Our fine, entertainment conglomerates wrestle over public domain material.
In October, Warner Bros. very quietly filed a trademark registration on "The Great and Powerful Oz." ...
On Wednesday, an examiner at the United States Trademark Office suspended Warners' trademark attempt because Disney had come first. ...
Although Baum's book and accompanying illustrations are in the public domain, judges at the 8th Circuit last year decided to give Warner Bros. "character protection" under its copyright on the 1939 film starring Judy Garland. In the case, which concerned a company that attempted to sell film nostalgia merchandise, the appellate circuit ruled that it would be hard to visualize these characters without watching the movie ...
And so on and so forth.
When the Constitution was written, copyrights lasted a bit more than a quarter of a century. Now they go on for almost a hundred years.
Why, you ask? Because big companies have managed to bribe and strong-arm congress to making the copyright laws longer... and longer ... and longer still.
Why creative works should be owned by corporations in the first place escapes me. But congress voted that it could be so back at the dawn of the twentieth century, and here we are. A shame that copyrights can be owned by entities other than humans, since last time I checked, companies don't breathe, or urinate, or expire of old age.
It's also sad that copyrights can outlive authors (although Samuel Clemens wanted copyrights to be eternal. Of course, he didn't have Viacom and News Corp. in mind when he advocated eternity.)
Let us face it: Mickey Mouse will fall into the public domain around the time the sun reaches its red star phase.
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5 comments:
" the appellate circuit ruled that it would be hard to visualize these characters without watching the movie ..."
Unless they were unimaginative corporate lawyers or studio executives...
And why the hell SHOULD Mickey Mouse fall into the public domain? I'd hate to think what some people would do to that character if they got their hands on it. And Mickey is more than a character - he's the Disney company logo, mascot and symbol. He SHOULD get eternal protection. IMO, copyrights should be extended indefinitely on any character or property as long as legal steps are taken at the required time to renew those copyrights. Why should some hack benefit from someone else's original idea?
Anon just above,
please educate yourself on the difference between a copyright and a trademark. You're conflating the two.
Then take a look at what a hack named Walt Disney did with the original ideas of the Brothers Grimm.
If copyright protections were shortened, the studios might see their legal fees go down and their ability to develop new works based on old stories go up.
^Big deal. If Snow White were in fact a copyrighted property, then Walt could have negotiated with the owners for the rights to adapt their creation into a motion picture. That's what he did with 101 Dalmations and Bambi. Your argument doesn't refute mine one damn bit.
Mickey belongs to the Disney company and that should stay that way. Thank God that's very likely to happen.
Could he have done so with the estate of Lewis Carroll when he was an indie filmmaker making his Alice comedies?
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