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Re: Access denied

#51

Post by OGinparadise »

darkarmani wrote: post #46
OGinparadise wrote: post #24

Can someone make the argument about why should Disney be forced to give up copyright to Mickey Mouse? Or The Beatles to the music they created?

They were given the copyright only with the limitation that it would expire someday. You have the argument backwards. Can any one make the argument why we should give Disney an unlimited monopoly on the content they create? Why should we pay for courts and systems to enforce their artificial scarcity, if they cannot uphold their side of the agreement?

"They were given the copyright only with the limitation that it would expire someday. You have the argument backwards."

Maybe not, if it's something I invent or write, why does someone have to give me rights over it? They shouldn't take them instead... "shall not."

I understand how the constitution is written but

Re: Access denied

#52

Post by jkn »

coderdude wrote: post #44
w1ntermute wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Disney wants to keep control of Mickey Mouse cartoons, and it doesn't feel unreasonable at all that they should. It feels completely unreasonable to me. There's no reason why Disney should be given an exception when others aren't. It's idiotic to suggest that they should get special treatment just because their IP is commercially valuable.

I disagree. Disney is the perfect example of when copyright should be extended. Disney (the man) is dead but he didn't die owning a portfolio of cartoon IP. Disney (the corporation) owned that and still has a global business that lives and dies by the fact that it can maintain its brand. I don't see any benefit to mankind if people were suddenly free to print Mickey Mouse onto t-shirts and sell them.

You're confusing copyright and trademark. If copyright was allowed to expire, people could freely share the earliest Disney movies, but they still couldn't infringe the Mickey Mouse trademark by printing t-shirts since the trademark doesn't expire.

Re: Access denied

#53

Post by OGinparadise »

officemonkey wrote: post #40
ovi256 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see how you can land in trouble as a pirate when you travel to a country with longer copyright. For Canadians, Hemingway for example is already public domain. Would a Canadian travelling with a Kindle full of Project Guttenberg downloads of Hemingway land in trouble with the US, EU or other customs ? It would be in the publishers interest to obtain a few scary convictions for the chilling effect. I could see ho…

The issue isn't ownership of the file, it's the act of copying. If the Kindle owner made copies of Hemingway's works in the U.S., then he would get in trouble.

"The issue isn't ownership of the file, it's the act of copying."

On top of my head I can't see how you own a book if others can copy and distribute it. For practical purposes, the point of owning is that you can control distribution, charge for it or, say, not allow someone to do a movie based on it.

Re: Access denied

#54

Post by pyre »

coderdude wrote: post #44
w1ntermute wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Disney wants to keep control of Mickey Mouse cartoons, and it doesn't feel unreasonable at all that they should. It feels completely unreasonable to me. There's no reason why Disney should be given an exception when others aren't. It's idiotic to suggest that they should get special treatment just because their IP is commercially valuable.

I disagree. Disney is the perfect example of when copyright should be extended. Disney (the man) is dead but he didn't die owning a portfolio of cartoon IP. Disney (the corporation) owned that and still has a global business that lives and dies by the fact that it can maintain its brand. I don't see any benefit to mankind if people were suddenly free to print Mickey Mouse onto t-shirts and sell them.

  | I don't see any benefit to mankind if people were
  | suddenly free to print Mickey Mouse onto t-shirts
  | and sell them.
Mickey Mouse is a trademark of the Disney Corporation. Someone selling Mickey Mouse t-shirts would quickly run afoul of Disney's trademark lawyers. If Steamboat Willie fell into the public domain it would just mean that I could legally sell copies of it on DVD, or I could dub my voice over the video and post it to YouTube. Neither of these would materially harm Disney. Printing frames captured from Steamboat Willie on t-shirts would fall into an area where Disney could reasonably take someone to court for violating their trademark. Printing a generic image of Mickey Mouse on a t-shirt would be blatant violation of trademark, and practically an open-and-shut case.

I can't tell if you're just trolling or uninformed, but there are always a handful of posts in these discussions that don't understand the differences between patent, copyright and trademark.

Re: Access denied

#55

Post by coderdude »

jkn wrote: post #52
coderdude wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Disney is the perfect example of when copyright should be extended. Disney (the man) is dead but he didn't die owning a portfolio of cartoon IP. Disney (the corporation) owned that and still has a global business that lives and dies by the fact that it can maintain its brand. I don't see any benefit to mankind if people were suddenly free to print Mickey Mouse onto t-shirts and sell them.

You're confusing copyright and trademark. If copyright was allowed to expire, people could freely share the earliest Disney movies, but they still couldn't infringe the Mickey Mouse trademark by printing t-shirts since the trademark doesn't expire.

Yeah, you're right. I should have done a little reading first.

From Wikipedia: "It is sometimes erroneously stated that the Mickey Mouse character is only copyrighted."[1]

I could have avoided this one. :)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse#Legal_issues

Re: Access denied

#56

Post by coderdude »

pyre wrote: post #54
coderdude wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Disney is the perfect example of when copyright should be extended. Disney (the man) is dead but he didn't die owning a portfolio of cartoon IP. Disney (the corporation) owned that and still has a global business that lives and dies by the fact that it can maintain its brand. I don't see any benefit to mankind if people were suddenly free to print Mickey Mouse onto t-shirts and sell them.

| I don't see any benefit to mankind if people were | suddenly free to print Mickey Mouse onto t-shirts | and sell them. Mickey Mouse is a trademark of the Disney Corporation. Someone selling Mickey Mouse t-shirts would quickly run afoul of Disney's trademark lawyers. If Steamboat Willie fell into the public domain it would just mean that I could legally sell copies of it on DVD, or I could dub my voice over the vide…

I just didn't know that Mickey Mouse was also trademarked. I do understand the differences between the three, however.

Re: Access denied

#57

Post by StavrosK »

CoffeeDregs wrote: post #50
StavrosK wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People grant protection to works on the provision that these works become freely available after N years. The copyright industry just goes ahead and extends this unilaterally, just because they want to. Why should the public keep up its end of the deal when the copyright industry doesn't?

I still don't see what this has to do with grandparent's point that this was affecting piracy . I certainly agree with your point. I just don't see how it's relevant to the points of either parent or grandparent.

He didn't say it affects it, he said it justifies it.

Re: Access denied

#58

Post by georgemcbay »

njl wrote: post #5

There are two competing interests here. First, Disney wants to keep control of Mickey Mouse cartoons, and it doesn't feel unreasonable at all that they should. Second, the rest of the stuff that is of little commercial value but of potential cultural value should be freed from uncertain or uninterested ownership. The answer feels trivial to me, which means I'm probably missing something. Fixed term for a few decades…

I would be fine with a provision to extend copyright by paying fees, but only if the fee went up each time, like say 2^x * 100 dollars each x year over the base.

Re: Access denied

#59

Post by danielweber »

coderdude wrote: post #56
pyre wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| I don't see any benefit to mankind if people were | suddenly free to print Mickey Mouse onto t-shirts | and sell them. Mickey Mouse is a trademark of the Disney Corporation. Someone selling Mickey Mouse t-shirts would quickly run afoul of Disney's trademark lawyers. If Steamboat Willie fell into the public domain it would just mean that I could legally sell copies of it on DVD, or I could dub my voice over the vide…

I just didn't know that Mickey Mouse was also trademarked. I do understand the differences between the three, however.

I had a really long convoluted discussion with an IP lawyer, and he claimed that only specific instances of Mickey Mouse's likeness were protected by trademark.

I haven't really absorbed his argument, but he seemed pretty sure about it, and that we needed something else to (legitimately, in both our opinions) protect Disney's ability to control their brand even if copyright expired. He recommended giving Disney something very much like "right of publicity" for Mickey Mouse so they can still control the character, while allowing lots of old stuff to still enter the public domain.

Re: Access denied

#60

Post by danielweber »

georgemcbay wrote: post #58
njl wrote: post #5

There are two competing interests here. First, Disney wants to keep control of Mickey Mouse cartoons, and it doesn't feel unreasonable at all that they should. Second, the rest of the stuff that is of little commercial value but of potential cultural value should be freed from uncertain or uninterested ownership. The answer feels trivial to me, which means I'm probably missing something. Fixed term for a few decades…

I would be fine with a provision to extend copyright by paying fees, but only if the fee went up each time, like say 2^x * 100 dollars each x year over the base.

You have to decide that kind of unit you need to pay fees on. Is "Steamboat Willie" 1 work? If a photographer releases a bunch of photos, are each of them their own work? Should he release them as a book?
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