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Mickey, Disney, and the public domain: A 95-year love triangle

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Re: Mickey, Disney, and the public domain: A 95-year love triangle

#61

Post by emodendroket »

foob wrote: post #16

My pet theory is that the only reason we didn't see a copyright extension act this year, like we've seen every time Steamboat Willy was about to enter the public domain in the past, is that Disney ended up on one side of the culture wars with what went on in Florida. It's far more difficult to get bipartisan support for robbing the public of what should be in the public domain once you've involved yourself in partisa…

The timing is off. The analysis I read that I found more convincing is that now you have other moneyed interests like Google who do NOT favor the extension.

Re: Mickey, Disney, and the public domain: A 95-year love triangle

#62

Post by shmerl »

ronsor wrote: post #56
shmerl wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's better than nothing, but since it was pushed so aggressively before, it can as well be pushed backwards the same way.

At this point, I think the only way copyright terms could be reduced is a Constitutional amendment (not going to happen).

Were increases considered constitutional amendments? If they could happen, then what's the problem to revert it?

Re: Mickey, Disney, and the public domain: A 95-year love triangle

#63

Post by Spooky23 »

bentley wrote: post #33
fbdab103 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Florida passed the "Don't Say Gay" bill, to which Disney publicly stood against. Since then, GOP led Florida government has decided that Disney is the enemy and has taken active measures to bludgeon them.

How much influence does the Florida legislature have over federal copyright law, really?

The people driving GOP policy these days aren’t exactly rational.

Re: Mickey, Disney, and the public domain: A 95-year love triangle

#64

Post by ronsor »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #58
bentley wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of thing has been attempted in the past. For example, after the Lego brick patents expired, Lego sued Mega Bloks (in Canada) claiming a trademark over the design of the brick. They lost the case, because the Supreme Court (of Canada) ruled you can’t double‐dip on IP protection by turning a functional (i.e., patentable) design into a trademark. Disney putting Steamboat Willie in their logo is unlikely to act…

> They lost the case, because the Supreme Court (of Canada) ruled you can’t double‐dip on IP protection by turning a functional (i.e., patentable) design into a trademark. There's case history on that in the US as well.

IIRC, non-Nintendo-licensed Gameboy games were allowed to reproduce Nintendo's trademarked logo because it was necessary for the game to run.

Trademarks are restricted to brand identification only; attempting to use them for anything else will result in trouble and wasted money.

Re: Mickey, Disney, and the public domain: A 95-year love triangle

#65

Post by ronsor »

shmerl wrote: post #62
ronsor wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, I think the only way copyright terms could be reduced is a Constitutional amendment (not going to happen).

Were increases considered constitutional amendments? If they could happen, then what's the problem to revert it?

I think it's more so that you're not going to convince politicians to reduce it (they have no incentive), and even if they do reduce it, there's no way to stop them from raising it again.

Re: Mickey, Disney, and the public domain: A 95-year love triangle

#66

Post by matheusmoreira »

foob wrote: post #16

My pet theory is that the only reason we didn't see a copyright extension act this year, like we've seen every time Steamboat Willy was about to enter the public domain in the past, is that Disney ended up on one side of the culture wars with what went on in Florida. It's far more difficult to get bipartisan support for robbing the public of what should be in the public domain once you've involved yourself in partisa…

> robbing the public of what should be in the public domain

I love your choice of words. These copyright monopolists are robbing and defrauding us of our rights. Literal robber barons.

The social contract was we'd pretend their stuff wasn't trivially copyable so they could make some money and then the works would enter the public domain. They have repeatedly failed to keep up their ends of the bargain while making fortunes off of government enabled monopolies on information. Therefore we should not be obligated to keep honoring their monopolies either.

Re: Mickey, Disney, and the public domain: A 95-year love triangle

#67

Post by kelnos »

galangalalgol wrote: post #57
krebby wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Corridor Crew just did a good legal analysis on this a couple weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2dIvUAd5QE&t=533s Basically the Disney brand has gotten so huge and diversified that a public domain Mickey isn't an existential threat to their business anymore. Terrifying in its own right, but at least we might see an end to the endless copyright extension. Interesting times ahead!

Can we go back to death +50 then? Tolkien would be public domain next year. In Canada it was close but they switched to +70 last year.

That doesn't go far enough. Copyright terms should be on the order of 20 years or so, and should have nothing to do with whether or not the creator is still alive.

Re: Mickey, Disney, and the public domain: A 95-year love triangle

#68

Post by insulanus »

sircastor wrote: post #50
foob wrote: post #16

My pet theory is that the only reason we didn't see a copyright extension act this year, like we've seen every time Steamboat Willy was about to enter the public domain in the past, is that Disney ended up on one side of the culture wars with what went on in Florida. It's far more difficult to get bipartisan support for robbing the public of what should be in the public domain once you've involved yourself in partisa…

I recall a few years ago there was something published where the MPAA basically said "We don't think we have enough public support to pull it off" I may be mixing my signals, but I think it was just a year or two after the whole SOPA/PIPA win.

Yes, that was the takeaway by the MPAA-aligned laywers at the time.

Re: Mickey, Disney, and the public domain: A 95-year love triangle

#69

Post by bentley »

shmerl wrote: post #62
ronsor wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, I think the only way copyright terms could be reduced is a Constitutional amendment (not going to happen).

Were increases considered constitutional amendments? If they could happen, then what's the problem to revert it?

Previous copyright extensions were not constitutional amendments. Decreasing the length of new copyright terms could be done the same way, without any need for an amendment.

Reducing the length of existing copyright terms might be considered an ex post facto law. Those are explicitly prohibited by the Constitution.

The Constitution states that copyrights must be limited in length. Retroactively extending the duration of existing copyrights (as opposed to new copyrights) should be unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court said in Eldred v. Ashcroft that it’s fine—wrongly, in my opinion. Correcting them would require an amendment.

Re: Mickey, Disney, and the public domain: A 95-year love triangle

#70

Post by kmeisthax »

couchand wrote: post #24
candiddevmike wrote: post #7

Was there a copyright reason for Disney changing their opening logo sequence to the steamboat willy thing? Some kind of "it's now our trademark" claim?

The legal question is discussed in the fine article. > Disney has also started using this logo before some of its films. > If you make your own Mickey cartoon, can Disney use trademark law to interfere? Trademark law is all about preventing consumer confusion – and not about getting in the way of creativity – so it depends on whether people are likely to be misled about the source of your cartoon. As long as no one t…

Not only that, but there is specific SCOTUS caselaw opposing the abuse of trademark to create perma-copyright.
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