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
If Disney doesn’t keep illegally extending the copyright dates, continuing to ruin the way copyrights are supposed to actually work, I will legitimately be surprised.
I refuse to believe they are not bribing judges and lawmakers. Its not possible that Disney is doing this without doing anything illegal.
They might be doing that… but not possible? Come on dude. That’s just a failure of imagination. There are plenty of legal ways to corrupt the government. Lobbying is the most common one, and very legal. Insisting that they’re committing crimes without any evidence of it is just silly.
Even if they wanted, there is not much time left to change anything at this point
Mickey Mouse is no longer as relevant in Disney’s dominance anymore. They got bigger cash cows to milk.
That’s why it’s trademarked. Unlike a copyright, trademarks can last forever.
(sigh) Just a little bit longer and I’ll finally be able to release my Steamboat Willy tentacle hentai comic.
Even with the character in Public Domain, I doubt Disney would be particularly happy with anyone using it.
They can send cease and desist letter left and right, claiming that “the use of the mouse is fine, but the elements X, Y and Z were introduced in a later work of ours that’s still protected”, even if it’s a plain lie.
Trying to take Disney to court is suicide.
The have enough money to hire half the lawyers in the world and make them come up with a lawsuit even if there’s no basis for one. They can stretch the lawsuit process to last years, and yet the fees would be but a fraction of a fraction of a percent in their yearly spending. Almost any defendant, meanwhile, would be financially ruined by it, even if they end up winning.
I’m not sure how court works, but can’t you just take the cheapest defense possible? Even if it’s just you showing up in court alone and pretending to be a lawyer.
Is the system really set up so that if you can’t afford legal fees then you lose by default?
Trying to represent oneself in court is a pretty stupid thing to do, generally.
I am not a lawyer, I’m pretty you need to be able to defend yourself withing the legal system following all of its rules. You need to know the laws, their quirks, loopholes, etc. to construct your defense properly. Even if the case is complete nonsense, but you lack the knowledge to defend yourself, or the ability to use the knowledge you have coherently, you’ll loose.
A neat paper a filed in accordance with all the rules, a paper that quotes actual laws and precedents, will, generally, beats oral argument backed by common sense. And that’s in general! Let alone when you’re going against Disney and their nigh infinite army of lawyers.
I find it insane that anyone should be allowed to use Mickey Mouse. Similarly, the 30s version of Superman is in public domain, soon, and that is similarly insane to me.
These are still Active properties closely tied with a company’s marketing and image. We badly need to update our IP laws.
Companies last longer than a hundred years, now. It’s silly we allow these things.
You do know that Disney made money from other people’s works like the brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen right? Their works are in public domain
They made money off of their version of those works, yes. They’re quite different from the originals.
This is what I mean about our laws needing updating - time alone is not enough any more. We need to define levels of differentiation that are commercially acceptable. Right now, that essentially just includes parody, which clearly is not a thorough enough accounting of the many ways IP can be varied.
The point of patents and copyrights is to promote and reward creative artists and inventors, not create a permanent revenue stream for corporations. Walt Disney died in 1966 and he, his investors, his heirs, and even their heirs have all been handsomely rewarded.
Now let’s get Steamboat Mickey in Smash Bros.
Steamboat Mickey could be in Smash Bros if Nintendo wanted to license it, but IIRC Smash Bros is specifically only properties owned by Nintendo on purpose. Smash Bros is effectively free advertising for other Nintendo games, in addition to a fighter.
I don’t see why Disney, rather than Walt himself, shouldnt own the copyright on Mickey Mouse.
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.
I find it insane that tvshows regularly show people watching 70+ year old tvshows. Nobody does that in real life. Doesn’t feel authentic.
I find it insane that we’ve reused characters in stories for thousands of years, but just a century ago it suddenly became illegal until almost every character was old enough to be forgotten and culturally irrelevant.
Fan fiction of relatively new IPs should be sellable, imho, without having to beg a corporation for permission. Its stuff we’ve grown up on. Disney and others are literally holding our culture hostage and dictates terms.
Fan fiction being sellable would require significant changes to copyright. It seems like you’re agreeing with me?
Idk what you mean by Disney “holding our culture hostage” - that seems weirdly hyperbolic.
The public must gain it’s share of the revenue for allowing a private company to use public domain IP exclusively.
Hold a yearly auction to see who is granted rights to the property which is now the public’s.
The public must gain it’s share of the revenue for allowing a private company to use public domain IP exclusively.
Pretty strongly disagree with the idea of a company’s product just becoming the public’s because a certain amount of time has passed.
I cannot even conceive of what the argument for this could possibly be.
We agree on updating IP laws, but I think they should be curtailed rather than extended. You should not have the monopoly on an idea your entire life. If you can’t milk a fortune from it in 50 years it wasn’t that good an idea, so everyone else should be free to build on and improve it after that point.
And even if you absolutely kill it and your brand is still going strong decades later, that 50 years will cover anything new your did in that time. Plus it’s not like people wouldn’t know yours is the original even after the copyright expire; something entering public domain doesn’t make it legal to claim you invented it if you didn’t.
If you make something, it should be yours to disseminate as you wish. It’s silly to suggest otherwise. You literally created it.
We badly need to update our IP laws.
Yes, by abolishing IP as a concept entirely. You cannot own an idea after you published it, that’s insane.
I mean, IP isn’t all bad. I can’t start selling p*ss in a bottle and label it with Coca-Cola branding. I’d get sued into oblivion. In this particular case, that would be a good thing. It also means that if you find a rat in your coke, you can sue CocaCola. If there were no IP, everyone could make it and it would be almost impossible to know where it came from.
There would also be no widely distributed film, TV, music, books, etc. Do you really want to live in a world where WattPad is the engine of literature?
Donald Duck’s copyright expires in 2029 and we’ll finally be able to walk around pantsless in a sailor hat/shirt without being harassed by Walt Disney’s widow.
Stop, I can only get so erect:
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2670120-chris-christie-donald-duck
EXPECT legislative-shenanigans, people…
EITHER they’ll extend copyright again,
XOR they’ll just “conveniently” have copyright apply in court, even-though it doesn’t apply on-paper.
Never believe a career-criminal, or Dark Triad entity, has changed, unless you see robust, consistent, years-long, actual, objective proof of that change having-happened.
Extraordinary-claims require extraordinary backing/evidence.
_ /\ _
They don’t have to do any of those. They own most of the content pipe so anyone who wants to do their own spin on Mickey is going to be inherently limited on their publishing reach.
Plus with all the acquisitions they’ve made, the copyright to Mickey and other legacy characters is worth a much smaller portion of their empire.
And they still own the TM.
Basically I’m regurgitating a rather good video recently published by Corridor Crew so go here for more facts and fewer hacks: https://youtu.be/u2dIvUAd5QE?si=IK5wOEpSDOPyIwJz
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/u2dIvUAd5QE?si=IK5wOEpSDOPyIwJz
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
