The Double Edge of Copyright Extensions

porkface writes "The Morning News is running a simple, but eloquent editorial that plainly shows how Hollywood has routinely benefitted from the expiration of copyright, despite their adamant pressure on Capitol Hill to extend copyright almost indefinitely."

Comments

Continuity...

[mgcsinc]

Corporations are run by people, beings with a great sense of need for continuity; it is this fact alone that keeps me from being surprised by the way in which some companies - from copyright-protecting movie companies which could make good out of expired copyrights to napster-fearing record labels which could use the heightened interest in their music that online exposure would bring to open-source-scared software giants who could use a little outsider criticism of their code - choose the status quo over slightly modifying the business plan to accommodate for a new world and possibly even larger profits...

And the #1 example...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hollywood has routinely benefitted from the expiration of copyright

No kidding, just look at Disney... They built an empire in large part by taking old fairy tales or otherwise public domain stories, and turning them into movies. Yet Disney is quite possibly the biggest, loudest lobbyist for copyright extensions.

"Do as we say, not as we do," apparently.

Re:And the #1 example...

[3waygeek]

That's an interesting question, and it might be a route one could use to challenge the extensions in court. However, IANAL, so don't take what I say as gospel.

Anyway, it's been quite a while since the government took the Constitution seriously.

Re:And the #1 example...

[Jerf]

Err, well, I doubt that the Brothers Grimm could have claimed copyright for each story

Incorrect. Copyright covers expressions, and the Brothers Grimm would hold a copyright on their rendition of the story. Someone else could re-tell the story entirely and it would be a different expression; for example, The Seven Samurai has apparently been retold more times then can be counted, in various formats, but since they are completely independent retellings the copyrights are all seperate.

If they hypothetically recorded the source's telling of the story, the source would own a copyright on that telling. The Brother's Grimm would then need to license their telling of the story. (Although if they get it from enough distinct sources they could probably get away with an amalgam of all the various stories.)

This would not stop Disney from using those stories though, because the Brothers Grimm would only own copyrights on their own expression of the story, and Disney could get the stories from somewhere else. However, in modern times there would still be grounds for a lawsuit and since copyright actions are civil cases where "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't apply, if Disney could not convince the judge that they still weren't deriving from the Brothers Grimm versions of the stories (because they were trying to claim another source of the story to get around paying the Brothers Grimm), they might get nailed. Depends on the judge.

Mickey Mouse

[porkface]

For me, the one argument I don't think big media understands here, is that Disney could still use Mickey Mouse heavily when the copyright on "him" expires. There's nothing about the expiration of copyright that says they have to remove him from Disneyland and stop selling his likeness.

It's not like they do anything these days that requires them to have some kind of exclusive rights. Even if Mickey becomes ubiquitous elsewhere, Disney can always remind us he's their child.

The public is served when copyright expires in a reasonable amount of time, because new derivitive works can flourish, and the former owner has to get of their ass and contribute something new if they want to make money.

This whole issue is yet another example of big media screwing the American public. Viva La Napster!

Re:Mickey Mouse

[Fareq]

Ahh... but that's not what Disney is afraid of...

what Disney is afraid of is that, as soon as it becomes legal to do so, someone will create a "derivative work" that is contrary to the disney image.

For example, some company would likely take it upon themselves to create R or NC-17 rated cartoons that feature Mickey.

I am farily certain that it is the concept of an "unwholesome" Mickey cartoon that concerns them most, because, as you said, Disney could and would continue to sell his likeness...

Also, realize that this would introduce a bit more competition into the Mickey Merchandizing business, not to mention that any continuing licenses for Mickey would be dropped.

Re:Mickey Mouse

[lavalyn]

Disclaim: IANAL.

But aren't trademarks protected despite copyright expiration anyway? Mickey Mouse could well be a registered trademark.

So Steamboat Mickey or whatever it's called becomes public domain and the entire clip be used as educational, entertainment, or dirtied and made obscene, but the general public release could be blocked by trademark law?

This will either get +5 Insightful or (more likely) -1 Wrong.

Re:Mickey Mouse

[coldmist]

This is the tradeoff. Disney has had their control of Mickey for 75 years. They have had their exclusive control over him.

As a member of the "public" (as in the "public domain") it is now our turn to do with it as we please.

Copyright was originally this tradeoff. Now, the balance has tipped completely to the copyright owner's side and the "public" can't use it as they wish.

As the parent said, Disney can continue to use it, but now we get to as well.

That's the whole point of "limited times".

BTW, before this balancing act was envisioned, the system in vogue was patronage, where a work was commissioned by someone (like a king or a duke) and they paid the composer/artist/etc while they did it. At that point, the kind owned all the copies of the work and never had to "release them to the public" if they didn't want to. I think the copyright in its original 14/14 balance was both good in concept and in length.

Re:Mickey Mouse

[cpt kangarooski]

Nothing immediate perhapse. But if others started using his image in wholly un-family oriented ways, they MAY have to drop him because of the new associations. Considering that it is THEIR character, why should they even have to take that chance?

Disney has closely associated itself with characters that are undeniably in the public domain. I can make unwholesome uses of Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Peter Pan, Aladdin, etc. In fact, IIRC, Anne Rice has a head start on this.

It is a risk. But we don't live in a society that is ruled by Disney, I'd hope. We have a right to change public perception; look at what happened to Disney's "The Song of the South" (based on the public domain Uncle Remus stories).

I doubt that would happen to Mickey, but there's nothing wrong with it if it does.

And how is inventing a character but not allowing just any person to do anything they want with it, without permission, "Screwing the American public?" How? In what way? In what possible, even infinitessimal way? Does it limit other people from coming up with their OWN mouse characters? No... Then how?

It does prevent you from coming up with your own; enough protection is never enough. People are greedy. And by people, I mean copyright holders. They'll push and push to make their copyrights more expansive. They'll at least TRY to prevent people from creating their own mouse characters. After all, they have nothing to lose by trying, and might gain a great deal.

For example, parodies are generally protected, but this doesn't stop copyright holders from suing parodists all the time. See the cases of "Pretty Woman" and "The Wind Done Gone."

Furthermore, it prevents us from using those characters as they actually are. Why SHOULDN'T we get to use them? Storytellers from time immemorable have reused characters and plots and situations. It's a technique to use them, and to bank on people's familiarity with them to help tell a story. For example, there are a set of stock characters in opera. When you see Scaramouche on stage, you know what he's going to do. It helps move things along. And it's perfectly valid.

I could create new Mickey Mouse animations. I'd like to; if the case had been decided correctly, I already would be! And one of the goals of copyright is to spur the creation of stories. Original or derivative DOESN'T MATTER. (and if it did, where'd Disney get the copyrights from on all of their fairy tale movies?)

What's really ironic is that Disney has NOT used Mickey Mouse significantly since I can't remember. He acquired too much of a goody-goody reputation early on to be genuinely appealing; hence the rise of Goofy and Donald, who are somewhat more flawed characters.

This is another example of pure selfishness, and not on the part of Disney, but on YOUR part.

So? You don't get the fundementals of copyright, do you?

It is a bargain.

The public wants things: they want origianl works, they want derivative works, and they want them for free, and they want to do anything they want with them, be it using them, copying them, or making new works based off of them.

Authors want one thing: they want money. If they have other motivations, they're not very relevant. Copyright only gives authors a chance to make money. If you want to do art for arts' sake, you don't need a copyright to motivate you. And if you could get enough money to motivate you without a copyright, you don't really need it either.

The idea is, that the public will not grant a copyright unless it will be better off doing so than not doing so. And as history shows, there will always be SOME creation going on. So any copyright system has to benefit the public more than without it.

Does the public care about artists? No, not really. They do benefit insofar as they're PART of the public anyway. But we don't have their best interests in mind. That's why the Constitution reads "to promote the progress of [knowledge]" and not

Re:Mickey Mouse

[ShonFerg]

Right, Mickey Mouse is a Trademark of the Disney Corporation so, even if Steam Boat Willie passes into the public domain, people will still not be able to legally create derivative works based on Mikey's likeness for the purpose of making money. All it will mean is that libraries and web sites could start distributing Steam Boat Willie and other older cartoons for free... or that the stories, but not any trademarked characters, could be used to create derivative works. Basically, Disney would cease to have a monopoly on those older works but trademarks, pictures,symbols, or phrases that identify a product as belonging to a particular business, do not expire as long as the corporation is in business.

I think the real reason that this bothers Disney is their whole "collector's item" mentality. They WANT the works to pass into as much oblivion as possible so they can make a big fuss whenever they finally re-release a certain movie or cartoon collection because the inaccessibility of the material makes it more valuable to people. Never seen those commercials where they say "Such and such a movie will be out for a limited time and then it goes back into the Disney Vault!"?

Basically, from a corporate stand point, they want absolute control over everything they have ever released to ensure its rarity and value as a collector's item.

--Shon

Re:Mickey Mouse

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Exactly. I agree completely.

How does this hurt Hollywood?

[rsilvergun]

There's really only a few big media companies now. The can sublicense out to themselves all they need to (ex. How many old 80's shows/cartoons have popped up as movies lately). I hate to sound cynical (well, no I don't actually) but Hollywood isn't about creativity, it's about money. Owning the merchandising rights to Mikey Mouse is worth way more than free rights to some old book. Come on folks, let's be realistic.

Duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hollywood has routinely benefitted from the expiration of copyright, despite their adamant pressure on Capitol Hill to extend copyright almost indefinitely.

That's because they benefitted from the copyright expiration of works that they didn't make. Now that they've made a ton of money built from the ideas of others, they want to protect themselves. This is not shocking, it's how companies work. It reminds me of how most companies feel about open source code. Sure, open source is great, when you're not the one writing it.

It is money.

[www.sorehands.com]

The Supreme court said that states cannot extend the statute of limitations so that priest that have molested children be charged with those crimes. But, the same court said that copyrights can be extended into infinity.

If the MPAA backed extending the statuted of limitations, would the supreme court allow child molesters off the hook?

Lost Culture

[Midnight Warrior]

It seems to me that liberals at every free-thinking college would be outraged. All their "classics" are essentially public domain. Why hasn't anyone else pieced together that lasting culture is defined by that which is freely available for use by all. Culture used to be about legends, shared experiences, and artistic works. Now culture is defined by some mega-corporation's marketing department.

Examples: famous paintings (images thereof, not the works), books (as mentioned in the article), nursery rhymes (Eensy-Weensee-Spider (C) 1982 by ....), folklore legend (Sleepy Hollow), and so on and so forth.

Hollywood is not a company

[Arrepiadd]

Some used the example of Mickey Mouse. So I'll use it too.

There is a difference between Hollywood and a certain company. If the rights on Mickey Mouse expire I don't see what Disney gains in general with this. Since the company that makes the film doesn't have to pay anything to Disney for using it's toy, Disney won't benefit from it.

Of course, the sooner Mickey Mouse can be used, the sooner the second company could profit from it. But, they might think (or know) that keeping the rights for a lot more years will give them more money with the films they made, rather than what they'd get from using others productions.

You might also say that the use of a already worldly known character would make a film easier to sell to viewers, but since the film wouldn't be from Disney, who would be running to the theatres to see it just because of Mickey (it could even be a porn movie, not that you would like your kids to see that, would you?).

You can even add that Diskey could launch a parallel commercial campaign around the original Mickey. But, would Disney be interested in being associated to a XXX movie. Don't think so. So, in this case Disney itself wouldn't want to be in any way related to the film. Or in a case that the film is a serious piece of shit.

Of course who made the film, could generate more profit than the one it would generate from an unknown character. But the risk to the (former) copyright holder would be tremendous and possibly not worthy of the gain it would have.

So, there are, in my opinion, far more reasons to prefer an extension of copyright rather than a expiracy of it.

Competing with the public domain?

[GammaTau]

One thing I've been wondering is if many of the copyright holders are afraid of competition with the public domain. Some areas, such as literature, have this competition already because there are plenty of books in the public domain. However that's not exactly the case with pop music and movies.

From my experience, many of the CD's with classical music in public domain are often only 30% of the price of a popular music CD in public domain. That's not a big problem because classical music and popular music are two separate genres so the competition isn't all that significant.

What if the copyright was only 28 years and everything before 1975 would be in public domain? That would mean that we'd have lots of pop music and movies in public domain. Pre-1975 stuff isn't exactly the latest fashion but it can certainly compete with new music and movies. Pre-1975 would certainly be shown in television, heard on radio stations, sold on CD's etc. and that is something that makes me think that even if pre-1975 doesn't create all that much of money, preventing it from entering the public domain will help by making the competition easier.

Re:Disney: the company so shrewd and cheap

[August_zero]

Some one told me once, that any person that would spend that kind of money to take their kids to Disney Land/World, is too stupid to realize that the money could be better spent taking the kids to europe, or asia, or some other place that might actually benefit them, and or bring a better understanding of the world around them rather than throw them into a tourist trap designed around the marketing ideal that parents are not very good at telling their kids no.

Re:Instead of Griping, Do Something

[Zork the Almighty]

It won't have any impact at all. The fact is, our current system is broken. The media companies have all the money and power, and they can buy whatever laws they want. They will lobby, spend, and do whatever it takes to extend and broaden copyright without limit. People are correct in believing that this will choke creativity and kill culture, but the media companies actually benefit. You see, people will put up with garbage, as long as they have nothing better to compare it to. Marketing will ensure that everybody only hears about the "hot new thing", and they can recycle the same ten or twenty movies, at minimal cost and zero risk, until the end of time.

We're not going to win that war, all of the decisive battles have already been lost, and our legal options are locked up. Either we admit defeat, and give in to a steady stream of Julia Roberts' movies and their ilk, or we fight on in a different arena. I propose that we build a digital library of all recorded works: music, films, books, etc. and put it on Freenet. There is really no other option available to us, and I think that this will be the endgame. Let's do it before technology becomes illegal too.

Hollywood is not one company

[geekee]

"Hollywood has routinely benefitted from the expiration of copyright, despite their adamant pressure on Capitol Hill to extend copyright almost indefinitely."

This staement is somewhat naive. What you mean is that some people in Hollywood could take advantage of the works of other people in Hollywood, with whom the are competing against, if copyrights expired sooner. This means that company b benefits at the expense of company a. So, although Hollywood possibly did generate more revenue as a whole, company a got screwed out of its share of that revenue. Whether or not the current copyright limit is fair, the arguement should be stated better.

Re:Double edged?

[Zork the Almighty]

Users are greedy bastards who never want to pay for content, and are prepared to use all kinds of dubious logical machinations, hippie philosophy, and references to the constitution to justify IP infringement.

I consider withholding works from the public domain to be theft. Certainly, it's a hell of a lot closer to theft than "copyright infringement". The question is, if they steal from me, am I entitled to steal back from them (I'm not talking about copying new works here) ?

Re:Hollywood is not a company (though its bosses a

[erikogre]

So, there are, in my opinion, far more reasons to prefer an extension of copyright

But the only reason you've given is, essentially, "because Disney can still profit from Mickey Mouse, and because if it became public domain, they'd lose its value as a commercial asset." And truth be told, that's exactly why it should lapse into the public domain. Disney has made plenty of money from its exclusive license on Mickey; that doesn't entitle them to make money on it in perpetuity.

And the public domain would benefit, in more ways than you've imagined. Let's say I wanted to put together an online history of animation, and wanted to stream video of those early cartoons in their entirety. The cost of licensing one of Disney's first cartoons alone would sink me before I'd even begun.

So what if a (gasp! horror!) porn company made "Mickey Moosecock"? The ability of more "legitimate" artists to make use of one of the most recognizeable symbols of American pop culture without having to get Disney's permission outweighs Disney's "right" to make money forever from one of its properties.

It's not like they aren't milking all their current properties for direct-to-video sequel after sequel. Let 'em make 20 fscking Lion King sequels if they want money -- it's time the Mouse belonged to the public.

Yes, but...

[evilWurst]

Hollywood isn't a bunch of new struggling studios anymore. They're the old guard. They'd rather have permanant copyright, thus being able to remake their own old stuff or license the rights from each other, while still preventing new companies from using it. It's part greed and part laziness. Free public domain stuff is more a threat to them now than a benefit.

A Grimm tale told by an idiot, full of bunnies

[kfg]

Yes, yes, the tales that Disney stole from the Bros. Grimm were in fact public domain folk tales from the first. Yes, they changed them, making them all pretty and full of cute anthropomorphic fluffy bunnies and dishwashing chipmonks.

None of this changes the fact that Disney selected these very tales because they were in the public domain and he could make free use of them as he willed and keep all the profits.

Perhaps the Brothers Grimm weren't the best example though. Are there any identifiable authors from whom Disney took works? Why yes, there are.

How about Rudyard Kipling? Heard of him? Victor Hugo, Carlo Collodi, Lewis Carrol, Prokofiev, R.L. Stevenson, Defoe, Washington Irving, J.M Barrie, Davey Crockett (Yes, Davey was an author), the list goes on, and on, and on.

Disney has made billions of dollars on the backs of identifiable authors whose works they simply took, for free.

The thing is none of these authors suffered by it (ok, some of them had been dead more than 50 years, but some of them hadn't) and Disney serves as a prime example of how *everyone* makes money by a reasonable copyright expiration period.

KFG

Like Nom du Keyboard said ...

[BlueTrin]

... copyrights are there so R&D is still profitable but extended copyrights can only create monopolisms and slowers the global evolution of any domain.

People on Slashdot can see consequences on inadequation of copyright length in software development. In a relatively new domain like computer science, their length is really too long, and conducts to ridiculous situations (SCO vs IBM) and to monopolistic situations.

A silly troll

[Anonymous Coward]

You're saying that because Disney produced a movie on the lives of real, historical figures that anybody else who produces a movie on the same historical figures is fooling people?

What a bizarro world you live in.

Re:May I direct your attention...

[cpt kangarooski]

A) Why did you get that copyright? Who gave it to you, for what purpose?

B) No, you only get to decide up to the time of the expiration of the copyright. Plus there are limits even during the term. People can parody your song, or make and distribute copies if it falls within fair use, which is always possible. At worst, as soon as the term expires, the publishing company DOES get to make that decision, and there's fuck all you can do about it. (although given the current term, you'd be long dead, also throwing a wrench into your ability to stop such later use)

Re:The Real Irony and Flaw is...And Simplity!

[jengod]

It's not that the Supreme Court doesn't understand or sympathize, it's that they don't believe the Constitution vests them with the right to overrule Congress on this point. There's no point of law or precedent that says the People's duly-appointed representatives in the Legislature are in the wrong when it comes to the current state of copyright law. Basically, the Supremes handed the ball back to Congress. They didn't declare game-over or anything.

Lawsuits time bombs waiting to happen!!!

[tstoneman]

I love it! One of the problems that the article touches upon is that the royalties, etc, will go on for 70 years... That means by the 60th year, there will be 3 generations of descendants that will be fighting over the royalties of this money!!! Imagine how many great-great-great grandchildren there will be that will be fighting over the money! The lawyers will be the ones making the most money, that's for sure!

Isn't the great? They try so hard to keep control of their copyrights until decades after they die, presumably to help their descendants, but we know what will actually happen: greed will overtake them all and cause the family to be torn apart! I love it, what great revenge!

I have a friend whose grandmother passed away, leaving a rather large cottage which is being shared between her several children and their children. Already, the fights that are brewing because they can't have access to this cottage is causing family strife, and we're talking about a stupid $20,000 cottage!

Imagine how many fights there will be over potentially millions of dollars for the royalties for some of the stuff out there, like June Rowland/Harry Potter, or Stephen King, etc.