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Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

pluralistic.net

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Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#41

Post by olalonde »

charcircuit wrote: post #24
axiolite wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the point of buying something if the other person is allowed to steal it back. If you can't make a profit off of a licensed property after 35 years of exclusive control, you've done something horribly wrong. If you sit on a licensed property and do nothing with it for decades, it should be allowed to revert to someone else, or better yet go into public domain.

Termination of Transfer has nothing to do with how much profit a work is making.

Interesting. The article certainly gave that impression. It's strange that the process isn't automatic when the main requirement is simply submitting a notice.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#43

Post by protocolture »

axiolite wrote: post #18
charcircuit wrote: post #4

[flagged]

> What's the point of buying something if the other person is allowed to steal it back. If you can't make a profit off of a licensed property after 35 years of exclusive control, you've done something horribly wrong. If you sit on a licensed property and do nothing with it for decades, it should be allowed to revert to someone else, or better yet go into public domain.

3 months is too long. 35 years is crazy.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#45

Post by olalonde »

> Remember, Termination is one of the only copyright policies that solely benefits creative workers.

To play devil's advocate, this provision probably lowers how much media companies are willing to pay when acquiring copyrights.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#46

Post by Fricken »

charcircuit wrote: post #4

[flagged]

Copyright was originally intended to last 14 years, after which the work is transferred to public domain. That was back in the 1700s, when the pace of life moved much faster than it does now.

If it weren't for Disney's success at regulatory capture, the copyright would be expired and anybody would be able to produce a fictional work featuring Roger Rabbit, including Disney.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#47

Post by blendergeek »

charcircuit wrote: post #25
monkeywork wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that what is happening? My understanding of Termination of Transfer is that it keeps you from being able to make a sequel to your video game using the characters you licensed from me, but that the game you have already created you can continue to sell. What the termination allows me to do as the creator of that character in this analogy is say - charcircuit isn't doing anything with my character for 35 years - I'm…

I can't keep selling it if you terminate the distribution right to some texture you made that I used in my game.

I don't think you are correct here. From the FAQ [0] on the website linked by the post:

“Derivative works” exception – although a successful termination causes all of the rights to revert, this will not affect exploitation of derivative works created during the lifetime of the agreement, even after that agreement has been terminated. Once the agreement has been terminated, the grantee (see the glossary) may continue after termination to utilize “derivative works prepared under authority of the grant before its termination…[consistent with] the term of the grant” (to quote from the U.S. Copyright Act). This means that if, for example, an author granted a company a 50-year exclusive license to create a movie based on the author’s novel, that company can continue to use and exploit the movie even after the author successfully terminates the exclusive license. The company may not prepare a new movie based on the novel; it may only continue to use the existing movie that it created when the exclusive license was still current.

[0]: https://rightsback.org/faq/#So.2C_I_get_all_of_my_rights_bac...

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#48

Post by alt227 »

charcircuit wrote: post #25
monkeywork wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that what is happening? My understanding of Termination of Transfer is that it keeps you from being able to make a sequel to your video game using the characters you licensed from me, but that the game you have already created you can continue to sell. What the termination allows me to do as the creator of that character in this analogy is say - charcircuit isn't doing anything with my character for 35 years - I'm…

I can't keep selling it if you terminate the distribution right to some texture you made that I used in my game.

Yeah, if you license something to use in your game then that item comes with a license term. You did not buy it and you do not own it. If you did buy it instead of license it, you would be free to do whatever you wanted with it forever. But you didnt buy it, you licensed its use.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#49

Post by alt227 »

charcircuit wrote: post #23
invl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this happens with eg licensed music or product tie-ins or whatever, and the game just stops being sold

And I think it would be best if they could license the content in perpetuity so it doesn't come to that. But that's impossible as even if the studio gets a perpetual license, it can still be terminated.

Thats up to whatever you agree with the owner when you license it.

Re: Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

#50

Post by latexr »

> "Termination of Transfer" was introduced via the 1976 Copyright Act. It allows creators to unilaterally cancel the copyright licenses they have signed over to others, by waiting 35 years and then filing some paperwork with the US Copyright Office.

You have to wait half a lifetime?! Talk about a performative (pun unintended) law.

> when Congress gives creators new copyrights to bargain with, the Big Five (or Four, or Three, or Two, or One) just amend their standard, non-negotiable contract to require creators to sign those new rights over as a condition of doing business.

That’s the sign of a deeply broken system. It should never be possible for someone to sign away their rights. If you can sign them away, you can be swindled of them.

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