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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

#151

Post by kemayo »

Solvency wrote: post #143
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.

Just curious...why would anyone here cheer? Have HNers been desperate to launch their own Mickey Mouse novelty tee Etsy stores for years?

It's not about Mickey specifically, but rather about what it represents.

The entry of new works into the commons was shut down for a long time, with Disney keeping Mickey under copyright being viewed as the main driver for the lobbying that's kept it closed. We're coming off of two sequential 20-year extensions, and got our first works entering the public domain in the US in 2019, at which point there was a clear deadline for Disney to either get copyright extended again or cede the point.

So Mickey starting to creep into the public domain means the commons probably won't be closed again, since nobody else has as much interest in pushing that as Disney did.

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

#152

Post by Aloha »

hedora wrote: post #142
Aloha wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would your ideal copyright regime look like? Mine would be different than what we have now, it'd be 20 years or artists lifetime, whichever is shorter - then 10 year long renewals are possible after that, but the cost of the renewal would ratchet up with each renewal. I've also considered using a percentage of revenue for the work - basically a tax on the revenue from that work, as a condition for the right of m…

Disney regularly censors or modifies classic films in its catalog, and also simply pulls things out of production. If you want to read more, look up the Disney Vault strategy.

I'm well aware of Disney's business strategy. I don't care if they make their millions still.

I care much more about all the works that cannot find an audience because of uncertain copyright status, and not enough commercial demand to justify figuring out who 'owns' it.

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

#153

Post by dahart »

mod50ack wrote: post #73
echelon wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ab…

Well, to be clear, I am mainly a public domain and copyright theory guy. I do keep up to date with everything here. But I also don't write laws; if I did, they would look different. Companies are allowed to train on copyrighted works - or, to be more precise, there is no prohibition in copyright law on them doing so. On the other hand, there are no particular protections. The real question is to what extent an AI gen…

> Companies are allowed to train on copyrighted works

I’m curious what you mean by this. If I’m not allowed under copyright law to make a personal copy of the latest Pixar movie or watch it without permission or payment, even if I’m not sharing it with anyone else, what under the law allows a company to make a copy and train on it? I thought I understood copyright law to not only prohibit redistribution of copyrighted works without permission, but also to prohibit consumption of copyrighted works without permission? Is that accurate? In that sense, I would have thought copyright law does prohibit companies from training on copyrighted works.

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

#154

Post by kemayo »

manquer wrote: post #28
hashar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...…

Why though ? They spend $160M a year [1] and grew their cash reserves by 50% year on year in 2023, so not particularly running in an operating deficit environment. Transcoding is expensive but not that much, if my company doesn’t make 1/20 of Wikipedia and we can afford to do 1000s of hours a day of transcoding surely they can too. [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/W...

It's not about the cost of transcoding; it's an ideological stance about open / royalty-free formats.

e.g. there was a pretty strong consensus about not supporting MP4 back when the WMF asked whether it should be allowed, mostly on "it's not free" grounds: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comm...

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

#155

Post by kbenson »

est31 wrote: post #117
mod50ack wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The USA often ignores the international community in many things, if the right domestic interest groups are behind it. It's just that currently the USA has powerful domestic companies/interests that are against copyright term extensions, which are more powerful than the (also quite powerful) companies in favour of term extensions. In the past decade, the USA also has tried to spread the new extended period over the w…

Ignoring the international community is one thing, trade deals are another thing entirely. That's taken very seriously by all involved because it's about money.

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

#156

Post by gweinberg »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #141
mod50ack wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I think the biggest Rubicon for Disney coming up will be losing Snow White in 2032, assuming no renewal.

Snow White the character was in the public domain long before disney made the movie.

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

#157

Post by chungy »

masfuerte wrote: post #77
chungy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A particular bugbear of mine is when black and white films get scanned and the process somehow introduces a bunch of moiré colour fringes into the digital copy. This feels like something that shouldn't be hard to get right.

I think I've noticed this most with SD NTSC and DVD MPEG2 transfers of B&W film. It's much less of a problem with HD Blu-ray versions.

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

#158

Post by underlipton »

edgyquant wrote: post #118
harimau777 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to gerrymandering, the electoral college, weak campaign finance laws, etc. that's not the case in the United States.

What does the electoral college have to do with legislation? Sounds like you’re just regurgitating a sound bite to me

President can veto laws. President has the bully pulpit and gets things on and off the agenda. Twice in my lifetime has the candidate who won the popular vote lost the presidency, with massive ramifications for the country I live in.

I'm not endorsing GP's point, but the electoral college is massively important to legislation.

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

#159

Post by eurleif »

anonymfus wrote: post #70
NolF wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is no DMCA analogue for trademarks, so, for example, YouTube has no obligation to automate trademark complaints or to resolve disputes between trademark owners and video creators, so almost every case will go through the court, and overloading courts with bogus cases can have consequences for them.

YouTube technically has no obligation to comply with DMCA takedown notices either; there is no direct financial penalty for failing to do so. Rather, the DMCA provides a "safe harbor" exempting YouTube from liability for infringement, then removes that safe harbor if they fail to comply with a takedown notice.

For trademarks, there simply is no safe harbor, and thus no conditions under which it can be removed. That means there isn't a codified process for YouTube to follow; but the stick they can be beaten with at the end of the day -- infringement litigation -- is the same in either case. You can bet they'll do what they can do avoid it.

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

#160

Post by SloopJon »

ajdude wrote: post #63

There's apparently a poster of Mickcy wearing gloves in full color from the same year Steamboat Willie came out (1928). Does this mean that full color gloved Mickcy is also in the public domain? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mickey-mouse-poster_n_2149610

The estimated value of $20K seems low, unless it's in poor condition and/or there are many other copies around. Google says the same auction house sold one for $100K in 2012:

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8AT04H/

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