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Image of Popeye Enters Public Domain In the EU

Posted by kdawson on from the yam-what-he-yam dept.

Several readers wrote in to mention that the copyright on the image of the character Popeye expired in the EU as the year began, 70 years since the death of its creator Elzie Segar. The US will have to wait until 2024, 95 years after Segar's death. Only Popeye's image is free of trademark in the EU; the name "Popeye" is still under copyright by King Features Syndicate. Popeye made his first appearance in a comic strip in 1929 and became hugely popular in the 1930s. The Times claims that Popeye now moves $2.8B of merchandise per year. Le Monde's coverage (in Google translation) mentions the real-life people in Segar's early experience who inspired some of the Popeye cast of characters. Popeye himself was based on the prize fighter Frank "Rocky" Fiegel.

24 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. Stuff that matters? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Slashdot, now with more Wikipedia trivia!

  2. Don't worry, Olive! by paiute · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The very existence of Mickey Mouse guarantees that nothing will ever again enter the public domain in the good old USA.

    --
    If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    1. Re:Don't worry, Olive! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The very existence of Mickey Mouse guarantees that nothing will ever again enter the public domain in the good old USA.

      Just curious why it is critically important for the characters to be in public domain? People will still make money off them if they are in public domain but the parent company will likely loose business and have to lay off people. Why? Why does the public have rights over and above the creator? I ask this as an artist that has copyrighted characters. I'd rather have my grandchildren benefit from my creations than some guy that has a sweat shop in China cranking off cheapie knock offs. How is society better off from artists loosing rights to their work? Oh they're dead so what does it matter? To me it feels like stealing the pennies off their eyes. I often wonder about releasing some work to the public because in the end the only true way in our society to control your work is to not publish it ever. I no longer have the financial need so why not just keep my work for family and friends? Society won't benefit, it's an AC post so you don't know who this is, but at least I'll control my creations. I understand if there is no remaining family but why shouldn't the rights pass to the surviving family much as physical property does? In some ways an artist's creation should have more protection than personal property since it is a part of themselves yet it has far less protection. My family home can still be in the family in 500 years but my work will belong to anyone that wants to reproduce it for a quick buck. It may seem straight forward to non artists but it's an upsetting subject for many artists. I've largely decided to draw a line between commercial and personal work and what I deem personal will never be released to the public. It's my choice and ultimately it is the only real control I have.

    2. Re:Don't worry, Olive! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_copyright#Opposition_to_copyright

      I am a creator (music in my case) as well and I think limits on copyright actually have a value for society, specially if it comes to abandoned works, which is the majority of created works...

    3. Re:Don't worry, Olive! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In 500 years, assuming two descendant per generation
      and 4 generation per century we get 2^20 descendants: approximately a million.

      How are you going to divide this intellectual property among the family members ? And in 800 years, we get 2^32: 4 billions. Meaning mostly everyone in America will be your descendant (unless your line dies fairly early leaving you with no descendants). Does it make sense passing intellectual property that far ?

    4. Re:Don't worry, Olive! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Characters going into the public domain is repayment to society for society enforcing your exclusive rights over the characters for a number of years. If you don't like them going into public domain, tough luck - without them eventually going public domain there's no good reason for society to enforce copyright.

      The alternative, I think, is paying property tax on your copyrights just for holding them.

      The idea is to encourage you to make new things, after all, not to keep making money off the same old idea. Of course that doesn't really work with modern copyright terms...

    5. Re:Don't worry, Olive! by zwei2stein · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Its this simple: Why should anyone make money from one idea over again for rest of ther life?

      Socienty does not benefit by encouraging certain people to parasite on it for rest of their life for less than days job. Society benefits from those people continuing to create.

      If you, an artist and want to make money, keep producing art. That simple. Works for every other job, you are not superhuman deserving different treatment.

      If someone can succesfully make cheapie knockoffs without your cooperation, then they deserve money and you don't, because you had opportunity to be first, to be brand, to abuse new fad before it becomes old fad, to be The guy to come to when they want to make knockoffs and just missed it or werent good enough.

      Socienty does not need institutionalized freeloaders.

      --
      -- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
    6. Re:Don't worry, Olive! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The parent wasn't just talking about characters.

      Even if characters were the only issue, how many old-European tales did Disney use because he could (they were in the public domain after all)?

      And why should my descendants, say 10 generations from now, get to control my work? And if I'm lucky that my work is high enough quality that future generations will appreciate it, I'd want it to be accessible to people who share my common interests. Not those who share have a minuscule portion of my DNA.

    7. Re:Don't worry, Olive! by Korin43 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This isn't even someone profiting from it for their entire life. It's about someone profiting from it 95 years after they die.

    8. Re:Don't worry, Olive! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Fine dipshit, why don't you pay property tax on your creation so we don't have to bare the burden on your copyright hardons. I am sick and tired of you fuckfaces thinking that a company has a right to an idea for the rest of time. We the people enforce the rights so that Disney can benefit. All society is asking is that after a LONG LONG time it gets put into common culture.

      Your phrase should be:

      "Waaaah waaah! A company that owns a copyright that the people pay for through the courts and enforcement doesn't want to pay back society for generations of enforcement so they can squeeze a few extra bucks out of stagnant ideas!"

      When your phrase gets deciphered into that, you start to really sound like a douchebag. If you really, really hate Society and all those advocated that think public domain should be fair, stop benefiting off of society. Leave the country, go find a remote island to live off of. Burn all your possessions that have benefited off of the public domain and just leave aka boycott society. Why not come up with 2000+ years of civilization on your own instead of bitching about people wanting copyright to be reasonable.

      Without public domain what's the point of copyright?

    9. Re:Don't worry, Olive! by Ed+Avis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think rms put it best:

      Control over the use of one's ideas really constitutes control over other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult.

      I wouldn't even say that characters entering the public domain is 'repayment' for anything. Rather, the exclusive right for a limited number of years is a special boon, and freedom for everyone to use the idea is the default state in the absence of special laws creating a new kind of property.

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      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    10. Re:Don't worry, Olive! by slimjim8094 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Pinko? How old are you?

      It's a social contract (also known as government). The rationale is that the government will protect your little ideas in exchange for the fact that - after you make your money off them - everybody else gets to use them, for anything, freely.

      Otherwise, what's the benefit? Society as a whole doesn't give two shits for your ideas, and won't protect them, unless there's something in it for us.

      --
      I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
    11. Re:Don't worry, Olive! by cpt+kangarooski · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It is an asset of some sort. If copyright entered the public domain purely on merit that the owner is dead, you would have to also release his other properties freely to the public.

      That's not the basis of it, though. The copyright has a limited duration. It used to be 14 years, with the option to be renewed for another 14 years. Then 28+14; then 28+28. And then it was life+50.

      A life term is just another span of time, after all. Of course, the duration ought to be whatever, in combination with the breadth of the grant of rights, best serves the public interest. This is probably best accomplished by not automatically granting copyrights, instead letting authors who want them step forward to get them (thus allowing many works to instantly enter the public domain because the authors don't care), and by having short terms with multiple renewals, so that works whose authors at some point stop caring about copyright, can enter the public domain sooner than later. Term lengths might vary depending on the kind of work; a book probably gets more use out of a long copyright than a piece of software or a newspaper does.

      On the whole, though, a term of 25 years maximum (i.e. 1-2 year terms, renewed periodically to get to the 25 year total) is probably more than enough for anything. After all, the point of copyright is to encourage authors to create and publish works, which are minimally protected for as short a time as possible. If an author is willing to create a work for a 25 year copyright, it is foolish, and a waste of public resources, to grant a longer copyright. It's just like finding someone to paint your house for $1,000, and then insisting that they accept $10,000 instead.

      --
      -- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
    12. Re:Don't worry, Olive! by Ian+Alexander · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'd rather have my grandchildren benefit from my creations than some guy that has a sweat shop in China cranking off cheapie knock offs.

      Wouldn't everyone, yet nobody expects the grandchildren of, say, realtors or carpenters to receive any more benefit from their grandparents' work than an inheritance after they're gone.

  3. Errmmm... by JamesRose · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Today- 2009- 70 years after his death apparently, and also 2024 will be 95 years? MATH ERROR?

  4. Response from US customs? by whoever57 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Does this mean that US customs agents will now be searching kids' luggage more diligently, in order to prevent the illegal importation by kids of comic books that they legally bought in Europe?

    Think of the kids! Just think of the harm those books could do in the US, probably they are supporting terrorism! </tongue in cheek>

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  5. Re:Poopie the sailor person by apathy+maybe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Except that I very much doubt that the name is copyrighted, or else everyone should be getting into trouble when they write it down. Wikipedia wouldn't be able to have an article about Popeye etc. etc.

    Now the name might be a trademark, which is something which doesn't expire (unless not defended, or unless it becomes generic).

    Dear folks, please don't use the term "intellectual property" at all. Trademarks are quite different to copyrights, which are very different to patents. They are all covered under different laws, and of those three, I believe that only copyright is international.

    (Oh, and a great example of long copyright encouraging dead artists to keep producing yes?)

    --
    I wank in the shower.
  6. For pitty's sake... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    the copyright on the image of the character Popeye expired in the EU as the year began, 70 years since the death of its creator Elzie Segar. The US will have to wait until 2024, 95 years after Segar's death. Only Popeye's image is free of trademark in the EU; the name "Popeye" is still under copyright by King Features Syndicate.

    Someone close enough to him to see the incomprehension in his eyes and the drool from his lips, PLEASE explain to kdawson the difference between copyright and trademark. It's appalling that he would write such crap as appears here.

    Does anyone other than kdawson think that the name "Popeye" is copyrighted? Or that the copyright on the image running out means that the trademark is affected? This is crap. It's awful.

    I guess I should be thankful he didn't bring patents into it.

  7. King Syndicates Should FIght back... by tkrotchko · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... by inventing new characters.

    Seems to me that it doesn't advance the sciences or arts by relying on copyrights that have been around longer than anybody who works at King.

    --
    You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
  8. Re:disney by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mickey Mouse will *never* enter the public domain in the US - Disney has bought a lot of senators to make sure that doesn't happen.

    By the time mickey is public domain in the EU, the US copyright law will be 200 years after initial copyright.

  9. Re:Poopie the sailor person by apathy+maybe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I fail to see how having copyright extend 75 years past the death of the artist encourages said artist to produce anything either before or after they die.

    I am alive today, right now, and can not imagine the world 75 years after I die. Why should such a distant future (at least 75 years into the future, and hopefully many more), affect my decision making process now regarding creating new art work?

    Surely I should be creating art work now to benefit myself right now? (Or more likely for most of the good artists, they would be producing stuff anyway.)

    Having a long copyright does nothing to benefit artists, but only parasites and other scum.

    Some websites with arguments against copyright
    http://www.digitalproductions.co.uk/index.php?id=52
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-copyright

    --
    I wank in the shower.
  10. Re:disney by dwye · · Score: 2, Insightful

    am i correct in thinking, since walt disney died in 1966, according to current EU law, the images of characters such as micky mouse and donald duck will enter the public domain in december of 2036 in the EU (70 years after death) and 2026 in the USA (95 years after initial copyright)?

    Only if all of Disney's lawyers and lobbyists die of mysterious causes between now and then. Otherwise, expect that laws to change, again, before 2026.

  11. Re:Basic legal vocabulary by Capsaicin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    IANAL, but my understanding of copyright v trademark is ...

    ... wrong.

    Copyright is a right (held against everyone else in the universe) inter alia to copy a work (eg. an artistic work) and to create derrivative works. Copyright (in almost every juridisdicition around the world) arises automatically on the creation (technically when a work is first rendered in material form) of a work capable of being the subject of copyright (i.e. not a single word). In a few jurisdictions registration of the right is required before any legal action for infringement may commence. Copyright subsists for a limited (but historically growing) term. Subject to limited fair use exceptions, you may not make a copy of a work subject to copyright for any purposes.

    Trademark is the use of a word (or words), image colour, scent etc.. in trade. It requires registration and subsists as long as registrations in maintained. Use other than trade use is not restricted (well that's not 100% true, you can't use it say to defame a company). You can use the name 'Coca Cola,' for example, as much as you like (look I just wrote the trademark 'Coca Cola') providing you are not doing so to sell anything. You can tattoo it on your forehead if your want, but beware any logo may additionally be subject to copyright.

    --
    Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
  12. Re:I'll ask once again... by LMariachi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Actually, I'd say it's because the products of engineering and science are considered more valuable to society. Nobody's too gravely affected by being prevented from selling their own non-Disney Mickey Mouse products, but companies being able to keep inventions under patent protection for a century would seriously impede the progress of technology, which arguably relies on building on prior developments far more than Art does. It's easier to make a wholly original painting than it is to build a machine using no products or processes that have already been invented.