Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
Fiction has value, that's the whole point. If it wasn't protected by copyright, then it would not have any value.
There is just not "for the good of society" point to be made to transfer the rights of a fictional story to "society" from "the creator".
There is no limit to fiction, no limit to creativity. Giving Disney the monopoly on Mickey Mouse does not prevent Mighty Mouse. Rather it encourages Mighty mouse verses "Yet another Mickey Mouse story brought to you by .... anyone".
It wouldn't take long to completely disperse the value of Mickey Mouse if anybody and everyone could make Mickey Mouse stories and movies
I see no reason whatsoever in supporting those copycat manufacturers who have no creativity of their own, but could pump out Mickey Mouse hats by the millions as they drain the value away from Disney.
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I don't think that Disney is being harmed by having to prevent unauthorized Mickey Mouse hats by using trademark laws rather than copyright laws. Its monopoly on Mickey should last as long as it's willing to enforce trade mark.
While I don't feel that we are seriously losing out because of a lack of derivative works based on Mickey Mouse, I admit that my main reason for feeling like that is because I don't much care for Mickey Mouse, if Disney managed to bankrupt itself and Mickey disappeared I'd barely notice.
Normally, I particularly enjoy reading derivative fiction, I like retellings and deconstructions of fairy tales. I'm the sort of person who owns eight versions of Beowulf and delights in the way Pratchett subverted the praying scene from
Tom Brown's School Days in
Pyramids. I own several Star Trek novels.
I enjoyed the fanfic I read that was based on the what-if that Austen wrote at the end of
Mansfield Park. As a general rule I also enjoy fanfic that take carelessly written mass media and writes out the plot holes, I enjoy works giving alternate points of view. There are a handful of works which I feel are perfect as they are and any derivative work would be a let-down but no one is forcing me to read fanworks based on them. I also enjoy social criticism through satire and parody.
This is why I think that changing things to prevent derivative works would be a net loss of enjoyment and social criticism.
As for controlling the copying of works (copyright proper), it is true that the main effect of increased copyright terms is that a greater number of works risk disappearing forever as they go out-of-print. This effects those who study social history which depends on the accessibility of the most common writings (including literature) to draw proper conclusions.
For every C. S. Lewis or Tolkien, for every Mickey Mouse there's hundreds if not thousands of enjoyable works that didn't provide enough of a pay out to stay in print. [and the experience of the US shows that allowing renewable copyright just confuses the issue]