
Class of 2016: Whose works will enter the public domain - Thevet
http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/class-of-2016/
======
panglott
"Wondering what will enter the public domain through copyright expiration in
the U.S.? Like last year, and the year before…Nothing."

So wonderful to see new works enter the public domain, and then there's the
gutpunch. So depressing.

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douche
Frigging Mickey Mouse. This two-bit mediocre cartoon character is why we can't
have nice things.

~~~
rhino369
We need to create a sort of hybrid copyright and trademark that will solve the
mickey mouse problem. So that a company can keep their actually used
characters, but that unused stuff goes into the public domain after 25 years
plus not being used in the past 5 years.

That way Disney can keep their mickey mouse, but someone can find a book
written 40 years ago that isn't in circulation anymore and reprint it. Or
create unauthorized sequels, riffs, whatever.

~~~
forgottenpass
_We need to create a sort of hybrid copyright and trademark that will solve
the mickey mouse problem. So that a company can keep their actually used
characters, but that unused stuff goes into the public domain after 25 years
plus not being used in the past 5 years._

Why bother? Is there a good reason in the public interest to keep Mickey out
of the public domain, or is this a workaround to do as much in the public
interest while submitting to the fact Disney has enough money to block the
otherwise status quo ending of copyright.

If the former, I'd suggest that you have a warped vision of how Disney's
profitability is the public good, and secretly think you're lying. Or if it's
the later, our democracy has some really fundamental problems and caving on
this just makes them worse.

~~~
drgath
Forget the specificity of Micky Mouse, as that character just represents
Disney's brand. Do you really think a company should lose their brand after X
years? Disney doesn't care about Steamboat Willy, they care about people
selling knock-off mouse ears, which comes with Willy entering the public
domain.

I was just listening to an NPR segment on how Elvis Presley's image has become
tainted by cheap crap, and that inspired Frank Sinatra to ensure the same
doesn't happen to him. His biggest fear was that his face would be sold on a
coffee mug. Should anyone be able to do anything with Frank Sinatra's likeness
now that he's passed?

Should the estate of George Lucas be able to create new Star Wars movies in X
years to compete with Disney's Star Wars movies in effort to undo everything
they added to the universe "Because it wasn't George's vision", even though he
sold off the rights?

I know I'm throwing hypotheticals and edge cases out there, but I just want us
to focus on the issue deeper than "What reason is there to keep Steamboat
Willy out of the public domain?" There's no good reason. But there are tons of
good reasons to ensure people can't profit off an active brand's image.

~~~
Retra
The system for doing that is called _trademark_.

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zanny
I hope in a millennia copyright is looked back upon with the same disgust and
insanity that human sacrifice, child wives, and genital mutilation are
(mostly) today. In a society unbounded by information scarcity, to
intentionally and systemically stymie it is to intentionally cripple yourself.
The immediate magnitude may be less significant, but the long slow death of
culture to perpetual copyright is having absolute consequences on our modern
society today, with escalating damage as time goes on. The longer we as a
people are culturally stunted walking a tightrope of legal bureaucracy
established and maintained to protect monopoly and corporate profit the more
of our history we lose, and the more of our bonds are lost or never formed
amongst one another in common knowledge. But because the suffering is
scattered across our collective conscious, and because it requires an
understanding of how information and culture are made beyond the average wit,
the movement is limited and rife with a never-ending uphill battle against one
another rather than against the aggressors, because we were all raised in this
system and to see outside it requires great effort and a sacrifice of
established ethos many are not willing to engage in.

It is the same outside thought that kept slavery the norm, or subjugated
women, or made great thinkers like Giordano Bruno heretics to be burned rather
than celebrated. People are born into systems of oppression and will fight for
them because it is what they know, even if it is to us now what is not right.
And I firmly believe intellectual property protectionism falls into that
history of oppression - much more muted, much less immediately harmful, but
backwards and self-defeatist all the same.

~~~
anigbrowl
I'm very much for copyright change, but equating copyright monopolies with
human sacrifice and genital mutilation is specious bullshit that makes people
less sympathetic to the cause of reform. The injustices of copyright are a
minor annoyance by comparison to other kinds of abuse and trauma.

 _because it requires an understanding of how information and culture are made
beyond the average wit_

Bah, humblebrag. Almost everyone I've ever discussed copyright with is
perfectly capable of appreciating the systemic perpetuation of privilege that
inheres in copyright monopolies. You're waving a bloody shirt for the moral
equivalent of a paper cut; it's not OK to borrow the vastly more intense
sufferings of others to make more of an emotional impact.

~~~
zanny
I'm not equating it. I'm comparing it. They are simply explicit and blunt
examples to make a point, more relatable examples would be traditional models
of miasma causing disease or of the Earth being flat. But you also reinforce
my point - it _feels_ more explicit when the consequences of a misguided
social order have physical ramifications in the immediate, rather than the
sociological spanning the entirety over a long time. Probably the greatest
relatable yet poignant example would be the cultural view of women as helpless
or lesser than men for most of history since cultivation of crops began. It
started as a tool of control, and was passed down in an ingrained psyche we
have still not fully escaped. But we can fully understand both that people
borne into it assumed it to be an absolute of the world, the same as how many
think copyright and intellectual property _must_ be, while also recognizing
how wrong they can be.

> Almost everyone I've ever discussed copyright with is perfectly capable of
> appreciating the systemic perpetuation of privilege that inheres in
> copyright monopolies. You're waving a bloody shirt for the moral equivalent
> of a paper cut; it's not OK to borrow the vastly more intense sufferings of
> others to make more of an emotional impact.

This is _also_ the point. It is not about the privilege of the owners, it is
about the damage inflicted by it. It is not about money earned but history,
knowledge, and potential lost. You can see the immediate consequences of
slavery, but also recognize that such a sin of culture has consequences in the
potential of everyone involved beyond the subjugated. If a debate on copyright
devolves into pursuits of wealth or privilege, the macro impact is already
lost. In addition, anyone you are having a debate with is probably already
putting in the effort. I speak of the other 99% of peoples who give it no
consideration and assume it as natural as gravity or light.

And I'm not claiming to be some enlightened saint. As others have said, these
flaws in social organization of peoples require mental effort to grasp and
overcome. You always want to presume what you know is what is right, and I am
certain I have my own assumptions that are as moralistically wrong as
copyright that I have not yet, or may never, challenge. And hopefully whatever
we are in that thousand years looks back and sees them all as backwards and
unreasonable as we see so many historical practices as wrong.

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realityking
Of interest to Europeans is also that the group "died in 1945" also includes
Aldof Hitler. Up until now the Bavarian government (as the copyright owner)
blocked any and all reprints in Germany and wherever else they could. I'm
looking forward to reading it, admittedly primarily because I'm curios whe
they were so hellbend on keeping it away from the general public.

~~~
TillE
Nazi propaganda is illegal in Germany. That's pretty much all there is to it.

~~~
SuperKlaus
Yet "Mein Kampf" will be available again starting January 1st.

see: [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
europe-34980701](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34980701)

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timdellinger
Blind Willie Johnson's song "Dark Was the Night" was among those put on
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 and launched out towards interstellar space.

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daveguy
Next year in the "life plus 50 years" countries (including Canada): Walt
Disney. I hope people in those countries make a mockery of mickey.

~~~
panglott
Making a mockery of Mickey is fine. It's parody!

~~~
daveguy
Good point!

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ARothfusz
Does anyone track the quantity of work under Creative Commons? How does that
compare to the volume and quality of public domain works lost to draconian
Copyright extensions?

~~~
jononor
Passed 1 billion now,
[http://creativecommons.org/weblog/2015/12/08/46651](http://creativecommons.org/weblog/2015/12/08/46651)

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nitrogen
It was said below
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10719751](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10719751))
but it's worth a top-level comment: the TPP may ruin the public domain for
countries currently enjoying annual PD growth.

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TazeTSchnitzel
Copyright terms should be 20 years at most.

