Your distinction between commercial use and things like meme culture doesn’t hold up. For example, memes can harm creators too, like Pepe the Frog being co-opted by far-right groups. If you want to protect creators, there’s no simple solution, as both can distort their intent.
Focused on “commercial” and while ignoring “political campaign, etc” misses the point. There is a difference between making up a new Chuck Norris fact and using the meme to support religion, brands, politics, or whatever.
Legal systems constantly deal with intangible abstracts like intent. “Pepe the Frog being co-opted” is cashing in on the existing work rather than operating in some hypothetical framework.
Pepe wasn’t officially adopted by that campaign, and its misuse and harm began long before and continued well after the press tied it to MAGA.
Beyond that, creative works shape society, and arbitrarily restricting them stifles creativity. Granting exceptions for reasons like ‘think of the children’ or ‘it’s just for the lulz’ fails to address the greater issue.
> Pepe wasn’t officially adopted by that campaign, and its misuse and harm began long before and continued well after the press tied it to MAGA.
Being ‘Official’ is irrelevant. Noting happens without individuals doing something, who would then be liable in the system I am describing.
> Granting exceptions for
Exceptions completely defeat the point here. It’s the implied support that’s the problem not what’s being supported. Someone could be a well known champion of the issuing being supported, but disagree with being associated with the people presenting the message.
We limit what you can do with someone’s likeness and someone’s works deserve protection for similar reasons. Under the current system this issue is irrelevant because of how long copyright lasts, but if you want dramatically shorter copyright people are going to want this kind of protection even for works they aren’t receiving royalties from.
