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Lawsuit Claims Buck Rogers Is In the Public Domain

Posted by timothy on from the popular-imagination dept.

An anonymous reader writes: As reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a court will decide whether Buck Rogers is in the public domain. The Buck Rogers comic strip first appeared in 1929. Team Angry Filmmakers claim that Buck Rogers entered the public domain in the mid-1950s, and they want to make a Buck Rogers movie called Armageddon 2419 A.D. They filed a federal suit this year in Los Angeles against the trust claiming ownership of the name, and the trial has been moved to Pittsburgh.

30 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by dbIII · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Doesn't the current mouse protection rule set the clock to death of creator plus 70 years for copyright?
    Shouldn't that be not only enough for anyone but utterly overboard?

    1. Re:Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by Nidi62 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hey, the descendants of the descendants of a creator worked hard to be born into a family that had someone come up with a good idea once 2 or 3 generations ago and they deserve to get paid for it!

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    2. Re:Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by sanmadjack1624 · · Score: 2

      The argument is probably that this entered public domain before those extensions became law.

    3. Re:Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by dbIII · · Score: 4, Informative

      Even without that argument the writer has been deceased for 75 years so the extensions should not apply either.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Francis_Nowlan

    4. Re:Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by ad454 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Doesn't the current mouse protection rule set the clock to death of creator plus 70 years for copyright?
      Shouldn't that be not only enough for anyone but utterly overboard?

      This is my understanding as well. And "Philip Francis Nowlan" who is the creator of Buck Rogers died in 1940, which was more than 75 years ago.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      So with the current rules, Buck Rogers should be fully in the USA public domain.

      Unfortunately, we will have to wait until 2036 for Mickey Mouse to enter public domain, and by then I suspect that Disney will bribe enough government officials to prevent it.

    5. Re:Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by alvinrod · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The issues are a little muddier to me when it comes to using a character. I'd have no issue at all with someone taking an old Buck Rogers story and adapting it for film at this point, but using someone else's character to create new works is a little different, even more so if the owner of that character is still actively using them in the creation of new works.

      Perhaps the best way to illustrate it is to use Mickey Mouse. I think Steamboat Willie or the other early cartoons should be in the public domain and freely accessible, but I don't think that entitles anyone to make a Mickey Mouse cartoon as Disney is still actively using the character and creating new works with the character.

      Personally I think works should enter the public domain after ~25 years. However, let the copyright for a character exist for as long as works involving that character are being produced by the owner. The extreme example of why I feel that way is no one would probably like it if a character they were developing was stolen by someone else and used to spread a message the original author disagreed with, such as Mickey Mouse being used to promote white supremacist propaganda, an oil company using Captain Planet to tell kids that fracking is great, or some other example along those lines.

      It's not an ideal situation as it does run into an issue of perpetual copyright assuming some owner wants to pump out some amount of crap to maintain that it's still being used. Perhaps a set term with paid extensions to ensure that people only maintain those copyrights if they actually intend on using the character or generating some profit from it with the rate increasing for each extension.

    6. Re:Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by thoromyr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      there is no "mouse protection rule". There is an often cited "rule" that anything after steamboat willie is in eternal copyright protection, thanks to Disney. The reality is much more nuanced and the one thing that can be said about the various copyright reforms is that the system was very complex and simplifying it was a good thing. Simplifying it by return to the original rules for terms would have been nice, but the public wasn't the one paying for the reforms.

      One (of the many) complexities is that you used to have to file extensions. Since doing so cost money, many unprofitable properties were allowed to lapse into the public domain. Consequently, even when dealing with simple copyright (non-serialized written work appearing in novels whose printing dates are well documented) you can run into oddities like a novel by an author written in the fifties being in the public domain while another written in the twenties is still copyright protected.

      And it gets worse. The movie Heavy Metal was a compilation and as such required permission from a wide variety of copyright holders, both graphic and sound artists. This resulted in the inability to legally sell the movie for some time.

      As another example, serialized works can be problematic in tracking down their dates of publication. Documentation of assignment of copyright is often problematic. Different media has different rules. Until the DMCA "statements of fact" (such as the plans for a ship) could not be copyrighted so a work might be copyrighted (for the "arrangement of facts"), but the material contained therein be in the public domain (recipe books fall into this category). Where something was "set into tangible form" made a difference as well -- one of the reforms was aligning this so that (for example) an author's work that is copyrighted in the United States will also be copyrighted in Australia.

      This particular twist makes things difficult for Project Gutenberg where something written in 1935 might be legal to distribute in New Zealand, but not in the United States. Such balkanization was somewhat tolerable in the 20's and 30's when it required significant resources to achieve global distribution. Obviously these "loopholes" are more problematic today.

    7. Re:Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by Dredd13 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The issues are a little muddier to me when it comes to using a character.

      Not really. This becomes the textbook definition of "a derivative work". If they want to make a derivative work of a public domain story (which includes the characters within that story) then they should be free to do so.

      This is why the Disney thing becomes key, because any new work featuring Mickey Mouse is -- technically -- a derivative work of Steamboat Willlie, whether that work is created by Disney Corporation or (at some future point, after Steamboat Willie falls into the public domain) some new animation house.

    8. Re: Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You had a perfectly good argument without needing to bring up the Jews. Now you just sound like a Nazi (Godwin be damned).

    9. Re:Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by danbert8 · · Score: 5, Informative

      I think you are confusing copyright with trademarks. Disney might lose the copyright of the Mickey Mouse character, but they would still have a trademark restricting others from marketing said character. Water is free to market and distribute to anyone, but you can't put "Dasani" on the bottle unless you are Coke. You also can't put it in a Coke shaped bottle as that is trademarked too.

      Thus you'd be able to freely modify the stories and the character of Mickey Mouse as well as distribute without royalties, but you probably couldn't sell merchandise or run say a theme park with the trademarks.

      --
      Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
    10. Re: Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      This is demeaning to all other cultures that hated or currently hate the jews.

    11. Re:Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by Carewolf · · Score: 2

      Perhaps the best way to illustrate it is to use Mickey Mouse. I think Steamboat Willie or the other early cartoons should be in the public domain and freely accessible, but I don't think that entitles anyone to make a Mickey Mouse cartoon as Disney is still actively using the character and creating new works with the character.

      I guess that is the difference between copyright and trademark. The copyright can expire, which means the material can be copied, but the trademark does not expire which means no one can make unofficial Mickey Mouse cartoons.

    12. Re:Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by OrangeTide · · Score: 2

      Sorry, but nobody creates characters in a vacuum. The creators always pull their ideas from society, at least the successful ones that other people can relate to.

      Also, you're suggesting is we have trademark law. There is no need to "copyright a character" in that case. Although I'm a bit skeptical of "are being produced by the owner" suggestion, as in the current system we allow commercial empires to consolidate ownership and hold it perpetually as it does not cost them anything to sit on a few million works and troll the world with their lawyers.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    13. Re:Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by greatpatton · · Score: 2

      It has been says in Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp that you cannot use trademark to restrict the usage of the public domain. Of course this won't prevent "clever" people to try to game the system by using trademark and creating lawsuit (like for Zorro, Tarzan, etc.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

    14. Re:Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by cpt+kangarooski · · Score: 2

      I think you are confusing copyright with trademarks. Disney might lose the copyright of the Mickey Mouse character, but they would still have a trademark restricting others from marketing said character.

      Not quite, though you're close. As the other poster correctly said, trademarks cannot be used like copyrights.

      In fact, given cases such as the SHREDDED WHEAT case, it turns out that where a trademark would otherwise interfere with the free use of a public domain copyrighted work, the trademark will suffer from genericide and be lost.

      This is why Disney focuses so much on copyright extensions: If Steamboat Willie enters the public domain, the Mickey Mouse trademark will be lost in many areas. It'll still be viable for goods and services totally unrelated to creative works, like those Mickey Mouse head-shaped ice cream pops, but that's no different than PETER PAN peanut butter, which hardly stops anyone from making yet another movie adaptation of the original play.

      OTOH, merchandise with creative aspects will be allowed. You could probably print t-shirts with pictures of Mickey on them so long as you were doing so for creative / aesthetic purposes, and not for branding purposes.

      While some trademark value would be salvageable, Disney would lose out tremendously. It's their own fault for associating themselves too closely with a single character. They'd've done better to keep growing their stable of characters and retiring the old ones such that only old-timers even remembered Mickey Mouse, and nowadays all the kids were into Johnny Jackalope or something.

      --
      -- 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.
    15. Re:Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by mark-t · · Score: 3, Informative

      Mickey Mouse is trademarked, and those trademark protections last into perpetuity... or until Disney stops defending the trademark (ie, into perpetuity). Steamboat Willy, a Mickey Mouse cartoon, is already public domain in some international jurisdictions, but the trademark is still valid. What that means in those jurisdictions, and in the US, if Disney does eventually allow the copyright to expire, is that although Mickey Mouse is trademarked, the work can be freely copied and distributed in and among those jurisdictions, as well as even have derivative works made from it, so long as any derivative works do not use the trademarked Mickey Mouse character. Actual copies of the cartoon are not considered misappropriation of the Mickey Mouse trademark because Mickey Mouse was obviously used with permission in that work.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    16. Re:Isn't the current mouse protection rule ... by cpt+kangarooski · · Score: 2

      If Harry Potter were in the public domain, anyone who wanted to, could make movie adaptations of it, not just Warner Bros.

      I'd certainly prefer that the public at large make out like bandits -- enjoying many adaptations and the chance to make their own, as well as greater access to the original novels (e.g. for free via Project Gutenberg) -- rather than the family of JK Rowling.

      --
      -- 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.
  2. Re:Mickey et al won't let that happen by pla · · Score: 2

    PS - Just to tweak the /. crowd, guess which party they've bought?

    The (D) stands for "Disney".

  3. Re:Mickey et al won't let that happen by i.r.id10t · · Score: 2

    Or perhaps Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a Half Century!

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
  4. Article summary by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 5, Interesting

    1) Hollywood producers want to make new Buck Rogers movie based on his very first book appearance. Announce it at Comic Con.
    2) Trust that says it owns the character threatens to sue producers.
    3) Producers try to reach deal. Trust apparently refuses to reach a deal. They simply don't want the film made.
    4) Producers are now going to try an argument that Buck Rogers is actually already in the public domain, so screw the trust as they don't need their permission anyway.

  5. Headline from 2090AD by willworkforbeer · · Score: 2

    "Estate of 'Buck Rogers 2017' movie producer claims copyright protection to stop holographic remake scheduled for 2092."

    --
    Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
  6. Public Domain Stories by gweeks · · Score: 4, Informative

    The two original stories are in the public domain in the US. Here are Project Gutenberg links.

    Armageddonâ"2419 A.D.
    https://www.gutenberg.org/eboo...

    and

    The Airlords of Han
    https://www.gutenberg.org/eboo...

    Of course no where in the stories was the name Buck Rogers used. That name didn't start until the comic strip.

  7. 95 years for works published pre-1978 or for hire by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    The expiry of 70 years after the end of the calendar year in which the last surviving author died applies in Europe. It also applies in the United States to works of individual authorship first published in 1978 or later. But Buck Rogers was first published before 1978, and U.S. copyright in pre-1978 works follows the rule for works made for hire, expiring 95 years after the end of the calendar year in which the work was first published.

    Here's a summary of the U.S. copyright term:

    • Works made for hire by the United States Government: Public domain
    • Sound recordings first published before 1972: State copyright applies until 2067
    • Mask works (semiconductor layouts): 10 years
    • Works published before 1923: Public domain
    • Works published before 1964 whose copyright was not renewed in the 28th year: Public domain. As I understand the featured article, plaintiff claims that Buck Rogers falls in this category.
    • Individual works published in 1978-2003 whose last surviving author died before 1978: 2047
    • Other individual works first published since 1978: 70 years after death of last surviving author
    • All other works, including works made for hire and works published before 1978: 95 years after first publication
  8. Dastar v. Fox by tepples · · Score: 2

    Disney might lose the copyright of the Mickey Mouse character, but they would still have a trademark restricting others from marketing said character.

    A U.S. trademark cannot be used as an ersatz copyright. Dastar v. Fox.

  9. Re:Counterpoint by LoyalOpposition · · Score: 2

    I know most people here hate the "Disney extension" of the copyright term, but what is the "community" losing, besides the ability to get Warner Bros. and Disney plush toys for practically free?

    Economics answers this by referring to the effects of monopolies in general. Copyright is a government-granted monopoly. Insofar as Disney is able to function as a monopoly they increase their profits. That implies that there will be a shift of goods and services to Disney and away from their customers. Monopolists accomplish the increase in profits by reducing supply. That means that there will be fewer monopoly-associated goods and services produced than there would have been had there been no monopoly.

    The point that hardly anybody remembers who Buck Rogers was, cuts both ways. Why can't the makers of this movie come up with a different name and tweak things a little bit? It's not like that would be a violation of precedent. Is their movie going to be so lame that they need this tie-in to prop up the box office?

    Characters can be incremental, just like inventions can. Perhaps I want a can opener with a bottle opener on the other end. Perhaps you want to read about a character who's trying to do good, but who had a tortured past.

    ~Loyal

    --
    I aim to misbehave.
  10. Harmonization vs. perpetual copyright by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

    The moment Disney's (Or anyone else's) copyrights are due to expire they'll bribe some congrescritters to extend them again.

    The Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft was careful to distinguish harmonization to the copyright term of another established major market from the possibility of "perpetual copyright on the installment plan". It allowed the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 because its express purpose was to harmonize to the European Union. In fact, harmonization is the only excuse that the Supreme Court has ever accepted for multiple successive extensions: 1978 harmonized to the Berne Convention, and 1998 harmonized to Europe. So to what established major market would an extension between now and 2025 harmonize?

    1. Re:Harmonization vs. perpetual copyright by tepples · · Score: 2

      The copyright term in the leaked final TPP is life plus 70, no increase over the present U.S. term.

  11. Re:95 years for works published pre-1978 or for hi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Doesn't this give all creators a perverse incentive to have an infant contribute to the work, just to ensure maximum copyright duration? I mean, if the main author is in her 30s at the time of creation, and life-expectancy is mid-late-70s, she's losing some 30 years of copyright duration, whereas if she simply has an infant fart on the cover, she gets it back.

    Hell, keep that "anchor-baby" on life-support as long as possible in old age, just to keep the dream of everlasting copyright alive!

  12. Wong, but close. by DarthVain · · Score: 2

    Protecting the right of the son or grand-son to sell it to some corporation to pay for their coke habit, who in turn owns the works forever, never dies, and actively lobbies for copyright extension using profits until the eventual heat death of the universe.

  13. Re:95 years for works published pre-1978 or for hi by viperidaenz · · Score: 2

    It doesn't technically move to the richest entity.

    It moves to the entity with the largest lobby group.