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All Copyrighted Works First Published In the US In 1923 Will Enter Public Domain On January 1st (smithsonianmag.com)
"At midnight on New Year's Eve, all works first published in the United States in 1923 will enter the public domain," reports Smithsonian Magazine. "It has been 21 years since the last mass expiration of copyright in the U.S.
"After January 1, any record label can issue a dubstep version of the 1923 hit 'Yes! We Have No Bananas,' any middle school can produce Theodore Pratt's stage adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and any historian can publish Winston Churchill's The World Crisis with her own extensive annotations." From the report: "The public domain has been frozen in time for 20 years, and we're reaching the 20-year thaw," says Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain. The release is unprecedented, and its impact on culture and creativity could be huge. We have never seen such a mass entry into the public domain in the digital age. The last one -- in 1998, when 1922 slipped its copyright bond -- predated Google. "We have shortchanged a generation," said Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive. "The 20th century is largely missing from the internet."
We can blame Mickey Mouse for the long wait. In 1998, Disney was one of the loudest in a choir of corporate voices advocating for longer copyright protections. At the time, all works published before January 1, 1978, were entitled to copyright protection for 75 years; all author's works published on or after that date were under copyright for the lifetime of the creator, plus 50 years. Steamboat Willie, featuring Mickey Mouse's first appearance on screen, in 1928, was set to enter the public domain in 2004. At the urging of Disney and others, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, named for the late singer, songwriter and California representative, adding 20 years to the copyright term. Mickey would be protected until 2024 -- and no copyrighted work would enter the public domain again until 2019, creating a bizarre 20-year hiatus between the release of works from 1922 and those from 1923.
"After January 1, any record label can issue a dubstep version of the 1923 hit 'Yes! We Have No Bananas,' any middle school can produce Theodore Pratt's stage adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and any historian can publish Winston Churchill's The World Crisis with her own extensive annotations." From the report: "The public domain has been frozen in time for 20 years, and we're reaching the 20-year thaw," says Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain. The release is unprecedented, and its impact on culture and creativity could be huge. We have never seen such a mass entry into the public domain in the digital age. The last one -- in 1998, when 1922 slipped its copyright bond -- predated Google. "We have shortchanged a generation," said Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive. "The 20th century is largely missing from the internet."
We can blame Mickey Mouse for the long wait. In 1998, Disney was one of the loudest in a choir of corporate voices advocating for longer copyright protections. At the time, all works published before January 1, 1978, were entitled to copyright protection for 75 years; all author's works published on or after that date were under copyright for the lifetime of the creator, plus 50 years. Steamboat Willie, featuring Mickey Mouse's first appearance on screen, in 1928, was set to enter the public domain in 2004. At the urging of Disney and others, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, named for the late singer, songwriter and California representative, adding 20 years to the copyright term. Mickey would be protected until 2024 -- and no copyrighted work would enter the public domain again until 2019, creating a bizarre 20-year hiatus between the release of works from 1922 and those from 1923.
There's still time to pass another extension. All the usual delays of politics go *poof* when it comes to expiring copyright - usually presented as a suddenly appearing crisis that needs to be averted.
Wouldn't be surprised if, by 2023, the copyright code gets magically extended for another 20 years and Steamboat Willie "coincidentally" remains copyrighted for another 20 years. This is the problem with loaded language. Extensive use of the term "intellectual property" by companies like Disney and pro-Disney politicians (Mickey Mouse politicians) to refer to their copyrights has resulted in the public thinking copyrights are property, and, if a house or a car doesn't become public property after 90 years or whatever why should "intellectual property"? Vote fewer Mickey Mouse politicians in power I guess.
Does anyone need any confirmation that this is absolutely ridiculous? The currently oldest living person is Kane Tanaka from Japan. Born 1903. Now assuming she was a composer and already active before she was 20 years old, we might actually have someone alive whose works drop into PD.
1923 was 95 years ago. We're talking about 4 generations of people reaping the rewards of something their great-grandfather did. Try to find me one other profession where you can milk the exploits of someone you probably never even met because he died long before you were born.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The current take on Copyright, globally and especially in US is ridiculous. The origin of Copyright is to protect original typesetters from the fact that was much easier to copy an already typeset and printed work than to do an original typeset based on a handwritten manuscript. The purpose was to ensure that books got printed. Obviously, this no longer applies. In order to maximize public good, copyright may still have a place, but then we need to ask the question: "What time horizon of revenue is necessary to make an artist find it worthwhile to create a new work of art?" The answer is of course not lifetime + 95 years or something similarly stupid. In the day of immediate global distribution, no cost for duplication and very fast changes in what's popular, the argument can be made for 1 year, 5 years or possibly 10 years. Anything longer than that is not for maximizing public good, but for enriching publishing houses. It is not a self evident right that you and all your descendants for a hundred years can live of a revenue stream from some work you did a very long time ago. It's time for a change.
Does anyone, adult or child, still watch Mickey Mouse?
and expect another extention in 2024.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
I think that copyright length should be rolled back to the same length as patents, 20 years. It just seems strange to me that cheesy romance novels & generic action movies get longer amounts of protection than life saving drugs, new battery chemistries, or improved engines. 20 years should be plenty for any book, movie, or game to recoup its development cost, but would allow adults to take the media of their youth and put their owns spins on it, coming up with all sorts of interesting things. Imagine if genuine Star Wars fan could have come up with their own set of prequels & sequels to the original series. I am pretty sure at least one group would have given us a better version that what Lucas and later Disney came up with.
Another thing that should be looked to is coming with some sort of copyright registry; with most valuable property like real estate, automobiles, boats, and even IP like patents & trademarks, there is a pretty easy way to find out who owns what. Copyright doesn't have that, which leads to works being unable to be used since no one knows who owns it. Plus, if IP holders want the government to protect their property, well, they should maybe be taxed on it, with say an assessed tax on the estimated value of the copyright, similar to how property is taxed today. Now, obviously, given the volume of works created, maybe have the tax kick in at values of more than say, $1 million, since trying to tax every little song or short story would be a bookkeeping nightmare.
It's a catastrophe! All those creative artists will go unpaid, the corporations will go bankrupt, and there'll be no more art ever again! This will be the death of the creative arts and entertainment :(((
I just read "Melancholy Elephants" by Spider Robinson. It's about infinite copyright. Story seems rather appropriate.
http://www.spiderrobinson.com/...
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
I'm with the founding fathers on this ... it should be 7 years, extendable to 14 max.
Stuff from 2004 should be entering public domain, not from 1923. (Though I'll grant you, the stuff from 1923 is probably better.)
we might actually have someone alive whose works drop into PD.
That doesn't happen outside the United States for works not of corporate authorship. The international standard for over a century, pursuant to the Berne Convention, has been the life of the last surviving individual author plus two generations.
Try to find me one other profession where you can milk the exploits of someone you probably never even met because he died long before you were born.
Exploration and colonization. Descendants of Europeans are still milking the exploits of the European explorers who explored North and South America and swindled land from Native American nations.
A trademark cannot be used to extend the effective term of an expired U.S. copyright. Dastar v. Fox, 539 U.S. 23 (2003).
Instead of arguing about the merits of Disney IP being in or out of the public domain, why not make the copyright law useful? In the case of a company who is still exploiting their rights (Disney, etc.) to IP created FOREVER ago, let's require that the copyright be RENEWABLE - for a fee, to maintain ownership of the IP. That way, abandonware, old images, stuff that people are no longer monetizing can become public domain the way the original law was intended, and the leeches, erm, copyright owners who have an interest in continued monetizing of a brand or trademark after say, 50 years, can renew that lease and continue the practice. It's a win-win - another revenue stream for the gub'mint and a way to make the law work correctly. To avoid the patent/copyright trolls, you'd need to prove that you were monetizing the brand or trademark in a way other than litigation, but I think it'd work.
It's not about third parties seeking use of Mickey Mouse in particular as much as the effort that The Walt Disney Company has put into making sure nobody can do to twentieth century stories what Disney did to nineteenth century stories. It's also about the Winnie the Pooh books by A. A. Milne, whose U.S. copyright has the same 2024 expiry under current law as the first three Mickey shorts.
I think the congress has bigger fish to fry then copyright expansion.
While certainly true I'm not convinced that will have any relevance to what they actually do. Congress is great about doing nothing about the big stuff (cutting the deficit, getting health care for everyone, overspending on the military, etc) but always seem to have time for pandering to narrow constituencies.
the deal is that the government puts it's resources behind protecting your works (keep in mind, your tax dollars are paying for the courts Disney uses to enforce their copyright; more so if you consider how Disney dodges taxes like all major corps). In exchange for that your works eventually become public domain. It was a social contract, and they broke it by extending their benefits indefinitely.
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"With their own annotations"
So, only teams of multiple people are allowed to do so? Or is this another case of ridiculous political correctness?
I have no problem with Disney's most popular characters NOT going into public domain.
Really? You should. Copyright should not be some eternal thing. They should have to keep inventing new works instead of milking work done by people who have been dead and buried for decades.
Disney actively exploits its brand.
So what? Disney has made a killing off of taking public domain works and making proprietary versions of them. Should work the other way around too. They've had 90 years to do something interesting/useful/valuable with it. Time to let others work on it.
How does the world benefit from Mickey Mouse going into public domain? In no way.
Completely wrong. Disney itself is a perfect example of what could happen. They take public domain works (pretty much 90% of their classic animated movies) and do interesting renditions of them that have huge economic and cultural value. Lots of creative works that you cannot even envision could be brought to life that cannot now. Disney's had a good run but if someone has an interesting take on their oldest work then they should be able to make a go of it. Disney shouldn't enjoy some special status not available to anyone else and the ENTIRE point of copyright and patents is that they provide TEMPORARY protection.
That's the key year. That's when "Steamboat Willie" was released. You're going to have to drive a stake through Disney's heart to have that year pass into the public domain.
U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
I believe in the benefits of copyrights. However, the current state of intellectual law is unacceptable. Extending copyright coverage to 90 years (Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998) violates the concept of "limited Times". The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) stifles innovation instead of promoting it. And the primary beneficiaries of these laws are not "Authors and Inventors" but corporate publishers, movie studios, and record companies who reap the bounty of others' creativity. If you agree that this situation is intolerable, tell your representatives and senators in Congress.
So essentially, we will be getting 5 years of public domain, 1923-1927, upon which legislation that Disney will coerce Congress to pass will extend the copyrights another 20-40 years. So sometimes when I die, we may finally see 1928.
Am I understanding this correctly?
There are limits on trademarks, just not an explicit end-of-term.
Firstly, keeping trademarks current requires paying for renewal every 10 years. There are tons of dead trademarks. You want Compumax? How about Doomsday Turtle? There's millions of 'em.
Secondly, the onus is on the trademark holder to prevent their trademark from becoming genericized. This gives a lot of power to the public. "Aspirin" is no longer an enforcable trademark in the US now, even though Bayer didn't abandon their claim to it.
I said Disney should be held to the terms of our social contract. Yes, courts cost a lot. No, I don't want Disney to pay for them per lawsuit. Don't Dodge the main point, Disney broke the deal when they lobbied for unlimited copyright.
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"Thier" is simply wrong, "he/she", and "his/her" is awkward and ugly on the page. Really the best way for a writer to make his writing explicitly gender neutral is to mix or alternate the gendered pronouns she uses.
And "zhe" and such alternatives at this point are just made up, not well known and not likely to be well received by a lot of audiences.
Have you done any pondering of electronic tech and how long 20 years is in the world of technology?
I have. 20 years gets you to SDRAM, AGTL (Not AGTL+ yet.), ATA66 IDE, PCI bus, AGP 2.0, and USB1.1
Tech is an example where a 20 year patent term is a LIFETIME. And even today most tech only lasts about 10 years before being abandoned by the originators and second or third tier manufacturers continuing to produce it. Are patent licenses for tech really sensible at 20 years, or should they be 5 years with a 5 year extension?
The broad brushstrokes of Patent, Copyright, and Trademark law (Phoenix browser vs Phoenix Bios for instance?) have done more to impede progress in science and the arts than it has to promote them for quite a number of years now. The real question is where Open Source would fit if none of those protections were in place. Would rampant stealing by third parties without IP protection damage Open Source, or would the ability to take all those other inventions and use them without consequence help improve Open Source at an accelerating pace?
As it is today many patents are next to useless for reproducing the inventions they claim to represent, as a result of inventors submitting improper plans, and patent reviewers not having a working duplicate of the invention (whether a machine or software) to test/prove the patent against. Copyright in many was is the same. Just as people who need older microsoft OSes or products and how much better off they would be if they could alter the applications themselves, long after they are no longer being supported or sold.
they will not lose mickey if the copyright for steamboat willy expires. hes trademarked forever. all that means is that episode can be broadcast and copied freely without disany having any say.
False. That's only true since 1989. And before 1978, there was no way to rectify the omission of a copyright notice. So in 1923, no copyright notice equaled no copyright at all.
That was then, but copyright protections were enabled retroactively.
No, they weren't. Per Copyright circular #3, notice was required with either a (C) mark for all visually perceptible copies of a non-auditory work or a (P) mark for phonorecords up until March 1, 1989, for works made in the United States, and anything published without a notice is considered to be in the public domain. (There are a few rare exceptions for works published after 1978, mostly involving situations where only a few copies were distributed without notice, where the notice was removed without the permission of the copyright holder, etc., but AFAIK, those works were not retroactively protected.)
AFAIK, the only retroactive additions or reinstatements of copyright have involved works originally created overseas. For example, NAFTA allowed copyright protection for works published without notice to works created in Canada or Mexico between January 1, 1978 and March 1, 1989, and GATT/URAA retroactively restored/added copyright protection in the U.S. for works published overseas that were previously not recognized in the U.S.
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*a.k.a. 'A.S.A.' some places, due to intellectual property rules.
past a certain point _fewer_ works are produced as culture gets monopolized. That's why copyright has a limit.
And no, we're way past letting the creator make new works and into "Disney profiting as long as possible".
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Steamboat Willie is 1929. Once Mickey is in the public domain, all the insanity ends.
Expect a lot more insanity in the next few years to prevent that.
Disney characters are under trademark so others can't use those characters to create new original works.
Not true at all. Trademarks do complicate some types of works but they certainly do not prohibit people completely from using Disney created works once they've entered the public domain.
Trademarks last for as long as they are defended.
That's true but all trademarks do is identify the creator of the work. As long as the work you create doesn't create confusion about who created it (don't copy their trademark) then the trademark has no relevance. You cannot trademark a work of art and all conceivable permutations of it forever. That's not how trademarks work. I can make a can of cola that I sell in a red can without violating coca-cola's trademark. Similarly I can make a derivative work based on Steamboat Willie that (once the copyright expires) does not infringe on Disney's trademarks.
Copyright applies to a particular work of art. So you can't make a new work of art using Mickey Mouse
I think you are confused about what copyright protects. You absolutely CAN make a new work of art based on a work of art that has entered the public domain.
While I agree that copyrights should not be eternal, your justification for why it's wrong is flawed and a slippery slope unless you think we should get rid of inheritances all together.
I see no reason that copyright should be an inheritable asset. The purpose of copyright is to allow THE CREATOR to benefit from their work. Not their heirs. It should extend some fixed amount of time after creation (less than currently IMO) and if the individual or corporation which holds the copyright ceases to live/exist then it should immediately enter the public domain. I really see no value to society in copyrights extending decades after the death of the author.
Also, if the person who made it is alive, are you saying that it should not be allowed to enter the public domain?
I said nothing of the sort. I'm perfectly fine with copyrights entering the public domain while the creator is still alive. I have yet to see a credible argument that copyright should extend longer than patents do. But even if they are longer they still should have a time limit that is shorter than a typical lifespan.
How do you define who made something, when talking about products made under funding of a corporation?
Doesn't (or shouldn't) matter whether it was funded by a corporation or an individual. Rules should be the same for either. I see no public interest in copyright being as long as it currently is and I really see no public interest in copyright being an asset that can be part of an estate passed on to children who had nothing to do with creating the work.