This iconic mouse is weeks away fromn being in the public domain Jan. 1, 2024, is the day when ‘Steamboat Willie’ enters the public domain
Are you for real? The creators have been dead for decades. Apart from the discussion of who was actually creatively responsible for Disney’s as significant characters. Copyright was invented to protect them, not to be a gravy train for their useless descendants or the faceless companies owning the right for some (often murky) reason.
This doesn’t contain any reasoning behind why copyright shouldn’t be that.
Temporary monopolies are the governments reward to encourage new works of art and inventions. The trade off is that it’s temporary. By extending copyrights indefinitely it actually discourages new works to be created because they’re competing with more creations than ever, and nothing can be built as a derivative work. Trademarks, which Disney still owns, are protected basically indefinitely.
Disclaimer: I’ve only really looked into copyright law from the perspective of a YouTube content creator
I don’t see how extending copyrights indefinitely discourages new works from being made given that fair use is a thing. Assuming that fair use is protected, wouldn’t having some limitations on how you use a given work encourage more creativity? The best example of this that I can think of is Raccacoonie in Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.
I’d honestly be fine with something as old as Steamboat Willie being freely available in the public domain, but I’m not sure I’d say the same thing for Mickey Mouse. It’d be cool to get some legal Mickey Mouse animations from small companies or online creators, but IMO, it wouldn’t be great if Mickey Mouse content came from Warner Bros. Disney should be the only large company allowed to use Mickey Mouse as long as they still make quality content with him. The year or decade where Mickey Mouse isn’t being actively worked on as a creative continuation of the original concept should be the time where everyone and anyone can adapt Mickey Mouse.
The reason why I put a split between small and big is that the latter often seems corrupted by greed, whereas the former tends to do things out of passion. IMO, creatives deserve incredibly strong copyright protections with relatively little work because there’s not much stopping someone else from simply stealing said content. This is especially rampant now on TikTok and Instagram. Large companies should get the same opportunity due to brand identities, but they should be under much more scrutiny to achieve the same level of protection, and they shouldn’t be able to bully creatives.
I also see a lot of commenters mention how copyright should be limited to 20 years. I don’t see this working out well in today’s world because old stuff is brought up and popularized seemingly often. Niche videos from 2013 can easily go viral in 2033, and I think authors deserve some sort of reward for that.
