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Disney backs down from 'Steamboat Willie' YouTube copyright claim

mashable.com

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Re: Disney backs down from 'Steamboat Willie' YouTube copyright claim

#61

Post by bryanrasmussen »

benj111 wrote: post #60
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Shakespeare is still popular, should we extend copyright so that his great great great great great great great great grand kids get a pay out from film rights and the like? OR one can make an argument that has nothing to do with any of the things I commented and tick an item off the HN scorecard! >Further, you are still free to take that risk Probably if they were smart they would just forego the risk of creating so…

>Probably if they were smart they would just forego the risk of creating something in the first place as it would be a world with much less chance of a payoff. Do people create things on the basis that there might be a payoff 16 years down the line? Did David Bowie write his last album on the basis of how how much money he'd make? The first year is $1, is that a risk? 2nd year is $2. If you written a book or whatever…

>And the Shakespeare reference is relevant because where do you want the cutoff? Life+70 is nonsensical, unless you're arguing for perpetual copywrite you need a line somewhere. Where do you want to draw the line?

Life + 70 is based on the concept of copyright outside of the U.S which doesn't think copyright exists to promote the arts but rather because if you create something you have a right to how it is disposed. All of these clever American solutions to copyright that would fix how it works in the U.S are not going to affect how it works outside the U.S and thus Life + 70 is more in keeping with the non-American conception of the purpose of copyright.

Outside the U.S pay 1 dollar to own something you made is nonsensical.

Re: Disney backs down from 'Steamboat Willie' YouTube copyright claim

#62

Post by blagie »

benj111 wrote: post #60
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Shakespeare is still popular, should we extend copyright so that his great great great great great great great great grand kids get a pay out from film rights and the like? OR one can make an argument that has nothing to do with any of the things I commented and tick an item off the HN scorecard! >Further, you are still free to take that risk Probably if they were smart they would just forego the risk of creating so…

>Probably if they were smart they would just forego the risk of creating something in the first place as it would be a world with much less chance of a payoff. Do people create things on the basis that there might be a payoff 16 years down the line? Did David Bowie write his last album on the basis of how how much money he'd make? The first year is $1, is that a risk? 2nd year is $2. If you written a book or whatever…

You're beating up a strawman. No one (sane and uncorrupt) is arguing for life+70.

However, a mechanism which works for Star Wars and Mickey Mouse, but not for a short story, a play, or a specialized piece of software written by a single individual which e.g. generates $20k / year, doesn't work for me.

The length of the copyright shouldn't be proportional to the effort invested in the work. If a book my parents wrote is supposed to move into the public domain, so should Star Trek: The Original Series.

That doesn't preclude mechanisms like:

- Required (free) registration. I go to a government website, get a code, and from there on, it says: Copyright (c) 2022. Registration number 5f902b0a-f56c-402a-95fd-47f12f40e538

- Required (free) maintenance. I need to renew this to maintain copyright.

- Anyone can look up the copyright owner (even though it might be Copyrights By Proxy, which is okay too -- anonymity is valuable).

- Reasonable limits on duration.

This handles your forum post, abandoned works, and to be frank, a majority of works under copyright. Most things move into the public domain. However, most things isn't the same as everything.

I'd also be supportive of a radical expansion of fair use doctrine.

Re: Disney backs down from 'Steamboat Willie' YouTube copyright claim

#63

Post by throwaway09223 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #50
throwaway09223 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What really improves here? With affirmative registration we can trivially prove/disprove whether a specific work is registered under copyright. It also greatly expands the works in the public domain. > It doesn't even benefit open source development. Sure it does. Code by default is usable by anyone. A registry of copywritten code would appear which we could easily cross-reference.

I already asserted that this would not expand the public domain. People just won't publicly post as readily as they do now. You have a very charitable interpretation that assumes we would get the exact same code output we do now despite a radical change in how ownership works. >Code by default is usable by anyone. "by default". Any serious entrepreneur wouldn't fall on the default to begin with if the potential losse…

> Any serious entrepreneur wouldn't fall on the default to begin with if the potential losses are that large.

Huh? It's no change at all for someone who wants to retain copyright. They would just need to file to register.

> We just have a reference on what NOT to write.

You may be confused. This is how it already works. No change.

Re: Disney backs down from 'Steamboat Willie' YouTube copyright claim

#64

Post by colonelpopcorn »

fbdab103 wrote: post #23
tkems wrote: post #14

Everytime I see complications with copyright I think that it should be similar to patents. Short length of time with an optional renewal if the work is valuable enough. I don't think it would be too much to ask for rights holders to be required to apply for copyright (for a small fee, let's say $5/work) and provide a central authority with a copy of their work. This would solve issues such as 1) when copyright ends f…

#2 is so frustrating. I have heard multiple reports of parties who were interested in remaking a game, only to discover that due to multiple mergers/acquisition/re-licensing deals over time, nobody is sure who retains the rights. Rather than engage in the legal quagmire, the remake does not happen.

Practically all of Activision's PS2 era catalog falls under this banner. We only recently got re-releases of their Star Trek stuff and a lot of their Marvel/movie tie-in games are MIA.

Re: Disney backs down from 'Steamboat Willie' YouTube copyright claim

#66

Post by redeeman »

paholg wrote: post #37
redeeman wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you're that concerned, crop, or use the newfangled "AI" to fill out the missing parts

So just illegally publish them anyway? The law should provide a mechanism here, but does not.

agreed, but it doesnt, and so one acts accordingly :)

Re: Disney backs down from 'Steamboat Willie' YouTube copyright claim

#67

Post by andreareina »

chottocharaii wrote: post #39
fbdab103 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#2 is so frustrating. I have heard multiple reports of parties who were interested in remaking a game, only to discover that due to multiple mergers/acquisition/re-licensing deals over time, nobody is sure who retains the rights. Rather than engage in the legal quagmire, the remake does not happen.

I’d expect that if the maker undertook a thorough and well-documented search for the rights holder; then just made it anyway, they’d legally be covered 1) It might be hard for the rights holder to assert their copyright at a later stage, if they lack the evidence to do so at the outset 2) any damages awarded might be mitigated by the attempts to search for the rights holder, especially if the ‘true’ owner was contact…

You willing to have your clients rely on your advice as counsel to do that?

Re: Disney backs down from 'Steamboat Willie' YouTube copyright claim

#68

Post by ngcc_hk »

bdw5204 wrote: post #45
tkems wrote: post #14

Everytime I see complications with copyright I think that it should be similar to patents. Short length of time with an optional renewal if the work is valuable enough. I don't think it would be too much to ask for rights holders to be required to apply for copyright (for a small fee, let's say $5/work) and provide a central authority with a copy of their work. This would solve issues such as 1) when copyright ends f…

Originally, US copyrights were 14 years with an optional 14 year renewal and you had to register it with the government and deposit a copy of it in the Library of Congress [0]. Copyrights were also limited to Americans because the purpose of the law was "the encouragement of learning" not allowing corporations to profit off of stuff they made a century ago. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution also s…

Rumour is Americans like to read dickens and hence not want to cover British copyright

Re: Disney backs down from 'Steamboat Willie' YouTube copyright claim

#69

Post by lancesells »

tkems wrote: post #26
fbdab103 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#2 is so frustrating. I have heard multiple reports of parties who were interested in remaking a game, only to discover that due to multiple mergers/acquisition/re-licensing deals over time, nobody is sure who retains the rights. Rather than engage in the legal quagmire, the remake does not happen.

Another issue I've personally run into is historic and family photos. Since the person who took the photo is often the copyright holder, often times old photos with no known information can cause some issues with publishing or archiving. A more detailed example: I was scanning some family photos (for backup/archive/family use, no publishing as of now) and noticed that several have small stickers marked with copyright…

I think you're overthinking this one. Unless those photos are being used commercially somewhere or you have a famous family I doubt you have to worry about anything.

Re: Disney backs down from 'Steamboat Willie' YouTube copyright claim

#70

Post by nobodyandproud »

wavemode wrote: post #5
labster wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That can only possibly be bad faith on the part of Disney or UMG. Someone is clearly guilty of perjury.

From what I know it is indeed perjury to file a DMCA claim on content for which you don't own the copyright (e.g. after it has expired). But rather than intentional bad faith it's highly likely these sorts of actions are fully automated by both YouTube and Disney. Probably YouTube has not yet removed Steamboat Willie-related content from its Content ID database and Disney has not yet disabled its own auto-strike syst…

I think the standard of “you’ve known, or should have known” ought to apply here.

It’s not the content creators problem that the DMCA takedown is automated and false-flags: It’s Disney and Google’s.

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