We should be welcoming 2003 into the public domain. Most popular works from that year have made millions of dollars in profit, and are commonly cited as part of pop culture. There is no reason for us to continue placing these obscene restrictions on their distribution or derivative use.
> Most popular works from that year have made millions of dollars in profit
More importantly, they have made virtually all of their lifetime profit by that time. Rare exceptions and that tiny remaining dribble are weak justifications for longer copyright terms.
But then Star Wars and Marvel would be public domain. Oh, the tragedy!
I think AI/ML will be a forcing function. More new media will be created every year than all of recorded human history.
They copyright office will cave under this pressure. They'll either say none of it can by copyrighted, which will be complicated -- who wants to prove which parts were AI-assisted? More sensibly, they'll just contract the copyright TTL. That's easy to calculate.
If this happens, it will have very interesting implications for Disney, Universal Music Group, et al.
Or they will come up with their own AI/employ private companies that can create/run such AI to find the copyright violating content and copyright strikes or claims will be increased multifold?
Found a cure for cancer? Protected for 15 to 20 years. Wrote two lines of trivial lyrics to an 18th century children's song? Protected for life + 75 years.
Mickey Mouse will be in the public domain in 2024.
> Mickey's Copyright Adventure: Early Disney Creation Will Soon Be Public Property. The version of the iconic character from “Steamboat Willie” will enter the public domain in 2024. But those trying to take advantage could end up in a legal mousetrap.
Well I think that will not mean anybody can use the character or create their own spin-offs I presume…? There surely is some kind of law that will allow Disney to sue anybody on the grounds they the character defines their brand identity or something similar..
I wonder when all the works I actually grew up with and formed part of my culture will be part of the public domain. Probably only after I'm long dead.
Oh but we were. Disney benefited from other people's public domain works but we can't we benefit from Disney's own works because they lobbied to extend copyright duration and deny us our public domain rights.
Most places have settled on death + 70 years now, including the US. But in the US that doesn’t applied to works created before 1978, where it’s typically publication + 95 years.
It actually ends up being generally similar, but works created nearer the end of life of the creator tend to come into the PD earlier globally and later in the US. And the other way around for works created near the start of life. For example, some Agatha Christies are in the PD in the US now, but won’t be in the PD in other countries until 2046. But Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four has been in the public domain since 2020 in most countries, but won’t arrive in the US until 2044.
It looks stupid to have these many years but for a moment sit on the other side of the table. You created something amazing by giving significant part of your life, would you prefer to get paid only for 3 years? I think 30 years is good time to release works into public domain. In India, it's 60 years.
Nobody about to create their big work says: "Wait - if this going to be my lucky great success, then my grand-children won't be able profit from it! I'm not starting." And when business people talk about long-term investments they don't mean 90 years.
The goal of having a copyright law is not to create fairness. It's to ensure there is enough of an incentive that works get created, while still maximizing the public use of it. I'm personally for 10 or 15 years, but even 30 years would be okay compared to the absurdity we got today. This is so clearly only about protecting the profits of those who have enough money and power to influence laws.
3 years is silly. The books that most movies have been made in are older that 3 years. Even books have a life long than that. 25 years is more reasonable. I'm basing that on the fact (at least at one time) almost all books on Amazon were 25 years or newer(or older than 95)
That reminds me of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" - one of my favorite novels from school curriculum. Read it a few times after too. Didn't much like the sequels though.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34210013