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this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2024
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US copyright was originally for 14 years, with the option to extend it for another 14 years. It kept getting extended over the years. I think it's life of the author plus 70 years now.
Isn't that Disney's fault (and their government lapdogs) with their efforts to hang on to Mickey Mouse as long as they can?
It's the fault of a political system that allows private companies to lobby for oppressive laws.
The current iteration is, yes, which was created in the 90s. Copyright lawyers sneeringly called it the 'Mickey Mouse Act' due to just how involved they were in writing it.
But before that in the 1970s there was another major rewrite that gave them the original extension. Without that law in the 70s Mickey and Minnie Mouse would have entered full public domain in... 1984!
Can you imagine a world where the most recognized cartoon characters have been in public domain for over 40 years? If that law didn't it, the entire original Disney cast (Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Donald Duck, Goofy, et al) would have been public domain, and ditto for Warner Bros characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and others. They all would have entered public domain in the 80s to the first half of the 2000s.
Comic book superheroes like Spiderman would have entered public domain in 2016! Can you imagine what the cinematic and comic landscape would be if anyone can publish their take on the majority of superhero comics?
To be clear, only the original versions would have been in public domain for over 40 years. Every time they change something about the character, it creates a new copyright for the new version.
Basically, Steamboat Willie Pete (released in 1928) would have been in the public domain decades ago, but Kingdom Hearts 2 Pete (released in late 2005/early 2006) would have only recently entered the public domain a few years ago.
There are even conspiracy theories that this is why Disney has been so focused on creating awful live action remakes of all of their old works; It resets the copyright timer on the new versions. Disney has historically used copyright as a cudgel to bully smaller content creators, because they took all of the old fairy tales (which were in the public domain) and slapped copyrights on them with their movies.
The conspiracy theory is that the awful live action remakes are simply a way to maintain copyright claims over those original fairy tales. They don’t care if the movies are successful; They just want to prevent anyone in the foreseeable future from ever making a Snow White/Sleeping Beauty/etc film based on the same fairy tales. Because even if a smaller content creator’s work is only based on the original fairy tale, Disney’s army of lawyers can claim that it is based on the Disney version. And the smaller content creators (who can’t afford a long drawn-out legal battle) will be bullied in court and forced to concede.
Yes