and so on, years.
People with copyrights today, don't lose anything. Only new ones have shorter terms.
That's better than nothing, but since it was pushed so aggressively before, it can as well be pushed backwards the same way.
At this point, I think the only way copyright terms could be reduced is a Constitutional amendment (not going to happen).
Were increases considered constitutional amendments? If they could happen, then what's the problem to revert it?
Previous copyright extensions were not constitutional amendments. Decreasing the length of new copyright terms could be done the same way, without any need for an amendment.
Reducing the length of existing copyright terms might be considered an ex post facto law. Those are explicitly prohibited by the Constitution.
The Constitution states that copyrights must be limited in length. Retroactively extending the duration of existing copyrights (as opposed to new copyrights) should be unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court said in Eldred v. Ashcroft that it’s fine—wrongly, in my opinion. Correcting them would require an amendment.
Reducing the length of existing copyright terms might be considered an ex post facto law.
It's arguable that "about a century" was not what the drafters of the Constitution had in mind when writing "a limited time", but convincing the Supreme Court of that would be harder than an actual amendment.
But isn't the ex post facto prohibition mainly related to consequences of past actions rather than general public policy? No one is going to jail because copyright terms were reduced to 15 years from 95.
I think such a reduction would definitely be constitutional if it were phrased as "all new copyright terms will be XYZ, and existing ones will expire XYZ from the effective date of this act," but I'm not totally convinced that's necessary.
Reducing the length of existing copyright terms might be considered an ex post facto law. Those are explicitly prohibited by the Constitution.
No, that is definitely not an ex post facto law. That's not even close to what the ex post facto law clause covers (dealing with punishments for actions that were kosher at the time they took place).
There is an argument that shortening copyrights is prohibited by the takings clause. But I think there is a very good argument that shortening them isn't prohibited by the takings clause (for the same public-private interest balance reason that led to the first amendment arguments in Eldred v. Ashcroft and Golan v. Holder failing).
You aren't taking away anything from grants that don't exist yet, so just reduce the term for new copyrights and Steamboat Willy is your uncle.
Takes longer than changing the terms of existing grants, but so what.
I think it's more so that you're not going to convince politicians to reduce it (they have no incentive), and even if they do reduce it, there's no way to stop them from raising it again.
No. Copyright is enabled by the main text of the Constitution, not an amendment; the specific terms are simply acts of congress. The one tricky thing you'd run into --- besides the fact that there isn't public support for a radical change in copyright --- is treaty obligations. But, like, we can just break treaties.
But, like, we can just break treaties.
The USA might get away with it, but smaller countries likely can't.
Unfortunately there’s no lobby paying the bills equivalent to Disney to go the other way.
It’s difficult because the most recent extensions were put in place to synchronize US copyright with the absurd durations pioneered by Europe and the Berne Convention. In effect, the US has allowed international treaties to supersede the Constitution’s requirement that copyright last “for limited times.”
I think it went the other way around. Corrupt US industries first pushed those conventions and then pressured US legislature to "synchronize" with them. It's all a big pile of corrupt BS that tries to bypass normal lawmaking, so pushing back against it should be only natural.
I'm not familiar with the background here, so I just checked on Wikipedia. It says "After the United States' accession to the Berne convention, a number of copyright owners successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress for another extension of the term of copyright, to provide for the same term of protection that exists in Europe." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act#:...)
This would seem to indicate that the parent was right -- the long extension to copyright is because the US decided to match Europe's protections. Although, on second reading of your comment, I wonder if you mean that US companies convinced Europe to provide longer protections, with the intent to then make the US match the policies they pushed in Europe? That seems very elaborate
It's not far fetched and is a known trick in their book.
Example: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/ustr-secret-copyright-...
Reading more of the Wikipedia link, while it is true that:
The Senate Report gave the official reasons for passing copyright extension laws [...] to ensure adequate copyright protection for American works in foreign nations
... it also notes:
The report also included minority opinions by Herb Kohl and Hank Brown, who believed that the term extensions were a financial windfall to current owners of copyrighted material at the expense of the public's use of the material.
And who supported the bill and lobbied for it?
Since 1990, The Walt Disney Company had lobbied for copyright extension. The legislation delayed the entry into the public domain of the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons, leading detractors to the nickname "The Mickey Mouse Protection Act".
In addition to Disney, California congresswoman Mary Bono (Sonny Bono's widow and Congressional successor), and the estate of composer George Gershwin supported the act. Mary Bono, speaking on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, said: "Actually, Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution. ... As you know, there is also [then-MPAA president] Jack Valenti's proposal for term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress."
Other parties that lobbied in favor of the Bono Act were Time Warner, Universal, Viacom, the major professional sports leagues (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB), and the family of slain singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez.
So, primarily American corporations and individuals looking for a "financial windfall", including Sonny Bono himself who would have liked the act to completely violate the US constitution and make copyright last forever.
What you don't see on this list are any European organisations asking the USA to match their own copyright durations.
It's incredibly ironic that under the copyright terms Disney has helped get enacted, several earlier films in particular Alice in Wonderland would have been infringement. Crossing a rope bridge and cutting it down behind you.
This isn’t some clever gotcha.
Disney didn’t mind paying for the rights to adapt copyrighted material, like they did for Bambi, Dumbo, Peter Pan etc.
Disney didn’t mind paying for the rights to adapt copyrighted material, like they did for Bambi, Dumbo, Peter Pan etc.
Because the copyright holders at the time were much smaller and less astute.
You try to get the rights for a TV show based on Frozen. Disney will probably not sell those rights to you at any price.
Probabably not - do you think they should?
Have you seen the post I was replying to?
You mean the comment written by me? This is a very tedious way of arguing - if you have a point, why dont you make it?
You think Disney IP should be free for all to use? Just remember this would go both ways - Disney could take the work of any independent author or artist and use freely without crediting.
My point is that the Disney empire was built on public domain works.
At least the older stuff should become public domain.
They're trying to have their cake and eat it.
It's not normal or sane or good for society that things created 70+ years ago are still locked up in a corporate vault.
You’re each arguing half of the article and are thus both correct.
Your conflict is self-created and can also be undone.
You can make your own adaptions of Cinderella or The Snow Queen. Nothing is stopping you.
You just can’t use the exact character design of Anna and Elsa, but why would you want that anyway?
Certainly things more valuable to humanity (like land or real estate) is loced up in corporate vaults.
You try to get the rights for a TV show based on Frozen
I think it is ridiculous to think it might happen. It is like asking Apple to sell you M3 chips. They will use it on their own devices in the same way that Disney could make that TV show end-to-end for years, if not a lifetime. Think in the Star Wars brand.
Simultaneously they partner with Lego and other companies for franchising.
As I replied to the sibling comment, have you seen the post I was replying to?
Could you please expand about your point? You are copying the same message to other commenters.
Disney will probably not sell those rights to you at any price.
While I understand where you are coming from, it's obvious they would. They are a public company, responsible to the shareholders, yadda, yadda. It's another question whether it would make economical sense to pay such a price which would likely run into the tens of billions.
I don't think being astute has anything to do with it.
Even now, book adaptations into movies, series, etc happen all the time. Even Disney still lets various companies (including freaking Warner Bros) make video games of its various IPs.
The dynamic here isn't about being astute, it's about well-positioned for a given market. If Disney thought a Frozen show was a good idea, they'd produce it themselves (like they did for Tangled and various others). For markets where they don't have / don't want to have an internal talent pool (RIP LucasArts), they rent the license.
And I suspect they really preferred to pay.
Using public domain stories enabled others to easily produce cheap knockoffs legally, and they did. So, for instance you you had direct-to-video, cheaply made versions of "Cinderella" which were an attempt to trick unsuspecting buyers who really wanted the Disney version.
When some work is still under copyright, that makes is a higher bar for knockoff producers than for Disney. Disney has more money, more and better lawyers, and is known for the quality of its work, which makes it in a better position to negotiate the rights.
I don't understand. According to Wikipedia, Disney bought the rights to Alice in Wonderland and the illustrations from the publisher in 1938, 13 years before the movie came out.
They also used public domain works like Snow White and Cinderella but now are working actively to stop other works from reaching public domain.
Crossing a rope bridge and cutting it down behind you.
Heads they win. Tails you lose.
I plan on uploading a BD rip of Steamboat Willie to YouTube at midnight January 1st, 2024. I'm curious if a copyright strike will happen and if I can defeat it.
Is a rip from a BluRay fair use? I would think that you would need to own the film reels and scan them/master it yourself.
In the US, Bridgeman v. Corel ruled that faithful copies of public domain works don’t gain copyright protection for being copies of an original. To be copyrighted requires some sort of creative spark, and that spark was entirely contained in the original work; none was introduced in the copying process.
Whether this applies to a Blu‐Ray rip, I will not attempt to discern.
The classical music pieces are old.
The recordings of the classical music pieces are under the copyright.
There was a good article about there at [probably] TorrentFreaks.
Typically the copyright of the recordings derives from the copyright of the performance, and only indirectly from that of the original classical piece. Most recordings are copyrighted, but that’s because recording technology only became hugely prevalent during existing copyright terms.
Looking at it another way, an uncreative recording of a classical performance will be copyrighted for a period of time, but after it expires, a recording of the recording won’t add any further copyright. It’s a bit like how a photograph of a public domain painting is uncopyrightable, but a new painting based on the painting might be copyrightable.
Color correction and transfer to another medium don't create a new copyrighted work as far as I know.
If I recall correctly, it will and there’s nothing you can do about it. This came up recently on HN. Someone tried to post something that is definitely in the public domain as of this year, got a strike, and was asking how they’re supposed to appeal but was told the system is designed to be abused. It implicitly favors copyright holders even when it shouldn’t. There’s no built-in fairness, and to be honest I’m posting this because I hope someone will tell me I’m wrong.
Content creators should band together and make a platform they equally own or is put in a public trust.
It sounds like the “malicious compliance” move is to mark Steamboat Willie as your own copyright work so that you are the one to decide whether it sticks.
For those that don’t know, this is based off an often-abused tactic: take the original music of someone who has not registered it and register it instead of them. Once done, they file copyright strikes and/or file to have the creator’s monetization funds deposited in to the abuser’s account since the abuser is the “rightful owner”.
Might be careful about discerning which midnight applies.
Such nuance only matters if you end up in a courtroom, which you never would because it would be beyond absurd.
I wouldn't do it on an account with anything important in it, I think you're still likely to get striked.
There's little recourse for false claims, so they'll probably do it anyway, and since it's the claimant that gets to deny your appeals, there won't be much you can do unless you can create enough publicity about it on social media (although I guess doing that to get attention could be enough reason to do it!)
Not all heroes wear capes! Taking one for the team, my good fellow!
p.s. make sure to exfiltrate everything of value from your attached Google account before you hit Upload.
Surprised the article didn’t mention what for me (as a horror fan) was the most famous example of the public domain immediately benefiting the culture. Due to repeated edits requested by a demanding distributor, the final cut of Night of the Living Dead was released without a copyright notice. In 1968, unfortunately, this meant the work automatically went into the public domain. The film’s subsequent unexpected success led to zombies becoming a pop-culture phenomenon, but perhaps at George Romero’s expense.
I’m confused that not adding a copyright notice automatically donates something to the public domain. This is not how I learned copyright works. I always believed that you own the copyright to everything you produce unless explicitly noted otherwise.
A sister comment suggests that this was some feature (bug?) of US copyright law at the time, can anyone elaborate?
On the pre-Berne era, you are required to properly affix a copyright notice, but since that Night of the Living Dead was released without one it became outside of US copyright law (and automatically became in public domain).
In addition to the belated Berne Convention adaptation, the US also required registration of copyright, and to this day still "prefers" registration. (However the reality is that while modern work is still in copyright regardless of registration status, in case there's a legal suit the possible remedies are severely curtailed if it's not a registered work, so to this day it's still effectively mandatory. This... has been a grumbling of some countries since that Berne convention requires that there should not have formalities, and this seems to retain that formality system.)
However the reality is that while modern work is still in copyright regardless of registration status, in case there's a legal suit the possible remedies are severely curtailed if it's not a registered work, so to this day it's still effectively mandatory
It should be noted that only some of the possible remedies are curtailed. Attorney fees and statutory damages are curtailed, but injunctions and actual damages are not.
Also the curtailing is just for infringement before registration. I'm not quite sure what that the implications are for that.
For infringement that has stopped by the time you register and sue it seems straightforward--all you might get are actual damages from that infringement and an injunction ordering them to not infringe again.
But infringements are usually ongoing, I believe. So what if you just sue for an infringement that happened after you registered? Can you then get attorney fees and statutory damages?
If you can, then in the case of ongoing infringement it might not make much difference. Your attorney costs are going to be about the same regardless of whether the case is just dealing with the infringements after registration or is deal with all of the infringements. And statutory damages are per work infringed, not per infringing copy, although I'd expect the amount to be lower if they are only meant for post-registration infringement.
The statute that curtails attorney fees and statutory damages pre-registration says it applies to "any infringement of copyright commenced after first publication of the work and before the effective date of its registration [...]". The question then is when does an infringement "commence"? Would ongoing infringement all count as commencing with the first infringement, so it would all be denied attorney fees and statutory damages?
There's nothing I noticed in the definitions section of the copyright statute that says what "commence" means. I did find that for purposes of the statute of limitations on bringing a copyright suite, the time is counted from the most recent infringement that is part of an ongoing infringement, and would guess that it has similar meaning elsewhere but law is not always that consistent.
This... has been a grumbling of some countries since that Berne convention requires that there should not have formalities, and this seems to retain that formality system
The requirement that you register for suing only applies to infringement of works that are "United States" works. A published work is a "United States" work only if it was first publication was in the US or simultaneous in the US and somewhere else, or if it was first published someplace that is not a party with the US in any international copyright agreement and all the authors are "nationals, domiciliaries, or habitual residents of, or in the case of an audiovisual work legal entities with headquarters in" the US.
So, if you are say some author in some random Berne country, publish your work there but not simultaneously here, and then later find someone in the US infringing, you don't have to register to sue here because that would not be a "United States" work. The US argues that this satisfies Berne. Berne is about how you treat works and authors from other countries. It's OK if you treat domestic works and authors worse than foreign works and authors.
You do need registration for attorney fees and statutory damages, but I think the argument for that being OK under Berne is that the only remedy Berne requires is the seizure of infringing goods.
Automatic application of copyright law to creative works came about in the U.S. after it became a signatory to the Berne Convention, in 1988.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_Implementatio...
Nit-pick: automatic copyright came about in the US via the Copyright Act of 1976, which came into force in 1978. The Berne Implementation Act of 1988 finished the job of making the US compatible [1] with Berne that the 1976 Act started.
[1] There is an argument to be made that US copyright law still isn't compatible with Berne, but the rest of the world has decided having the US in Berne is important enough that as long as US law is close enough that you can make a hand wavy argument that isn't completely ridiculous everyone lets it slide.
unfortunately, this meant the work automatically went into the public domain
To clarify, only in the US (and a few others not following the Berne convention). Night of the Living Dead is still in copyright for 95%-ish of the world (unlike some people insisting that "It's Public Domain worldwide." because sadly that doesn't how copyright works.) This is of course more complicated (rule of shorter term may be applied here but that's a can of worms), but generally US copyright regime was weird (and still kind of is since that other countries do have a separate moral and economic rights).
From what I’ve read and heard, this was actually a major success for George Romero. Night of the Living Dead had made its money back (and more) by the time anyone noticed it was public domain. Once people realized, NotLD got a level of publicity that it would have never gotten if it were copyrighted, which ended up being way more beneficial to Romero. Any theater could show it whenever they didn’t know what else to play and so the movies lifespan extendedly dramatically. Because of all the publicity, NotLD travelled across seas to Europe, and the Europeans reevaluated it as valuable social commentary on race relations in America. If you listen to interviews with Romero on the subject, he was convinced that the public domain is what actually launched his career.
So is using mickey full of land mines? If you use it incorrectly and accidentally use variations of it that still have copyright, you risk getting sued
It's important to remember that none of these laws give you permission to do anything. The only thing the law does is give a judge, or a panel of judges, or a jury, a set of guidelines to evaluate whether or not you violated that law and can be fined or punished.
If you use it in a way that violates copyright, or in a way that a lawyer responsible for the IP thinks violates copyright then you can hire a lawyer to try to convince someone that your use of the IP doesn't violate copyright.
In Lenz v. Universal the courts found that the rights holder does need to consider fair use, and if they do not before sending a DMCA takedown they are liable
There's only one thing required in a DMCA takedown, and that is the claim that the person issuing the takedown is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright holder. That's it. No requirement to consider fair use, or even any requirement that the allegedly infringed work is correctly identified.
Damn you better be a copyright lawyer to use this, I just read at least 2-3 gotchas by skimming the article
I can see people taking 2-3 paths
1. Wait 5-10 years to see how others do it, then follow their path
2. Line up some copyright lawyers and maybe EFF etc
3. Defeat someone smaller, someone with 1/100 the clout of Disney and build a case law there
You need to look at the contemporary advertisements for Mickey Mouse from the era. Were they in color? Was he red?
According to what is stated to be a 1928 poster, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mickey-mouse-poster_n_2149610 , he is depicted with a red shirt, white buttons, yellow gloves, and brown shoes.
what is in the middle of his palm?
He's wearing dress gloves with a cutout and button closure. When closed, the cutout leaves a small opening, which is a bit stylized and exaggerated here.
Wow, good find. That poster could be huge for IP lawyers in the next few weeks.
Was it originally yellow gloves? That's an old poster.
The estimate of $20,000 for that poster seemed surprisingly low. It went for $101,000. (This was back in 2012.)
Unfair compromise suggestion: Exempt Disney from the law and shrink the public domain? Acknowledge reality and create competition for those who are beyond the law, instead of them destroying the law for all?
The idea that the current lengths of copyright law are anything to do with Disney is a nice fiction but it's not true.
The US has the copyright terms they have is because they were obligated to match the EU's by international treaty (where copyright is, in most cases, the end of the year 70 years after the author dies). The EU adopted that term to harmonise it's copyright with that of Germany.
Disney certainly didn't object to a copyright extension in the US, but they weren't the driving force behind it, trade deals with the EU were, and the EU is not going to allow the US to reduce their term in a million years (and nor are the many other international signatories who have harmonised their term at a similar period since).
they were obligated to match the EU's by international treaty
Nope.
"We have to align to the more generous terms in territory X" is almost always one rationale offered for expansions, everywhere. There is no such treaty requirement. What the US is obligated to do by treaty is give everybody else's copyrights the same benefits their own get in their country.
The reason this rationale is used is that it's cover to grow copyright indefinitely because you insist on "aligning" only with other people's more favourable terms, but of course in the process you also uprate the places where your terms were already most favourable, thus ensuring other countries with the same practice will likewise re-align, so this ping-pongs forever.
The USA unilaterally passed the Copyright Act of 1976, extending copyright to life + 50 years. The reason it did this was because the oldest works still enjoying copyright protection would have expired in 1977.
Only in 1988 did the USA accede to the Berne Convention, and in 1990 acceded to the WTO TRIPS agreement. The EU didn't exist until 1993 (the EEC preceeded it) and the EU didn't try harmonising copyright law even among its own member states until 1993. The EU and USA don't have any trade deals, their last attempt (TTIP) went down in flames.
And then came the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act
In 1998, the USA extended its copyright terms - not because any international convention or trade agreement required them to. Again, the timing was because the oldest works still enjoying copyright protection would have expired in 1998. As Disney was openly lobbying Congress, and Mickey was due to enter the public domain in 1999, it becomes fairly clear why the USA did this. Nothing to do with Europe.
Disney has put so much effort into building Mickey Mouse as a brand that I don't mind all the protections they get. Plus, he's more of an icon than a character, so he's more likely to be an already-allowed stand-in for commentary on Disney (a la South Park) than people telling new stories with him.
You don’t seem to be bothered by the ramifications of this. Really short sighted thinking.
Disney has put so much effort into building Mickey Mouse as a brand that I don't mind all the protections they get.
The law wasn't meant to extend protections based on "effort", but based on time, - for reasons of enriching the public domain and general culture.
Also Disney isn't a person, it's a company, and as such it put zero effort. People working at Disney put the effort, including many people fired, discriminated, compensated badly, and generally fucked over by Disney.
So Mickey expired. But how does it work for creations by Disney? Will they expire on an ongoing basis? By creation I mean:
- The actual drawings
- The animations
- The story lines
Yes, on an ongoing basis. It's why (for example) there are now non-Disney adaptations of Winnie the Pooh, but none of them have him in a red shirt, which is a detail added later by Disney.
I’m curious as to how the copyright pertains to the 2013 iteration of Mickey, which is similar in design to the original Mickey Mouse design.
The article covers it. If the 2013 Mickey is similar enough to Steamboat Willie to consider it the same character, then the 2013 version is a derivative work and does nothing to change Steamboat Willie entering the public domain. If it's substantially different enough to constitute a new character then it does nothing to change Steamboat Willie entering public domain. So either way it does not change what's happening in the new year, but Disney lawyers could argue that the new character is substantially different, so if you want to avoid getting sued base any of your works on the original Steamboat Willie and avoid any characteristics that make the 2013 version different.
Disney will still C&D and sue anyone that uses Mickey in a way they disapprove of and 99% will fold because otherwise Disney will bankrupt them with the legal process.
So some are more equal then others?
My cynical take: Disney let copyrights expire so they could mine for newer ideas for their films. Presumably, rebooting stories and changing the skin color wasn't cutting it.
It feels like openAI and LLMs are going through similar phase as Disney and Mickey did 95 years ago.
OpenAI pushing for regulation in AI, they benefiting from external research etc
(Someone else had referenced this but their comment has vanished for some reason...)
Maybe you can make an FPS game with it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av3K-PEEF1c
Use its likeness to summon Disney trademark lawyers in a shamanistic ritual.
=)
just realised, apart from the 3 circles, i wouldn't recognise any of the "authentic" mickeys.
The Corridor Crew just did a good legal analysis on this a couple weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2dIvUAd5QE&t=533s
Basically the Disney brand has gotten so huge and diversified that a public domain Mickey isn't an existential threat to their business anymore. Terrifying in its own right, but at least we might see an end to the endless copyright extension. Interesting times ahead!
Can we go back to death +50 then? Tolkien would be public domain next year. In Canada it was close but they switched to +70 last year.
That doesn't go far enough. Copyright terms should be on the order of 20 years or so, and should have nothing to do with whether or not the creator is still alive.
I get the idea, but I think that's way too short. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone came out in 1997; imagine if instead of paying Rowling for the royalties to make the movie in 2001, the studios had just waited until 2017 and done it without her permission, paying her not a penny.
"Wait 16 years to make a movie for a franchise that's popular with children now" is a bold proposition.
That's actually very common in Hollywood. Wait if a work survives the test of time. And then reap on the now money-loaded customers and cash out from their reminiscence.
Hollywood is already rebooting reboots of remakes of comic books vaguely based on historic events. Imagine if original copyright rules in the us applied (14 extensible by 14 for a living author). They could reboot anything before 1995 for free.
They already do that now, even for less stuff from less than 20, 30 years. They reboot, remake, continue anything for whatever reason. Money is relevant, but by far not the biggest hurdle to prevent them. The permissions of the right holders and the influence of the creators are more important IMHO.
For example, Netflix just now announced a reboot of One Piece Anime, a series running for 25 years. The creator is still working on the original source. Imagine if Netflix could just do that on their own, the creator had no influence at all on their work. They could just make shit along the way as they see it. Twist it, change it, with their power, they could be damaging the original work for good, simply because they are bigger.
Perhaps trademark law could help? E.g. Netflix can make their One Piece reboot without permission, but it has to be named in a way that makes it clear it's not licensed from the original creator.
Except you forgot about competition within the movie making industry. They could very easily end up competing against each other by making 2 or 3 movies of the same thing, which lowers their overall return, and is a bad deal for everyone.
I think it just depends on the pricing the copyright holder wants. If you can pay a few bucks and get exclusive rights, it's totally a win. If you have to mortgage your business to get the rights, it's a much harder decision.
I think a reasonable compromise would be, by default a copyright lasts 10 years, but they can extend it another 10 or 20 years(or maybe even until their death), if they pay a fee of some sort, perhaps yearly, so the copyright will expire as soon as it doesn't make sense to pay the fee anymore.
This lets the long-term copyright winners continue to win for most of their lifetime, if they cut the people(the govt) in on some of that return. While most things that don't need long term copyright get dumped into public domain to help invigorate and make more awesome new ideas.
Public domain is not new. They already have this situation now, and usually avoid this, probably for exact this reason.
Seems not very reasonable to support the rich and paywall the poor.
They most likely still would have done it. Books like this usually have a short shelf life in the public consciousness. Harry Potter being an exception to the rule is in large part based on the hugely successful long-running movie series.
U.S. law around the early 19th century would be a pretty decent compromise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law_of_th... or the 1790 version. Either way, there's a moderate term renewable once if you go to the trouble.
The Idea is even worse. It's not uncommon for artists to work a long time for next to nothing, until someday they have a big breakthrough. 10, 20 years are nothing. And while newer works are usually then one bringing a breakthrough, making good money with early works is also happening often. Usually, artist grow in their own little niche, until they hit mainstream.
It's probably too short. It would live authors with very little bargaining power particularly if they become bigger in their writing carriers. Corporations would just have to wait 20 years and save themselves the exclusive rights and royalties.
It should be looked form the frame of how long is appropriate to promote the creation of the arts etc. Realistically no author is thinking I won't create this art unless I get lifetime + 70.
I would think 50 years total is a much more reasonable figure.
40 years seems like the highest defensible limit. This would mean if you created a work in your 20s, copyright would expire when you're eligible for social security. It's safe to say that if you haven't made money on your work within nearly 2 generations since its publication and before you become a pensioner, you're not going to. Or it's at least not going to drive you to create new works.
Corporations can't wait even 20 years because tastes change. There's not much mainstream demand for Sum 41 anymore. Also corporations can't have much margin on public domain material; there's too much competition if anyone can publish it, and for digital creations they'd be competing with legal p2p sharing. So they need that exclusivity.
Perhaps not for Sum 41. But how about Beatles? Elvis? Michael Jackson? Metallica?
I don't know if people will still be listening to Swift and Eilish in 50 years from now, but something tells me that Beatles, Iron Maiden, Michael Jackson, Sinatra, will echo for eons..
A simple, naive solution I've seen proposed would enable copyright extension on an exponential fee scale.
This has the nice side effect of wildly-successful works disproportionately funding the copyright offices, thus enabling theoretically lower fees for newcomers.
Sure, but should a corporation continue to make huge profits from these artist who will be long dead?
I'm fine with 70 years post creation, it's 70 years post death which is too much IMHO.
Corporations create the taste. They can even wait hundreds of years. Just look at how many old stories are remade today. Unless there is something extraordinary, hyped for longer than a summer, they will wait all they want.
I agree, I don't see how 20 years isn't long enough from that pov.
What company is going to wait 20 years before signing a book deal, film deal, etc.
Further. This still ignores the fact that there's value to having the original creator attached. You don't want the author of the book trashing your new film, you want them promoting it.
That's less time than the copyright terms at the time of the founders.
I was under the impression copyright was 14 years back then.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_1790
It should preferably depend on the type of work. Books generally have a long, slow RoI. People are still buying Tolstoy. I don't believe Tolstoy should be copyrighted, but insofar as copyright is a system designed by eighteenth-century economists to incentivise creative works, it seems to function basically as designed with long terms for books.
Movies and music last a little shorter. For some reason musicians tend to have short natural lives, and copyrights start to seem like grave-robbing.
Video games and software are practically dead within two decades. The primary effect of copyrights on software more than 20 years old seems to be to stifle innovation and promote rent-seeking. I think this is why tech people have such a dim view of copyright, because the system as it exists seems to create a lot of busywork and headaches that just feel so unnecessary for anyone tasked with filling in the gaps.
How about doing the same with other assets - land, real estate? After 20 years ownership reverts to the public.
You can enjoy your house for 20 years.
That's a term shorter than 1909, before Disney even existed. Seems pretty unlikely. The "life" stuff doesn't make any sense, either; it's always been a genuinely weird term.
In 1909 the US switched from a term of 28 years extensible by 14 if the author lived, to a term of 28 years extensible by 28 if the author lived. It didn't grow to life +50 until 1976.
Edit: I think the confusion may arise from the Berne convention. The US did sign, but not until 1988.
Take it up with Germany, they're the ones that pushed life+70 on the EU, who then ratcheted it onto the US...
I don't understand why copyright is so long when patents last a mere 20 years.
I've seen a lot of speculation that they've been slowly pivoting Steamboat Willie in preparation to use trademark litigation where copyright will no longer be effective.
This kind of thing has been attempted in the past. For example, after the Lego brick patents expired, Lego sued Mega Bloks (in Canada) claiming a trademark over the design of the brick. They lost the case, because the Supreme Court (of Canada) ruled you can’t double‐dip on IP protection by turning a functional (i.e., patentable) design into a trademark.
Disney putting Steamboat Willie in their logo is unlikely to actually allow Disney to effectively extend restrictions on the cartoon—but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a calculated move to deter people from reproducing Steamboat Willie after its liberation simply by the implicit threat of expensive litigation from a very large team of lawyers.
There's case history on that in the US as well.
IIRC, non-Nintendo-licensed Gameboy games were allowed to reproduce Nintendo's trademarked logo because it was necessary for the game to run.
Trademarks are restricted to brand identification only; attempting to use them for anything else will result in trouble and wasted money.
The case was SEGA v. Accolade, but the lockout system on the Genesis worked on the same legal theory (e.g. induced trademark infringement equals Doctorowian[0] interpretations of "intellectual property"[1]). For the Game Boy, the problem was that Taiwan[2] didn't have a copyright treaty with Japan, but they did have a trademark treaty, so if you induced pirates to commit a trademark violation you could get them with something. Same idea, but the jurisdiction is different, so all the existing case law about not turning trademark into mutant perpetual copyright wouldn't apply here.
[0] "Intellectual property is any law that allows you to dictate the conduct of your competitors." - Cory Doctorow, paraphrased
[1] Yes, it's a shitty made-up term to make you confuse four different kinds of law, no I don't care. There's enough negative sentiment around "intellectual property" these days that the Stallmanian position sounds like a defense of it now.
[2] It's a country, get over it
Nintendo did attempt that trick, although the case you’re thinking of is Sega v. Accolade, which as you said, ruled that forcing your competitor to display your trademark unwillingly doesn’t mean you can smack them down for trademark infringement.
This makes much more sense with a patent than copyright.
How do you trademark the exact shape of a Lego brick?
On the other hand, trademarks tend to be some form of art, so copyright and trademarks make sense to coincide
..and the hundreds of differently shaped bricks that come with it.
And Philips tried to use trademark law after their patent on triple-headed rotary shavers expired, and they failed: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/jun/19/marketingandpr...
At very best, I'd say Disney might possibly be a tiny bit excited that something from inside Castle Disney is entering the world & will become semi exciting on its own.
Sure there'll be bad & ugly & awful things done with Steamboat Willie. But no press is bad press. And there's going to be some press about the things people do with the mouse.
Wasn't "Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey" a result of the characters entering public domain? I don't think it really did a lot to bring Winnie the Pooh to peoples mind, and I don't recall anything else based on Winnie coming out.
That movie ... seems messed up (but was a success, so more is coming). And the only other thing coming out I am aware of, is a Meme, leading to Winnie the Pooh being banned in china.
Ironically, the meme is based on the Disney-specific Winnie the Pooh that's very much covered by copyright.
I think it was intended as an indicator of the source. In the mid 2000s, Pixar was beginning to represent Disney animation, and as a result Disney Animation Studios started to take a backseat in the eyes of the public (and the eyes of Disney management). Having some successful pictures (Wreck-it Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6, etc.) meant owning the brand and indicating to audiences the source - and hopefully encouraging them to buy tickets to _non-pixar_ Disney films.
Call me naive, but I don't think there was anything calculated about it more than attaching a mascot to the studio - like the Luxo Jr Lamp on Pixar films.
I like this. We tend to automatically assume the worst in these big high profile companies.
I do that a lot, and sometimes even consciously, because, if I may be bold, large companies have a lot of people, and among so many people there's surely some evil masterminds.
I'm saying this of course with a tongue in cheek but that doesn't mean it's completely false.
The legal question is discussed in the fine article.
Not only that, but there is specific SCOTUS caselaw opposing the abuse of trademark to create perma-copyright.
I think it was to mirror Marvel's intro showing the history of the brand.
This was my more generous, less cynical take as well. Disney has been approaching their 100 year anniversary (not passed), and Steamboat Willie was the first animated short under the banner of Walt Disney Animation Studios. It makes sense to honor one's first at one's hundredth.