Hello frens,

As a great opponent of any form of IP, I have been following the event of Disney’s Steamboat Willie entering the public domain with great amusement. The incidents where creators have been falsely demonetized on youtube for rightfully using this film is further underpinned by Disney’s decades-long shameless practices. The linked article sums it up quite well I think.

  • d00phy@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Title of this post is a bit misleading. You’re suggesting the article spells out how Disney’s, and other companies’, rabid protection of its IP is a Bad Thing, when it’s really more of a history and primer on what’s changed with Steamboat Willie entering PD.

    • PropaGandalf@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      Thanks to the so-called “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” of 1998, Disney, along with other entertainment companies, permanently damaged the collective creative landscape by walling off the public domain.

      The great irony, of course, is that Disney built its library of animated classics by adapting European fairy tales that exist in the public domain. Despite Disney benefiting from the free use of old stories, the studio has never hesitated to take legal action to protect its most iconic character, several decades after Walt Disney created him.

      Over the decades, Disney’s brutal copyright take-downs have become the stuff of legend. The litigious studio famously forced daycare centers to remove murals featuring Mickey and Minnie; for Disney, copyright law even applies to a child’s tombstone.

      […] the mouse is symbolic of a decades-long battle over the public domain, which the public lost. Today, the battleground has shifted, as powerful corporations no longer view tight copyright protection as beneficial, thanks to the requirements of generative AI.

      • Cinner@lemmy.worldB
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        11 months ago

        You can get assault and battery charges on a corpse? Why wouldn’t they just go after murder 1 in that case?

        I’d call it a property crime, but my brain hasn’t been fully cooked quite yet.

  • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    Thirty years from publication.

    No exceptions.

    Copyright is only an incentive to create new works for the public. For us. Once you’ve sold it, it’s ours. That’s what the money is for. If thirty years isn’t enough then it’s just not gonna happen.

    People have a right to culture. Anything you grew up with is yours to build on.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      Thirty years from publication.

      The original was 14 years renewable for another 14. I like that better. It means that abandonware goes into the public domain faster, but it’s easy to renew a copyright if it’s still being used.

      No exceptions.

      I disagree. Exceptions for sports and software: shorter. Sports is most relevant when it’s live, and copyright-holders for sports content are much more vicious when it comes to taking down tiny clips of goals or something. So, make a special category that gives them extra protection when it comes to tiny clips in exchange for much shorter copyright terms. For software, it’s essential to be able to maintain old equipment, especially old industrial equipment. That soft of software could be used in power plants, medical equipment, water purification plants, etc. Companies are notoriously bad at keeping that stuff safe especially decades later. Instead, make it public domain faster.

      • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        Copyright should be irrelevant immediately, for most of that.

        Someone modifying software you sold them is not a pirate. Licenses mean nothing.

        Someone sharing a game you stopped selling is a pirate, but if you don’t want money, who cares?

        Someone sharing clips of old sports games is not competing with your live broadcast business.

        Intellectual property laws don’t need to be brief, to be sane. Most things that rights-cartels freak out over are downright stupid. We can give them what they need without tolerating their every paranoid want. These laws only exist to benefit us.

        Simplicity is useful here. I’m willing to spot people a nice round number for ample opportunity to sell their thing. Especially if it means the date on the cover is a guarantee.

  • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    I have zero respect for any IP laws, the one thing I agree with China on. They only serve to inhibit innovation and make the rich richer.

  • merc@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    Of all the new uses of Mickey we’re now seeing, one thing I really hope is to see Mickey showing up on murals in kindergartens and daycares. This is really what it means for the character to be entering the public domain. He’s has been a part of American, if not world culture for decades, but that part of the culture has been illegal for people to use.

    Finally, after nearly a century of Disney getting absolute control, that cultural element finally belongs to everyone. Now parents and caregivers can paint images of Mickey and make kids happy without having to get permission from Disney.

  • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Wait why is an IP or copyright bad? If I, a nobody make a great character or film, you’re saying that should belong to everyone and I should get nothing out of it? Bullshit, why even bother then?

    • PropaGandalf@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      Yes, nobody is stopping you from doing everything you planned to do with your invention.
      In real life, IP does not benefit those it is supposed to protect, but those who can afford to sue everyone else into the ground.

    • drislands@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I don’t think IP shouldn’t exist. I saw someone say studies show 7 years is the correct time limit before they go to public domain though.

      • rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        if you can’t make bank in 7 years then it’s a you problem and it’s time to give others a try.

        Unfortunately right now the media megacorps would have no problem suppressing an IP for 7 years just to use it for their own later. They run the distribution channels.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Copyright law in the U.S. used to be 19 years with an option to renew after that 19 and was that way until the early 1970s. That should be more than long enough for any copyright to last.

  • LemmyIsFantastic@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Wow, what a title. None of this is particularly harmful. I don’t think the human race has lost much having to wait to do Micky parodies.

    • sir_reginald@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      We have lost much having to wait for meds patents or other useful technologies.

      And even in the entertainment industry we have probably lost so many masterpieces that could have been inspired by copyrighted material. Of course, that we will never know.

      • LemmyIsFantastic@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Patent. Not copyright. What things of scientific value have been blocked or discovered via copyright law. That sounds like nonsense. This is all entertainment and I can’t think of a single case where copyright has affected cultural change.

        • sir_reginald@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Both are based on the absurd concept of intellectual property. They are the same cancerous thing that is crippling technological and cultural advancement.

          Edit: Seeing your comment history in the piracy community, I don’t understand why you bother commenting. It’s pretty clear that you’re a corpo buttlicker. I’m sure there are communities where youd be better received.