Originally Posted by
Ascended
Regarding the public domain....I've talked about it a bit lately too, but we are really ahead of the curve here; Action #1 doesn't hit the domain for another....eleven?....years, and that's assuming Disney and WB don't successfully lobby for another extension.
Steamboat Willie will enter public domain in 2024 under current law, so any action corporations take to protect their copyright will happen before that.
Whether the attempt will be successful is another matter. The safe bet, of course, is that politicians line their pockets with Mouse money and extend the law. But there's a few points that make this *slightly* less of a foregone conclusion; public opinion, greater awareness of how copyright law has been changed to benefit the rich elite, and there's never actually been a good legal argument for extending the law anyway. It's possible that this is a fight politicians don't want to get into and they'll let the law stand rather than risk pissing off voters and losing their next election. I wouldn't bet on that, but we'll see what the socio-political climate is like after midterms.
If the law does stand (unlikely as that seems), when Clark enters the domain it'll just be the version from 1938. And that guy bears little resemblance to the Superman most people are familiar with. And DC/WB will still have the active trademark (which can be maintained in perpetuity) so this isn't the solution to DC's mismanagement that some of y'all might be thinking it is. It could still be good for the character, I believe that it likely would be, but time will tell.
Anyway, as for this death of the League thing....I'm confused. I hear that the JL book will be off the shelves for a while, which is fine, but it seems like the rest of the publishing line isn't acknowledging this? Seems like Bruce and Clark and Diana and the rest are still active in their own titles so what exactly is this going to achieve beyond giving the JL book a break?
It seems like such a cheap gimmick. I'd be pretty happy about an opportunity for other heroes and teams to get the spotlight; the League and its Big 7 roster have become a glass ceiling holding everyone else back. But if the League heroes are still alive and kicking in their own books there's damn little room for such development. The fact that they're all dying first just makes any of this even less likely to matter six months later, because you know DC isn't going to keep any of the Big Names dead for very long. And I think DC would just use this as an opportunity to push their current pet characters and the Future State roster, rather than making any kind of genuine effort to elevate longstanding, "deserving" characters and teams.
This could be the chance for characters like Nightwing, Cyborg, Power Girl, Firestorm, Blue Beetle, etc., to step up and take the reins as earth's greatest heroes. But instead I think we'll just get a Junior Justice League team, with a roster of Big 7 legacies made up mostly of rookies who haven't earned the right to call themselves the "greatest" anything, much less the greatest heroes on earth.