Copyright Expiration: Good or Bad?

[achilles]

You can also take something like Disney's Once Upon a Time. How many ideas like that never come to fruition because a creator can't get the ear of the IP owner(s) or convince them?

You also have things like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? not being able to secure rights for Popeye and a few others. The Wonder Years streaming version had to change most (all?) of the music because they had to renegotiate all the rights. And the music is absolutely crucial to that show. The Jack Black-starring video game Brutal Legend couldn't get Iron Maiden, AC/DC, or Metallica in the game, which is an absence you can feel. (I mean, if Ozzie and Lemmy are doing the game, you should just go ahead. ) At least with that last one, however, those works would still be under copyright even under shorter copyrights. But it does show where creativity can be limited by gumming up all these works in copyright for excessive periods.

Well, there was George Lucas' Flash Gordon, but that one was okay since partly out of spite he made another little movie instead. Which of course spawned a new movie version of Flash Gordon.

[Angilasman]

Hmmm... if Popeye becomes public domain soon that means Olive has been for a while, right? She was introduced in the comic like a decade before Popeye popped up as a bit part and took over the strip.

Where have our Olive Oyl movies and shows been?

[Tuck]

Well, there was George Lucas' Flash Gordon, but that one was okay since partly out of spite he made another little movie instead. Which of course spawned a new movie version of Flash Gordon.

I don't think OUAT works without using the Disney versions. It's predicated on reimagining/recontextualizing the Disneyfied versions of the stories in the popular consciousness.

I don't think the general public has a deep enough knowledge of the original stories to work with as a base to play off of.

[Gaastra]

Sadly no one cares about olive without popeye today.

[DrNewGod]

I don't think OUAT works without using the Disney versions. It's predicated on reimagining/recontextualizing the Disneyfied versions of the stories in the popular consciousness.

I don't think the general public has a deep enough knowledge of the original stories to work with as a base to play off of.

Agreed. Snow White and the Huntsman hardly set the world on fire.

[achilles]

I don't think OUAT works without using the Disney versions. It's predicated on reimagining/recontextualizing the Disneyfied versions of the stories in the popular consciousness.

I don't think the general public has a deep enough knowledge of the original stories to work with as a base to play off of.

I wouldn't know, but I did give you an example of a movie that wasn't made because the rights holders wouldn't lease to Lucas, as asked. There are probably others, but that's the most notorious. Thankfully, it all ended well for fans of both SW and Flash Gordon, with that glorious 1980 version of the movie saving the day for Flash fans.

[achilles]

Sadly no one cares about olive without popeye today.

This all made me think about the Robin Williams movie. I admit I kind of liked that...

Perhaps I shall now see it again.

[ChrisIII]

There's some unfortunate cuts or edits that have to be made to older TV shows in streaming or home video releases because of copyrighted music at times.

Quantum Leap has a key scene set to Ray Charles's Georgia in Quantum Leap's MIA (Dealing with Al's wife) which is altered with generic romantic music for at least some of the home video releases, although I think this might've been fixed for streaming.

The crime drama "Cold Case" relied heavily on archival music and also has had home video problems.

Some 80's Saturday morning cartoons such as Kidd Video (apart from it's own music) and Photon often used contemporary 80's tunes and videos to try to gain crossover appeal with the likes of MTV, but good luck getting a home video release with the copyrights there.

Doctor Who on DVD/Blu-ray had to cut part of the first Doctor Dalek story "The Chase" because it featured a recording of the Beatles (Funny thing is there's going to be a Beatles episode in the new season).

[inisideguy]

There's some unfortunate cuts or edits that have to be made to older TV shows in streaming or home video releases because of copyrighted music at times.

Quantum Leap has a key scene set to Ray Charles's Georgia in Quantum Leap's MIA (Dealing with Al's wife) which is altered with generic romantic music for at least some of the home video releases, although I think this might've been fixed for streaming.

The crime drama "Cold Case" relied heavily on archival music and also has had home video problems.

Some 80's Saturday morning cartoons such as Kidd Video (apart from it's own music) and Photon often used contemporary 80's tunes and videos to try to gain crossover appeal with the likes of MTV, but good luck getting a home video release with the copyrights there.

Doctor Who on DVD/Blu-ray had to cut part of the first Doctor Dalek story "The Chase" because it featured a recording of the Beatles (Funny thing is there's going to be a Beatles episode in the new season).

Heck all this copyright stuff doesn't just benefit Disney. Marvel had to stop printing its Shang Chi epic collections and Omnis cause Fu Man Chu is in there. It goes both ways.

[Deathstroke]

There's some unfortunate cuts or edits that have to be made to older TV shows in streaming or home video releases because of copyrighted music at times.

Quantum Leap has a key scene set to Ray Charles's Georgia in Quantum Leap's MIA (Dealing with Al's wife) which is altered with generic romantic music for at least some of the home video releases, although I think this might've been fixed for streaming.

The crime drama "Cold Case" relied heavily on archival music and also has had home video problems.

Some 80's Saturday morning cartoons such as Kidd Video (apart from it's own music) and Photon often used contemporary 80's tunes and videos to try to gain crossover appeal with the likes of MTV, but good luck getting a home video release with the copyrights there.

Doctor Who on DVD/Blu-ray had to cut part of the first Doctor Dalek story "The Chase" because it featured a recording of the Beatles (Funny thing is there's going to be a Beatles episode in the new season).

Also, WKRP in Cincinnati for the longest time, though I can't recall if that was fixed when Shout! Factory put the series out on DVD. And the NBC drama series American Dreams had the same music issues too.

[Gaastra]

Adult swim used mickey in a bumper! Mickey is on cartoon network now! Yikes.

[DABellWrites]

Interesting point. Makes me wonder a bit if Iger, et al. have concluded that Mickey and his gang have run their course as revenue generators and aren't worth the fight to hold exclusivity.

Mickey and Friends sells billions in merch, like top five. I think the difference is that Disney doesn't need copyright to protect Mickey anymore since they have trademark on almost every incarnation of Mickey Mouse. Just like DC Comics, they have Blue Superman merchandise.

[DABellWrites]

This has always been my main arguement. When you have an IP that has never really gone out of use that is very different from something that has been gathering dust for 20 years. Mikey is still the face of Disney and always has been. Same with most superheroes like Superman or Batman. Thos companies have spent decades building up the brand and taking care of it. For someone then to come in and leech off that to tell "their" Superman story is just a lazy money grab.

Disney makes billions off the public domain, but yet someone who touches Mickey Mouse is wrong. Amazing how this work.

But the people who own Conans copyright have control over how his stuff is distributed. If they feel as if the company that currently has the copyright isnt doing a good job or not paying enough for the rights they can go somewhere else. I see the arguments on both sides. I dont really get people who say well someone shouldn't be able to use someones creations the way they want as long as that person who created it lives. Like why is that? If you dont believe in copyright then why should the guy who created Game of Thrones have control of it? Or he should but his relatives should not? There needs to be consistency there. You cant say well Walt Disney should have complete control over his characters but once hes dead no one should. I just find the issue complicated and not black and white at all. Probably why it gets argued about all the time.

Yes, because that's the whole point of copyright. It's allowing the CREATOR protection and incentives over their work while they are ALIVE. If they are dead, they aren't benefiting from said protection. Meaning, anyone can do anything to their creation, as they aren't alive anymore. If you didn't make enough money to have your family living a comfortable life, that's on the creator. Hey, the Disney family is a bunch of billionaires, so why do they need to keep Walt's creations copyrighted? They don't need the money. Disney is sitting on so many cartoons that was created by someone else, they aren't benefiting from that copyright. These cartoons will be lose in time (thank you piracy!) because Disney decided to ignore them. But hey, how many Sherlock Holmes and Dracula movies have there been? Oh, they're public domain too. Did Walt Disney go and ask the Carroll family if he could do an Alice in Wonderland adaptation? AiWL entered the public domain in 1907. So again, why is it these corporations can make money off the public domain, but we shouldn't touch these characters owned by these corporations?

Because William Shakespeare or whomever created King Arthur didnt build a company around their creations. Personally the guy who created Conan the Barbarian died almost 100 years ago. I dont really feel like anyone should be able to use Conan anyway they want without paying for a licensing fee to his family. I see nothing wrong with that.

In Conans case, his family doesn't want every John Doe making up Conan stories with no approval of how it affects his legacy. You have people pump out a bunch of garbage with no over site and it deludes the creation and the hurts the legacy of the creator. Thats the way some people feel. If my grandfather was Robert Howard I would feel some responsibility to his creation and try my best to honor it and keep control over it.

Conan the Barbarian pulls heavily from mythology and history, that's FREE for anyone to use. This hypocrisy of "don't touch this" is amazing. The public domain isn't just for remixing or re-telling stories, it's the largest public archive we have. Organizations like Gutenberg and comicbookplus do a good job in keeping alive a bygone era of stories. You can find patents in the public domain, early info movies, speeches, and a lot more stuff.

[achilles]

Yeah, King Arthur had no known single creator, being basically collections of myths from the 6th century onward, and added to with French romance characters and the notion of chivalry in the later Middle Ages by writers like Sir Thomas Mallory. There's no copyright to infringe or run out.

[ChrisIII]

Speaking of Doctor Who, there's an ongoing issue with the son of the writer of the first serial that's keeping it from being released on streaming currently.

Bond also has some copyright issues as well, although I think some of the novels will be public domain in the next decade. Of course there was a major rights controversy regarding THUNDERBALL for years, which is problematic in addition for SPECTRE and Blofeld, as they were introduced in the story's novel version. This prevented their use in the Moore/Dalton/Brosnan eras (Although For Your Eyes Only managed to get away with a Blofeld-esque character getting killed off in the pre-title sequence, probably because Blofeld's cat and baldness were never part of the novel version).