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Captain Copyright Expires
The Canadian superhero Captain Copyright has finally expired, not due to pirates or to the passage of 50 years after the death of the author, but because "the current climate around copyright issues will not allow a project like this one to be successful." The cartoon was intended to provide an education in copyright law for children, but it became a focus for criticism when even the Canadian Library Association condemned it for lacking balance because it ignored issues like Fair Dealing (Canada's version of Fair Use). Personally, I was hoping we'd see them get sued by DC & Marvel, who claim to own the trademark on the word "superhero", and vanish in a puff of logic.
A friend was curious and checked it out. Marvel never trademarked the term "superhero". That was ten years ago so it might have changed since. Each of their characters are trademarked but not the term in any fashion. It's debateable if the term can be in of itself be trademarked at this point. He was trademarking some things at the time and I know he was tempted to establish a "Superhero" trademark but it would mostly be a logo trademark.
Do we really need such battlegrounds fought in schools anyways? What ever happened to just the basics like Math, Reading, and History? We try to indoctrinate so much into these little heads at such an early age. Every time I hear of some new curriculum added by a school board, I'm reminded of what future generations of our children will look like.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
Ice Cream has no bones.
It should be noted that the creator of "Tetris", one of the games the rapper mentions, never saw much money for his creation. The Soviet government got most of it, up until the collapse of the USSR. So referencing it in the song is pretty FUDish - there really was no incentive to create in the Eastern Bloc.
In accordance with E.O. 12958, this post is marked Unclassified.