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Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

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Re: Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

#51

Post by datadeft »

praptak wrote: post #27
geiagal wrote: post #10

The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings enters the public domain in New Zealand, Egypt, and a couple other countries. Would have entered into the public domain in Canada had the government not signed a last-minute 20 year copyright extension act last year.

Retroactive copyright extensions are changing the deal after it has been made, for the benefit of copyright holders and to the detriment of the public. This is unethical. That's why I get angry when copyright holders try to make ethical arguments against piracy.

> Retroactive copyright extensions

It is kind of amazing how IP holders could pull this off. One of the foundations of law that you cannot make retroactive changes.

Re: Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

#52

Post by NolF »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #22
londons_explore wrote: post #8

Disney now uses that 'steamboat willie' intro clip at the start of most of their stuff. Are they trying to use it as a trademark, and therefore use trademark law rather than copyright law to stop people using steamboat Willie publicly?

Trademark law only stops someone else using the character to represent themselves as Disney, or where is might cause confusion around that. A simple prominent disclaimer can fix that. That's assuming Disney could ever register the trademark, which is not a given, no matter how often they use it.

The question would be, do you want to fight Disney lawyers to make the argument that your use was not as a trademark, represented as Disney, or that it might cause confusion? With or without a disclaimer.

Re: Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

#53

Post by Jabbles »

datadeft wrote: post #51
praptak wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retroactive copyright extensions are changing the deal after it has been made, for the benefit of copyright holders and to the detriment of the public. This is unethical. That's why I get angry when copyright holders try to make ethical arguments against piracy.

> Retroactive copyright extensions It is kind of amazing how IP holders could pull this off. One of the foundations of law that you cannot make retroactive changes.

That foundation isn't particularly strong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law

Re: Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

#54

Post by chungy »

globular-toast wrote: post #18
userbinator wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Steamboat_Willie_(19... There's WebM, VP9 in various resolutions, and... MJPEG ? Setting aside the oddity of serving a 95-year-old cartoon in full HD, that's still an odd selection of codecs. Everything up to MPEG-4 ASP (XviD etc.) has already been patent-expired. There's also MP3 there, so why not an MPEG-2 (H.262), MPEG-1, or even H.261 encode?

Why is it odd? The original is analogue. What resolution should it be scanned at? What about the Mona Lisa ?

People often think that old video must be stuck to standard definition (or worse), because they're used to seeing it on NTSC/PAL broadcasts, VHS, or DVD.

The reality is, these things were captured on film, and there's no reason you can't scan the film in high definition resolutions. Film is an analogue medium whose upper bound for resolution is dictated by the film stock and grain; 35mm film is sufficient to produce modern 4K scans and was one of the most common stocks in analogue video production.

If anything, modern 1080p/2160p scans of old film bring the material much closer to how people with projectors originally saw the media, instead of a blurry scaled down version made for old television.

If I may provide my favorite example, check out Wizard of Oz in 4K. It's from 1939, in full color, and holds up wonderfully well. The 4K transfer allows you to really appreciate the set design and makeup especially.

Re: Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

#55

Post by concordDance »

pasiaj wrote: post #46
coldlight wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deal that society has is that "we follow the law and they follow the law". Not "we follow the law and they have it changed so that we have to do whatever they want".

The law is the will of ”we”. ”They” can’t change the law – only ”we” can.

I'm not sure this is actually true anywhere but Switzerland.

Re: Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

#56

Post by mod50ack »

weinzierl wrote: post #29

Before people cheer too much, surprisingly works can retroactively be snatched back from the public domain and go back into copyrighted state. The prime example is the movie Metropolis . It became public domain in 1953 but copyright was restored in 1996 only to re-enter the public domain a year ago today.

> Before people cheer too much, surprisingly works can retroactively be snatched back from the public domain and go back into copyrighted state.

The United States is decidedly not going to extend copyright terms. The US only very reluctantly pulled works out of the public domain after it joined the Berne Convention in 1989. The reason ''Metropolis'' was in the public domain was because it failed to comply with renewal formalities, which are prohibited by Berne. Essentially, other countries threatened trade deals if the US made terms dependent on formalities for non-US works. So the law was changed and copyrights were restored.

As someone who works in the field (and who isn't a fan of the URAA), I can tell you that isn't going to happen again.

Re: Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

#57

Post by mod50ack »

hashar wrote: post #19
userbinator wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Steamboat_Willie_(19... There's WebM, VP9 in various resolutions, and... MJPEG ? Setting aside the oddity of serving a 95-year-old cartoon in full HD, that's still an odd selection of codecs. Everything up to MPEG-4 ASP (XviD etc.) has already been patent-expired. There's also MP3 there, so why not an MPEG-2 (H.262), MPEG-1, or even H.261 encode?

Because despite Wikipedia and sister projects being one of the largest web property, it is running on a thin budget and has starved engineering resources. As far as I know, the transcode code is maintained by a single employee (possibly as a side gig / on top of everything else) and the assistance of a volunteer. For Motion JPEG a recent config change ( https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/operations/mediawiki-config...…

The problem is not resources. It is an ideological choice. Wikimedia Commons only supports non-proprietary file formats. That means either open formats or formats whose patents have expired. (MPEG-4 Part 2 patents only expired in the US a few weeks ago.)

Re: Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

#58

Post by mytailorisrich »

Caligatio wrote: post #31
weinzierl wrote: post #29

Before people cheer too much, surprisingly works can retroactively be snatched back from the public domain and go back into copyrighted state. The prime example is the movie Metropolis . It became public domain in 1953 but copyright was restored in 1996 only to re-enter the public domain a year ago today.

This intrigues me as I had no idea, at one time, that the US didn't have the most restrictive copyright laws in the world. It looks like the US had to restore/extend copyrights to foreign works as part of the agreement that established the WTO? That being said, copyright is a product of laws and laws can always change. Your comment made me believe that the copyright owner somehow extended their rights; not a literal…

Initially (19th century) the US did not recognise copyright of foreign works.

This is all about interests: when you are a net importer you want to make it easy and cheap to reproduce and use works. Buy once you start being an exporter you want your works protected, and that's a quid pro quo.

Re: Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

#59

Post by safety1st »

manquer wrote: post #25
gambiting wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mickey Mouse head is literally the logo of the Disney corporation, it is and it will remain their trademark in perpetuity(or for as long as Disney exists). Trademarks are different than copyright - you can't start a company and use Mickey mouse as your logo for instance, because then the trademark law would kick in. But you can still make your own story/cartoon/film with Mickey Mouse the character and it should b…

Only the steamboat Willie version, the one without gloves . Also practically it doesn’t matter whether it could be fine, most businesses can’t afford to fight an extended legal battle with Disney

Mickey's so high profile that I bet someone out there would be more than happy to go to court with Disney over this. I mean if you have money and lawyers, then this is a sure way to turn them into publicity, especially if you win.

Re: Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

#60

Post by echelon »

mod50ack wrote: post #56
weinzierl wrote: post #29

Before people cheer too much, surprisingly works can retroactively be snatched back from the public domain and go back into copyrighted state. The prime example is the movie Metropolis . It became public domain in 1953 but copyright was restored in 1996 only to re-enter the public domain a year ago today.

> Before people cheer too much, surprisingly works can retroactively be snatched back from the public domain and go back into copyrighted state. The United States is decidedly not going to extend copyright terms. The US only very reluctantly pulled works out of the public domain after it joined the Berne Convention in 1989. The reason ''Metropolis'' was in the public domain was because it failed to comply with renewa…

> As someone who works in the field

What's your read on what's going to happen with AI?

Will companies be allowed to train on copyrighted works? Seems like we'll fall behind international competition or supercharge monopolies if we don't allow it.

Japan and China permit training on copyrighted works. China goes a step further and allows AI outputs to be copyrighted.

Really interested in what insiders think or know about this.

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