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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

#91

Post by kevinmchugh »

tzs wrote: post #30
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…

There have only been two copyright extensions that affected the copyright on Mickey Mouse, and I haven't been able to find any significant Disney involvement with the first one. The first one was when the Copyright Act of 1909 was replaced with the Copyright Act of 1976. Between 1909 and 1976 there had been a lot of changes in technology, such as the rise of radio, TV, movies, and computers, and it was widely agreed…

The 1976 act was also useful in settling the idea of a "work for hire". There'd previously been a lot of bespoke, confusing contacts and promises made around ownership of IP and the 1976 act settled it. It didn't make artists who'd been ripped off (Siegel and Schuster) whole, but it cleared up delineations. This paved the way for future artists to actually know what they were seeking, and keep some of the good stuff for themselves

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

#92

Post by Bluecobra »

sharkski wrote: post #80

I plan on uploading a BD rip of Steamboat Willie to YouTube at midnight January 1st, 2024. I'm curious if a copyright strike will happen and if I can defeat it.

Is a rip from a BluRay fair use? I would think that you would need to own the film reels and scan them/master it yourself.

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

#93

Post by ronsor »

Bluecobra wrote: post #92
sharkski wrote: post #80

I plan on uploading a BD rip of Steamboat Willie to YouTube at midnight January 1st, 2024. I'm curious if a copyright strike will happen and if I can defeat it.

Is a rip from a BluRay fair use? I would think that you would need to own the film reels and scan them/master it yourself.

Color correction and transfer to another medium don't create a new copyrighted work as far as I know.

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

#94

Post by bentley »

Bluecobra wrote: post #92
sharkski wrote: post #80

I plan on uploading a BD rip of Steamboat Willie to YouTube at midnight January 1st, 2024. I'm curious if a copyright strike will happen and if I can defeat it.

Is a rip from a BluRay fair use? I would think that you would need to own the film reels and scan them/master it yourself.

In the US, Bridgeman v. Corel ruled that faithful copies of public domain works don’t gain copyright protection for being copies of an original. To be copyrighted requires some sort of creative spark, and that spark was entirely contained in the original work; none was introduced in the copying process.

Whether this applies to a Blu‐Ray rip, I will not attempt to discern.

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

#95

Post by joshspankit »

CSSer wrote: post #90
sharkski wrote: post #80

I plan on uploading a BD rip of Steamboat Willie to YouTube at midnight January 1st, 2024. I'm curious if a copyright strike will happen and if I can defeat it.

If I recall correctly, it will and there’s nothing you can do about it. This came up recently on HN. Someone tried to post something that is definitely in the public domain as of this year, got a strike, and was asking how they’re supposed to appeal but was told the system is designed to be abused. It implicitly favors copyright holders even when it shouldn’t. There’s no built-in fairness, and to be honest I’m postin…

It sounds like the “malicious compliance” move is to mark Steamboat Willie as your own copyright work so that you are the one to decide whether it sticks.

For those that don’t know, this is based off an often-abused tactic: take the original music of someone who has not registered it and register it instead of them. Once done, they file copyright strikes and/or file to have the creator’s monetization funds deposited in to the abuser’s account since the abuser is the “rightful owner”.

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

#96

Post by kalleboo »

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…

They would have started the lobbying long before this year.

They seem to have given up on making copyright law even more absurd, there's no public support for it, instead they seem to be attempting to use trademark law to keep control over their characters (which only requires you to keep using and defending the trademark)

Notice how they use a clip from Steamboat Willie as the intro logo for Walt Disney Animation Studios, this keeps that design of Mickey as an active trademark of Disney, and they could sue anyone using it for trademark confusion. ("Mickey is the logo for Walt Disney Animation Studios, anyone else using it might confuse consumers into thinking they are Walt Disney Animation Studios and must be stopped!")

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

#97

Post by jancsika »

raincole wrote: post #26
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…

It might not be the only reason, but I think it's a good insight. It's also a reminder that when something "has bipartisan support" should be a red flag: it usually means it's another way the government is robbing from you (the public).

How was the government robbing us with the First Step Act? That's smack dab in the middle of the Trump Administration, complete with Democratic support and Koch Foundation support.

Also, the recent bipartisan bill to keep the government open literally did the opposite of robbing the public.

Here's a good one to check your insight: the so-called "Bipartisan Safer Communities Act." You've got Republicans helping to pass gun-control legislation of all things during the Biden administration! That's certainly a red flag if I ever saw one. So what is the way this law is being used to fleece people?

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

#99

Post by pinkmuffinere »

shmerl wrote: post #40
bentley wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s difficult because the most recent extensions were put in place to synchronize US copyright with the absurd durations pioneered by Europe and the Berne Convention. In effect, the US has allowed international treaties to supersede the Constitution’s requirement that copyright last “for limited times.”

I think it went the other way around. Corrupt US industries first pushed those conventions and then pressured US legislature to "synchronize" with them. It's all a big pile of corrupt BS that tries to bypass normal lawmaking, so pushing back against it should be only natural.

I'm not familiar with the background here, so I just checked on Wikipedia. It says "After the United States' accession to the Berne convention, a number of copyright owners successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress for another extension of the term of copyright, to provide for the same term of protection that exists in Europe." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act#:...)

This would seem to indicate that the parent was right -- the long extension to copyright is because the US decided to match Europe's protections. Although, on second reading of your comment, I wonder if you mean that US companies convinced Europe to provide longer protections, with the intent to then make the US match the policies they pushed in Europe? That seems very elaborate

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

#100

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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