111–120 of 201 posts
It was originally done when John Lassiter took over Disney Animation as an homage to his idol Walt. But some IP lawyers have said that it may also make it impossible to use Steamboat Willy in the public domain because they could claim you're violating their copyright on their bumper.
Will be interesting to see if that gets tested.
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Have you spoken with lawyers about this idea? At least in the United States, that’s not how copyright or public domain works. One does not need to apply for copyright to receive one, and there is no mechanism for renouncing copyright. There is a belief held by some that copyright, like many other rights, can be renounced however that theory has never been tested in court and there are several dissenting opinions from…
The MIT No Attribution (MIT-0) license is an OSI-approved license. As I've been told by at least a couple IP lawyers, the situation may be stickier in continental Europe. Most works the US federal government creates are also considered in the public domain so it doesn't seem that controversial a concept in the US.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you spoken with lawyers about this idea? At least in the United States, that’s not how copyright or public domain works. One does not need to apply for copyright to receive one, and there is no mechanism for renouncing copyright. There is a belief held by some that copyright, like many other rights, can be renounced however that theory has never been tested in court and there are several dissenting opinions from…
The MIT No Attribution (MIT-0) license is an OSI-approved license. As I've been told by at least a couple IP lawyers, the situation may be stickier in continental Europe. Most works the US federal government creates are also considered in the public domain so it doesn't seem that controversial a concept in the US.
OSI approving something is meaningless from a legal standpoint, it’s just some people on the internet. Even were that not the case, creating a license is not the same as renouncing copyright. Which, again, it isn’t clear that it is possible to do under US copyright law.
Edit: to be clear, MIT-0 doesn’t even attempt to renounce copyright. It merely provides slightly broader rights to holders of a license to the copyrighted work.
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Disney spent the last decade or so growing their business (through large acquisitions) to where Mickey is now just small fraction of their worth. So they likely don't really care anymore. Plus it's only the old, old design of Mickey, not the current version they have been using for awhile that looks more normal to most people these days.
I was shocked to learn my 7yo daughter associates Disney with Mickey and Minnie. She's watched like one Mickey cartoon on Disney+, and she's seen way more Disney stuff than that. Never been to Disneyland. But somehow to her, Disney === Mickey/Minnie. Branding is wild stuff.
What if we didn't wait for things to enter the public domain but instead they were born right into it? I have started a book publishing company that publishes new, public domain books only: https://laniakeabooks.org/
The mouse via Steamboat Willie is scheduled to enter public domain? Guess we can look forward to quite eventful three weeks before the end of the year, while Disney is frantically trying to prevent that outcome.
Disney spent the last decade or so growing their business (through large acquisitions) to where Mickey is now just small fraction of their worth. So they likely don't really care anymore. Plus it's only the old, old design of Mickey, not the current version they have been using for awhile that looks more normal to most people these days.
I don't think that's possible.
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Where it also gets tricky is the creation of additional Steamboat Willie content - if you want to create and publish new Steamboat Willie stuff, you'll have to be crystal clear that it's not coming from Disney. If it looks like it's coming from Disney, that's when they can step in.
You have to make pains to not look like you're representing yourself as Disney, _and_ you can't step on anything Disney did in later Mickey cartoons
But if there's an episode where that character goes to space or whatever your derivative work can do that too.
Looks like Tarzan is entering the public domain, that's interesting.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The MIT No Attribution (MIT-0) license is an OSI-approved license. As I've been told by at least a couple IP lawyers, the situation may be stickier in continental Europe. Most works the US federal government creates are also considered in the public domain so it doesn't seem that controversial a concept in the US.
code under MIT-0 is still copyrighted to its original author - it just authorizes derivative work to be done without explicitly mentioning it (which is different from public domain)
CC0 from Creative Commons does explicitly state "place them as completely as possible in the public domain." It does also acknowledge that it is not always possible to fully do so because of unrelinquishable moral rights and other reasons. https://creativecommons.org/public-domain/cc0/
To the original point, it may well make sense to license under MIT-0 or CC0 if they want to place a book in the public domain. The OSI's concerns about CC0 don't really apply to writing as I understand it.