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What will enter the public domain in 2024?

publicdomainreview.org

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Re: What will enter the public domain in 2024?

#181

Post by bryanrasmussen »

resolutebat wrote: post #82
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that would first of all take a lot of work to make it absolutely clear, a lot of work to use the mouse, and finally a lot of work to fight the lawsuits until it was established that you didn't violate and could do what you were doing. In short nobody but a crazy person or someone with a real deep artistic need that absolutely required that version of Mickey to work would ever pursue it.

It took one year from Winnie the Pooh entering the public domain to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh:_Blood_and_Hon... And AFAIK they were not sued, despite being ever so slightly off brand for Disney.

OK, yeah I remember seeing that - not seeing the film but seeing it existed. On the other hand that is understood as a property that originally was not Disney.

I think as well Disney protection of its characters might be a more ingrained than just normal copyright protectionism - Walt was notoriously a bastard to anyone who messed around with not treating Mickey with the respect he deserved.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2024?

#182

Post by Closi »

thfuran wrote: post #60
Closi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm I’m not sure - that might be true for movies but is it true for merch? Think of all the Mickey ears that get sold at the parks. Either way there is a boatload of Mickey related revenue still…

Disney doesn't need to rely on IP protection to maintain a hand in merch sales in their own parks.

Sure, but the claim was that Winnie the Pooh currently brings in more money than Mickey.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2024?

#183

Post by nikanj »

jedberg wrote: post #111

Disney Animation has been using a clip from Steamboat Willy (and the song) as their opening bumper for years. 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 se…

You can use Steamboat Willy if your legal budget is larger than Disney's

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2024?

#184

Post by Closi »

hinkley wrote: post #125
Closi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm I’m not sure - that might be true for movies but is it true for merch? Think of all the Mickey ears that get sold at the parks. Either way there is a boatload of Mickey related revenue still…

I don’t have the link anymore but at the time I was sent to a breakdown that was above $5B for all Winnie, and around 4 for Mickey and friends. Obviously not nothing, and the fact they are close together doesn’t give Disney a ramp down once PD starts affecting them.

This link puts Winnie at about half the merch revenue of Mickey recently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media...

Still a substantial franchise though, and looks like it got a bit of a boost around 2005 & 2011 where some newer movies got released.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2024?

#185

Post by ksjskskskkk »

Sytten wrote: post #176

I always found it weird that patents are a flat 20y but somehow copyright is life + X years. For me it should be a similar 20-30y period. How does life even work for a corporation?

it doesn't. companies can't author works, just own them.

that's the reason de etre of the silly "made by ai" discussions.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2024?

#186

Post by thaumasiotes »

chrisco255 wrote: post #98
furyofantares wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Grew up in the 90s and Mickey was not a significant character in their movies that decade and the old Mickey cartoons were rarely shown. Mario became more famous than Mickey by then, but the mouse logo is ubiquitous, and most people had at least seen Fantasia or clips of the old cartoons.

> Mickey was not a significant character in their movies that decade and the old Mickey cartoons were rarely shown.

My grandparents had several tapes of Disney cartoons; they don't have to be broadcast for people to be familiar with them.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2024?

#187

Post by chownie »

bongodongobob wrote: post #172
chownie wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say the world shown in those cartoons is alien to viewers of today. There were millions of hunters and millions of stay at home mothers in the 40's during Tom & Jerry's original run, but there's many fewer millions now. Consider: Women jumped from a third working in 1950 to just over two-thirds (of those who have children under 6, even) working as of the year 2000. We've had another two decades and change plu…

I have no idea where you live but you are completely disconnected from the average reality. I'm going to guess NYC or SF because you don't seem to realize that things actually haven't changed that much. You're describing the woke utopia that the left from those places seem to pine for. I'm as liberal as they come but am from flyover country. Everyone hunts. Women do a lot of the cooking. There are lots of stay at hom…

> I have no idea where you live but you are completely disconnected from the average reality.

This is a really bizarre response to hard statistics, just openly denying they exist?

The "average reality" is indeed that mothers work. Stay at home mothers are in the absolute minority and have been for a couple decades.

> I'm going to guess NYC or SF because you don't seem to realize that things actually haven't changed that much. You're describing the woke utopia that the left from those places seem to pine for.

You seem to have uncritically swallowed some narrative using terms like "woke" "liberal" "metropolis" and you've assumed that it'l apply to me.

I'm from neither NYC nor SF and I'm not liberal, now what?

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2024?

#188

Post by mod50ack »

avar wrote: post #128
bluGill wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The oldest still in effect copyright I know of is from 1611: the King James translation of the bible is still copyright of the crown in the UK. No other country recognizes that copyright.

> The oldest still in effect copyright I know of is from 1611. I can beat that by over 4000 years. As far as Icelandic copyright law is concerned the copyright on the Diary of Merer[1], written 4500 years ago, will be held by the French Egyptologist Pierre Tallet until 2039. This is because the copyright protection commerces when the work is made available for sale, loaning out etc. to the public. If you discover a p…

The 25-year rule is part of an EU copyright directive (which Iceland, as an EEA country, has adopted as well). Also, this isn't technically a copyright, but an equivalent right. (And the right is not 4000 years old.) The EU directive says (in English):

> Any person who, after the expiry of copyright protection, for the first time lawfully publishes or lawfully communicates to the public a previously unpublished work, shall benefit from a protection equivalent to the economic rights of the author. The term of protection of such rights shall be 25 years from the time when the work was first lawfully published or lawfully communicated to the public.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2024?

#189

Post by mod50ack »

cjpearson wrote: post #152
galangalalgol wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So can they host the Gutenberg project in NZ then? There is no feasible way for people to prevent people from downloading the hobbit. They couldn't stop music or movie downloads except by adopting a subscription model that effectively reduced the prices. These files are tiny and the ethical case against it is so much harder to make. Edit: also, these are the sorts of books that don't get lumped into subscriptions and…

They can, but they'd have to make those downloads only available to NZ users. This is also why American sites need to block EU users or comply with the GDPR. You can't just pick a server location with the laxest laws. IIRC, Gutenberg already does this, limiting access from Germany which has a stricter copyright than the US.

No, there is no requirement under US law to preemptively block non-US users, or under NZ law to block non-NZ users. German courts held that there was jurisdiction over PG because they had content in German, and PG decided to comply. But you can, in fact, pick a server location with lax laws. But you may be susceptible to get sued elsewhere (in some cases), and the local country can force ISPs to block your site, too, if you don't respond.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2024?

#190

Post by mod50ack »

bluGill wrote: post #27
mod50ack wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can sell public domain materials all you want. And whenever anyone else copies stuff in the public domain, even if they copy it from your copy, they're not infringing copyright.

But be careful as when someone publishes something public domain they often have things that are not public domain in their version. They can "fix" errors, add artwork, introductions and so on.

Yes, of course, the added content would not be in the public domain. Although it should be note that certain changes such as fixing grammatical errors/proofreading would not be considered copyrightable.
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