Why public domain

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Intellectual property rights should be treated in the same manner as physical property rights.

This is by far the most misunderstanding relating to copyrights.

People do not buy newspapers only to have somthing to wipe their arses - it is the content that is wanted.
Once one would read the interesting news over the shoulder of a careless buyer, he will not buy another newspaper. It is the content that counts, not the material. The same with CDs and music, DVDs and movies, etc etc etc.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

This is by far the most misunderstanding relating to copyrights.

People do not buy newspapers only to have somthing to wipe their arses - it is the content that is wanted.
Once one would read the interesting news over the shoulder of a careless buyer, he will not buy another newspaper. It is the content that counts, not the material. The same with CDs and music, DVDs and movies, etc etc etc.

LOL - my post is all about the content. You obviously misunderstood it.

[doubleshuffle]

And yet the whole Disney empire is built on using public domain stories...

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

And yet the whole Disney empire is built on using public domain stories...

Well, if you can invent a time machine, feel free to travel back in time and undo the concept of public domain. Then when Disney came around, he'd either have to obtain the rights to do his movies or create all new characters.

As is, what's done is done. However, the future is yet to be and there's still time to put the brakes on public domain and allow creators to keep control of their works in perpetuity.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

And yet the whole Disney empire is built on using public domain stories...

A large percentage of movies are based on books....like the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. The authors/rights holders were paid by the movie makers for the privilege.

Why should the movie makers get to make money on stories and characters that an author wrote without compensation?

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

How is society benefited by stealing Disney's critter and depriving them of future profits?

We have kept people from stealing it for a century. It's past time they returned the favor, as per the copyright bargain.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

We have kept people from stealing it for a century. It's past time they returned the favor, as per the copyright bargain.

If people are too cheap to pay for Mickey, then they can create their own mouse. There's no shortage of famous rodents. It's not like people can't create a new one.

• Templeton from "Charlotte's Web"
  
• Ratty from "The Wind in the Willows"
  
• Stuart Little from "Stuart Little"
  
• Mighty Mouse
  
• Jerry of "Tom and Jerry"
  
• Speedy Gonzales
  
• Pixie and Dixie
  
• Minnie Mouse
  
• Three Blind Mice
  
• mouse from "Hickory Dickory Dock"
  
• Ben from the movie "Ben"
  
• The Mouse King from "The Nutcracker"
  
• Rat from the Chinese zodiac
  
• Chuck E Cheese
  
• uh oh - the universe just ran out of mouses

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Why shouldn't it? Why should Disney be forced to give away Mickey Mouse? There's nothing stopping anyone from creating their own anthropomorphic critter and making money off it. How is society benefited by stealing Disney's critter and depriving them of future profits? Is imagination is so limited that Mickey is the only mouse in the entire universe that people can write books and make movies about?

Putting Mickey in the public domain is nothing more than a greedy power grab to limit Disney's profits and allow others to profit off of his creation.

I get that you think that the Disney corporation should be payed for ever for the efforts of Walt Disney, the person. But, you make no coherent argument other than because you say so and then try to dress it up in emotional language. I suspect that's because there is no coherent rational.

The standard rational for copyright is to encourage writers to write. Authors through history have built on other works and a common culture. "Call me Ishmael" sets the tone for the book Moby Dick because his readers understand the story of Ishmael from the bible.

I'm reading a book at the moment, Angel Mage, which is based on the Three Musketeers. Part of what makes it clever is the reader comparing it to the original story. Roger Zelazny's book A Night in the Lonesome October, uses characters such as Dracula, the Wolfman, Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper. Heinlein's book, Glory Road brings in Cyrano de Bergerac.

The list goes on and one. As has been pointed out, even Disney is built on an edifice of public domain - Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Aladdin.

This is why public domain is so important. Every artist and scientist stands on the shoulders of giants.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

The list goes on and one. As has been pointed out, even Disney is built on an edifice of public domain - Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Aladdin.

This is why public domain is so important. Every artist and scientist stands on the shoulders of giants.

If public domain did not exist when Disney started making movies, then he either would've paid for the rights or created his own characters.

That's what film makers do these days with respect to current literature. They either buy the rights or create their own characters. There's absolutely no reason why this model can't go on forever.

[leebase]

Clearly copyright has done nothing to prevent writing. Neither the use of existing stories and characters nor in the creation of new stories and characters.

What copyright has done is foster the profession of writing. No longer do we need kings and queens or the pope to fund all the art.

Books for free and "let ME make money off someone else's work" are all that's left for limits to copyright.

[barryem]

When I mentioned the carpenter who builds a house not retaining rights to it I was using that to illustrate my thoughts, not as proof of anything. Of course physical property is different. It exists. Intellectual property sort of exists and sort of doesn't.

If I write a book I can copyright it and that gives me a chance to make some money on it before everybody else starts printing and selling it. That's what the Constitution intends. It gives the creator a head start. But it's a very limited head start. I can't copyright every word or even every sentence.

Ownership of intellectual property is a mental construct, entirely artificial, that we've chosen to build into our laws because it's good for us, both individually and as a culture. After while it stops being good for the culture and, with rare exceptions, to the creator. Putting books into public domain much earlier than we do will be a cultural benefit.

What we lose by doing that is income for the tiny fraction of books that continue to make money after a year or two.

If I were king I would set the copyright term to 5 years for books. It's a rare book that keeps making money after that. And maybe, with the advent of ebooks and the long tail, 10 years would be better. Not that I want to be king. I'm far too lazy.

Barry

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by leebase

A large percentage of movies are based on books....like the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. The authors/rights holders were paid by the movie makers for the privilege.

Why should the movie makers get to make money on stories and characters that an author wrote without compensation?

Harry Potter: no discussion here. The author is alive and kicking and of course must be paid.

LOTR: Under the current Life+70 regulation, Tolkien's works will enter the public domain in 2044, so of course his heirs had to be paid. Under Life+20, which, as I mentioned in an earlier post, German author Arno Schmidt said was plenty, they wouldn't. I think that would have been absolutely fine. Tolkien drew so extensively on older mythologies that it would be a good thing if his contribution went back to the whole of humanity rather sooner than later.

It is also interesting that people always bring up the examples where an idea brought in the real big bucks, "franchises" whose creators (the franchise creators, not necessarily the original authors) are only interested in creating a money machine, not in contributing anything to humanity. (Well, Rowling seems to be a decent person; does anyone know her views on posthumous copyright terms?)

Anyway, if it only concerned the chocolate frosted sugar bombs of culture, like Disney or the Marvel cinematic frigging universe, I wouldn't mind them keeping the rights to their shite for eternity - but they are spoiling it for everybody.

[leebase]

The public benefits most when people are incentivized to create works. Works the public then pays for. Because works are paid for, more incentive to create works.

When the public seizes property...there is no incentive to create.

Sure, very few works are valuable....but those are the works people want. People want Mickey Mouse and Star Wars and Harry Potter. They want them because they are valuable.

The original story of Snow White is not why people want to have access to Disney's Snow White. You can ALREADY write new Snow White stories based on the original. But what is valuable is Disney's Snow White and the 7 dwarves with explicit names and the look of Disney's drawings. Why? Because of the business Disney built making the brand, the characters, the story valuable. People spend thousands of dollars to go to Disney theme parks so the kids can meet the characters that the movies and tv shows and cartoons have built up demand.

So of COURSE, people would love to have free access to the value the Disney Corp has spent decades and billions of dollars building up. They want to sell Mickey Mouse hats, and Halloween costumes, etc.

All of this economic good....blessing children generation after generation...providing jobs and powering innovation....

All of this because of the concept of intellectual property.

And like real property...it’s value does not belong to the public.

[doubleshuffle]

But we HAVE copyright, and nobody in this thread has argued against it. But if you need copyright not during your lifetime and a few years after, but for eternity, as an incentive to be creative, you should better start a hedge fund.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by barryem

Publishers have lobbyists. Most authors and composers don't.

Barry

One of the biggest is of course Disney. Can't have the mouse becoming public property. And their older movies such as Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc. are still almost $20.00 a piece unlike other old movies from the same time period. Most drop in price after being out on DVD for a while but not their movies.