These include works by Robert Frost and Winston Churchill. Apparently, Mickey Mouse is set to enter public domain in 2024, and I think Batman shortly thereafter.
I would love to retell the story of the Dark Knight.
These include works by Robert Frost and Winston Churchill. Apparently, Mickey Mouse is set to enter public domain in 2024, and I think Batman shortly thereafter.
I would love to retell the story of the Dark Knight.
They should. The fact that they won't is a G.D. act of corporate piracy. Remember, if a kid downloads a bit torrent of a song, he's a contributer towards societal decay and should be prosecuted for theft, but if a mega corp gets to ignore the law of the land with impunity, that's just good business.
"A happy ending? So unlikely. We're not having a moment here.
Wrong city, wrong people, all huddling in fear.
No one escapes the slaughterhouse, and that's just where you're at.
(You could've asked Rebecca but then Adam stomped her flat.)
You think you're special cuz you're scrappy? You're deluded, time to go.
Lucy's living on the moon but you're another dead psycho."
Just because the copyrights end and a work goes into the public domain doesn't mean companies don't still own the trademarks. Lots of the Tarzan works by Edgar Rice Burroughs are public domain, so anyone can publish those works, but they can't use Tarzan in the title or the marketing because those are still trademarked. And if you produce new works base don the public domain, you can't use anything that is still trademarked. Trademarks don't expire as long as the owner continues to show use and protects them, and public domain has no bearing on trademarks at all, only copyrights.
As an example, when Dynamite produced new Tarzan stories based on the original novel being in the public domain back in 2012 or so, they had to call the book Lord of the Jungle and couldn't call it Tarzan, and even in doing so ended up having to settle a trademark violation suit ERB's rights holders filed against them. A lot of people don't understand the differences between copyright and trademarks and believe public domain means something it actually doesn't, and wind up getting into a lot of legal and financial trouble because of it.
Some stuff that enters the public domain never had trademarks or the trademarks expired because of lack of use (such as some of the stuff done with Project Superpowers), but if the trademarks are still in use and protected by a rights holder, what you can do with something in the public domain is severely limited.
-M
Comic fans get the comics their buying habits deserve.
"Opinion is the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding." -Plato
"A happy ending? So unlikely. We're not having a moment here.
Wrong city, wrong people, all huddling in fear.
No one escapes the slaughterhouse, and that's just where you're at.
(You could've asked Rebecca but then Adam stomped her flat.)
You think you're special cuz you're scrappy? You're deluded, time to go.
Lucy's living on the moon but you're another dead psycho."
Do you actually want five billion unprofessional Batman fan fic stories exploding onto the market place until the character becomes a smear of pop-culture turd? Because that's what's going to happen every year as soon as popular characters on that level become public domain and free of trademark restrictions.
A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
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That hasn't happened to Sherlock Holmes, so why would it happen to Batman? I'm confident Bruce Wayne can survive entering the public domain.
Odd question (and I ask for a friend): I "might" have heard of the Batman and Marvel gay porn films. How did they get round the trademark???
PREACH! It's a flagrant disregard for the core spirit behind the rule. This should be squashed!
Ooh that won't happen, and even if it does, THAT'S. LIFE. Why should Batman be immune from the reality of society's rules? Beside, Robin Hood and King Arthur can be redone as much as people like, it's not ruined the popularity of those characters.
"We are Shakespeare. We are Michelangelo. We are Tchaikovsky. We are Turing. We are Mercury. We are Wilde. We are Lincoln, Lorca, Leonardo da Vinci. We are Alexander the Great. We are Fredrick the Great. We are Rustin. We are Addams. We are Marsha! Marsha Marsha Marsha! We so generous, we DeGeneres. We are Ziggy Stardust hooked to the silver screen. Controversially we are Malcolm X. We are Plato. We are Aristotle. We are RuPaul, god dammit! And yes, we are Woolf."
It's not just about letting other people try to write Batman (although forcing DC to compete for fan dollars wouldn't be the worst thing in the world), there's also the fact that movies and television have to decide whether to cut a deal and pay for the rights to so much as show a Batman comic or to make up a fake comic. It may not be a huge deal, but sometimes that authenticity can make the difference. (The streaming version of the Wonder Years was butchered due to the inability to renegotiate all the music rights for streaming and home video.)
In the US, parody is protected by force of law. Sue someone for a parody, and very often you get to pay two sets of lawyers after the case is thrown out. Possibly with a SLAP escalator attached, or the judge ruling that the defense lawyers get to bill the plaintiff at full cost despite having taken the case Pro Bono.
Additionally, things that are part of the public consciousness have slightly less protection because of it - you can have people in a film talking about Star Wars or using it to explain certain concepts without having to pay to do so.
Dark does not mean deep.
Comic fans get the comics their buying habits deserve.
"Opinion is the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding." -Plato
Disney likely wouldn't be what it is today without massive exploitation of public domain. It's the bulk of its movie catalog.
The purpose of copyright is to foster cultural expansion. The idea is to incentivize creative works, but it's supposed to expire because culture is always in conversation with itself. It's a temporary monopoly, just like a patent. (Of course, if we expanded patent terms to the extent we have with copyright, the world would grind to a halt.)