Sherlock lives in public domain, US court rules • Hacker News Board

Re: Sherlock lives in public domain, US court rules

#21

Post by qwerta » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 1:09 PM UTC

BerislavLopac wrote: post #4

The problem with such cases is that -- as far as I'm aware (IANAL) -- concepts like characters, inventions (e.g. hyperdrive) etc are not covered by any of the existing laws that handle creative monopolies (i.e. what is generally known, incorrectly, as "intellectual property"). Copyright covers the specific fixed representations (e.g. words on paper) and not ideas and concepts, while other laws like patents or tradema…

Plus most sci-fi stuff such as hyperdrive is old news. Clarke, Asimov and most hard scifi are from 1950ies. Some stuff such as antigravity goes back to Wells and Kepler.

Re: Sherlock lives in public domain, US court rules

#22

Post by rsl7 » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 1:09 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #17

mattmanser wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you don't understand why copyright was created. It's not there to give forever and ever protection. It's there to allow you to get some money before society, which made your product worth something in the first place, can incorporate it into culture where it belonged in the first place. Disney themselves love using other people stories constantly, but no-one can use theirs for extreme amounts of time because the…

That may have been why copyright was created, but over time, the justification has evolved, at least in Europe, into one based on the moral rights of the author. My personal opinion is that copyright should never expire. Think about it: you can have an indefinite government granted monopoly over land, something you didn't create, something that existed before you and will exist after you, but you have weaker protecti…

I have the opposite view.

Artists contribute to world culture. George Lucas may own Star Wars in a narrow technical sense (something something disney, I know), but from a cultural standpoint, he can't take it away. It has become part of our culture, part of our written and visual language. A vast amount of energy and derivative art has been spent enjoying and celebrating Star Wars. It has outgrown the original author, because that is what all human artifacts are: derivatives, copies, reinventions, reimaginations.

If copyright were 40 years, Star Wars would be up in 2017. That's more than enough time.

Re: Sherlock lives in public domain, US court rules

#23

Post by jerf » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 1:11 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #13

vidarh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cynic in me things that this idea is probably the reason why Disney have been so aggressive about using their oldest characters in the last few years. E.g. Steamboat Willy in opening sequences, and the short film before Frozen. Even if they fail to extend the original copyrights, there are other potential "loopholes" to making it harder to reuse these characters: The more Disney uses variations of them, the bigge…

> The more Disney uses variations of them, the bigger the minefield becomes in terms of sticking to the depictions that enters/have entered public domain. That's a two-edged sword. If someone else produces material featuring Steamboat Willy which does not violate recent usage, it could seriously curtail Disney's future ability to use the character as well.

Copyright law would not prevent us from creating derivatives of Steamboat Willie, but trademark law probably would. We could still sell Steamboat Willie on those dirt-cheap DVDs, though, as-is. For what that's worth... it's really of primarily historical interest, I doubt modern audiences will find that much to be terribly entertained by in it.

I don't have a problem with this. While it's not likely to any of the tastes of anybody reading this sentence, since Mickey Mouse right now is mostly being used to entertain those too young to read, he's still actively producing things. (And while Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is hardly a masterpiece for adults.... there's much worse out there to have to listen to ad infinitum.) The offensive thing about infinite copyright extension is locking up things that the creators are done with, and have been for decades, but won't let anyone else do anything either, thus essentially killing the cultural artifact in question.

Re: Sherlock lives in public domain, US court rules

#24

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 1:18 PM UTC

philh wrote: post #16

mattmanser wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you don't understand why copyright was created. It's not there to give forever and ever protection. It's there to allow you to get some money before society, which made your product worth something in the first place, can incorporate it into culture where it belonged in the first place. Disney themselves love using other people stories constantly, but no-one can use theirs for extreme amounts of time because the…

> Then you don't understand why copyright was created. Just because someone disagrees with you, doesn't mean that they don't understand the issue. Your post would have worked just as well without this line.

[deleted]

Re: Sherlock lives in public domain, US court rules

#25

Post by danesparza » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 1:20 PM UTC

I'm curious... (and I'm only being a little flippant, I promise) Does this also mean that the new BBC series can be freely distributed on Bit torrent without fear of copyright infringement?

Re: Sherlock lives in public domain, US court rules

#26

Post by tim333 » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 1:25 PM UTC

danesparza wrote: post #25

I'm curious... (and I'm only being a little flippant, I promise) Does this also mean that the new BBC series can be freely distributed on Bit torrent without fear of copyright infringement?

Sadly not. The BBC has copyright on the things they produce themselves if not on the Sherlock character.

Re: Sherlock lives in public domain, US court rules

#27

Post by BerislavLopac » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 1:31 PM UTC

ben0x539 wrote: post #18

BerislavLopac wrote: post #4

The problem with such cases is that -- as far as I'm aware (IANAL) -- concepts like characters, inventions (e.g. hyperdrive) etc are not covered by any of the existing laws that handle creative monopolies (i.e. what is generally known, incorrectly, as "intellectual property"). Copyright covers the specific fixed representations (e.g. words on paper) and not ideas and concepts, while other laws like patents or tradema…

I've googled this a bunch out of curiosity before and everybody, including a bunch of courts, seems to argue that fleshed-out fictional characters are in fact covered by copyright even with the serial numbers filed off. IANAL either, obviously. I mean, you'd be drowning in published, unauthorized fanfic of Batman and Harry Potter and whatnot otherwise.

In fact we do. E.g. 50 shades of grey started out as a fanfic of Twilight.

Re: Sherlock lives in public domain, US court rules

#28

Post by decode » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 1:34 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #17

mattmanser wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you don't understand why copyright was created. It's not there to give forever and ever protection. It's there to allow you to get some money before society, which made your product worth something in the first place, can incorporate it into culture where it belonged in the first place. Disney themselves love using other people stories constantly, but no-one can use theirs for extreme amounts of time because the…

That may have been why copyright was created, but over time, the justification has evolved, at least in Europe, into one based on the moral rights of the author. My personal opinion is that copyright should never expire. Think about it: you can have an indefinite government granted monopoly over land, something you didn't create, something that existed before you and will exist after you, but you have weaker protecti…

I think you're mistaken in both directions.

On the one hand, you do not have a monopoly over land in the sense of copyright. Sure, you control the use of the particular piece of land, but if someone else wants to copy it by reshaping their own land to have the same topography as yours, you have no recourse. Also, if someone wants to make a derivative work, like a map, they are free to do so. In this sense, the land is in the public domain.

On the other hand, you already have indefinite government granted monopoly of creative works in the sense of land ownership. You can write a novel, print it, bind it, and put it in a drawer. As long as you just have the one copy and don't give it to anyone else, the government will protect your right to exclusive usage and ownership of the work. In this sense, the book is protected property like land.

Where the equivalence falls apart is when you want to sell or transfer the property. If you sell your land, you have no say in what the new owners do with it. If you sell a book, you expect to be able to control what the new owners do with it. This is why this comparison is not very useful.

Re: Sherlock lives in public domain, US court rules

#29

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 1:41 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #9

seren wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this ruling will create a precedent that will make it harder to justify, that Sherlock Holmes entered the domain public and Mickey Mouse should not, although I am pretty sure that Walt Disney's lawyers are already carefully preparing their argument for the next few hundred years of protection extension.

I am actually not for Mickey entering public domain, he is still representative of a very active and well known company. There are certain characters in the Disney domain that would be wholly out of place anywhere else. Whereas book characters from long dead authors are a whole different matter. While I think estates should be able to protect the rights of the estate for a period of time the fact that no new content…

The Matrix should be in the public domain. Copyright should last 5 years, plus another 5 years if it's made available to the public without DRM.

Re: Sherlock lives in public domain, US court rules

#30

Post by TheCoelacanth » Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 1:46 PM UTC

danesparza wrote: post #25

I'm curious... (and I'm only being a little flippant, I promise) Does this also mean that the new BBC series can be freely distributed on Bit torrent without fear of copyright infringement?

No, each new work gets its own separate copyright period. Many individual elements of the BBC series are public domain, and as such could be used in other works, but the work as a whole is covered by copyright.