Wonder Woman! The whole world will be waiting for you 20 more years!

It was nearly (74) years ago where the fruits of William Moulton Marston (May 9, 1893 – May 2, 1947)  and his wife's ideas coalesced into a new character for All Star Comics' latest book book. Not nearly content with his invention of the polygraph, Marston was commissioned with creating a new superhero, with his wife suggesting it be a woman.

And so, Wonder Woman was born. Since then she's remained the most well known female superhero, if not always the best or most understood, in the world. In the island nation of Paradise Island, lives a nation of Amazons, who are found by Steve Trevor, American Air Force pilot. The Amazons fight amongst themselves to decide which ones will take Steve back home in a series of challenges.

The winner of this challenges is Diana, who from now on becomes the Amazon's representative on the world.

Wonder Woman's role at DC comics as changed lots in the last nearly-a-century. Her Island's name became Themyscira. She lost and gained powers such as flight, and talking to animals. She's gone from having been built out of sand, to being the daughter of Zeus. She's gone from the Justice Society's secretary to towering over Superman. Some see this as erratic writing that doesn't lead to a single vision of what the character is and represents, but I like to think it speaks to the malleable nature of the character.

It's a malleable nature that would be serving us all well, should the character have gone public domain in 1997. While DC would certainly have a 56 year headstart on the rest of the world, included a fairly popular television show, most of her rogues gallery's most notorious characters would have been free to use by now, including Cheetah, Giganta, Dr Psycho and Silver Swan. Plus some less known ones, such as Blue Snowman, Eviless, and Zara,. 
s
But instead her copyright got stretched  for 40 years. Strictly litterally speaking, we´re in the middle of the 40 years that were added, and 21 years away from WOnder Woman entering the public domain. Who knows what someone could have gone and invented in these  nearly 20 years that the character has been under copyright? Perhaps those solo Wonder Woman movies, TV shows, videogames that Warner Bros has completely failed to deliver?  Perhaps she could have been introduced in Marvel's stories and be joining the Avengers? Perhaps her villains might have their own comics. Blue Snowman? I'd buy it.

 The potential for Wonder Woman in the public domain is always going to be larger than the limited capacity it could have under copyright. Would YOU like to take a stab at the Amazing Amazon? How? Share in below.

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Dracula is not the biggest sucker in the room

A buncha suckers.

Dracula is one of the most ubiquos characters in the public domain. He's done it all. He's had movies , videogames, TV shows. He's been in goldarned breakfast cereal. He's fought Batman and Wolverine. He's been a Duck, a hotel owner.

Now, when you think about Dracula, what image do you picture? Because for most people, they think of this guy.

That's Bela Lugosi, from 1947's Dracula. The role defined him, and he defined the role. But did you know that when Universal made that picture, Dracula was under copyright everywhere but America? Yes indeedy, as Wikipedia tells us:

"The novel has been in the public domain in the United States since its original publication because Stoker failed to follow proper copyright procedure."

The movie brought vampires to big-time notoriety in pop culture conscience more than the book ever could. However, while the book's since slipped into the public domain for everyone and their Abraham Lincoln to try and do a an attempt at it, the movie that brought the character to the forefront of public conciousness is still property of Universal pictures.

 While they may own an iconic, old-timey movie, Universal has been unable to use that as any kind of leverage  for a modern day franchise since Bela Lugosi died of an overdose.In just the time I've been alive they've made Bram Stoker's Dracula, starring Keanu Reeves and  Gary Oldman as Dracula, Van Helsing in which  Dracula is the over the top villain to a summer blockbuster monster mash-up and Dracula Untold, which takes audiences to Dracula's side of events in which he's kind of a hero. Neither did what Universal was hoping it would do for them.

Unironically, the idea of the vampire predates even the book, as  a part of the myth of dark ages Europeans who, it is believed, would fall victim to the scam of the "vampire hunters" men who pretended to wrestle invisible Nosferatu in exchange for money.

"I caught him, guys!"

 

If Universal was the only one able to work of Bram Stoker's Dracula, we'd probably still have those non-classics. But we WOULDN'T have Castlevania, Duckula, Hotel Transylvania, Blackula... In fact, if Bram Stoker's Dracula hadn't basically stumbled into the public domain, the odds are good it's still be under copyright in America.

What's your favorite take on Dracula? Would it have been made if Dracula had to be licensed?

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Limited Times is gonna #BOYCOTTSTARWARS7 and here's why

I'm not going to let this TPP crap pass without at least rattling some cages. RATTLE RATTLE RATTLE.

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Happy Birthday is back home

Now, it is silly that the song Happy Birthday to be under copyright. As the songs origins hail from before 1921, there is literally no way for it to still be under copyright still.

But for years, Warner has claimed that, as buyers of the company that bought the company that bought the rights from the Hill Sisters, the duo of siblings that composed the song that eventually became Happy Birthday, the most sung song in the world, they owned the rights to it. Warner's earned 2 million dollars from licensing  it, and forced businesses from all over the planet to come up with their own birthday songs. Imagine how many films depicting normal, everyday life had to go "hum...skip to the blowing of the candles." Not being able to display something that's basically normal like for millions of people.

But now a federal judge has arrived at a conclusion regarding the case to prove the song is public domain, ironically brought on by other Hollywood types who wanted to use the song for their documentary about it. Uh...you'd think "making a documentary about it" would be covered by fair use. You know maybe if Warner hadn't been so greedy and let the Happy Birthday Documentary guys off without paying the fee, we wouldn't be in this situation.

Anyway, judge found that Warner is not the owner of Happy Birthday and that, while they own the copyright to SOMETHING it is not the full rights to the song. While I wish the conclusion of the case had been based on "it is impossible for Warner to lay claim to something from before  1921, it is nice to see justice finally done.

Well, mostly done. The jury, as it where, is still out on whether Warner has to give back the money it earned from licensing fees it basically suckered people out of. One would hope there would at least be some kind of consequence for purposely lying about copyright and abusing it like that, creating unfair competition and robbing the public of things they rightfully deserve. And wasting the time and resources of the state purposely with the full intention of deceit.

I mean, we've established that Copyright is serious enough to travel all the way across the planet just to get a guy who is streaming American Movies. Well, this guys lied about owning a public cultural  resource and earned millions from that lie. I would think that's just as serious, if not more. We're fleecing teenagers for downloading mp3s, what would we do with enormous corporations doing something like this?

But it's a time for joy, now, not contention. Here is the song, Puerto Rican style.

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Zombies Ate my Public Domain!

Behold, the movie that spawned the zombie genre!


Now, usually, when you post a full movie like this on your blog, you expect a takedown notice. I certainly can't post E.T. just because we're the same age, because that'd be copyright infringement. But this movie won't get taken down by the owners, because this movie entered the public domain!

The story behind that is weird. The maker, George Romero is still alive and everything. What happened was, back in those days copyright notices where expected to be placed front and center of the work.In a movie this meant putting the notice at the beginning credits. Which makes sense. You let the people know who the exact owner of the piece is, and take out all the guesswork.

However, if the work did not have a proper copyright notice, according to specifications, it fell into public domain immediately.

This is him, laughing.

This is what happened with Night of the Living Dead. The company that financed and distributed it, the Walter Reade Organization, failed to put the (c) in the credits. That's why the term Zombie, the concept of a zombie as an undead flesh eater, and any such is strictly public domain.

If you're gonna lament the maker of the movie failing to keep the idea under his fortress, fine. He did sue the company. Then he carried on making more zombie movies. He's still cranking them out.

This is him, laughing.

If you're gonna lament that it's lead to what appears to be a tiring parade of zombie product, fine. Zombies aren't my favorites,  and frankly in terms of monsters are the one step removed from vampires in terms of creativity. But it going to public domain is the reason we can have:

World War Z

Resident Evil(Game and Movie series)

Zombies Ate my Neightborhood

Plants vs Zombies

The Walking Dead(comics, tv, videogames)

Zombieland

Warm Bodies

DayZ

The usage of Zombies in a multitude of products that aren't ABOUT zombies.

Not all works going to the public domain are Night of the Living dead. Nobody seems particularly interested in remaking Star Odyssey (well...nobody ELSE) a million times. But the possibility is certainly there. Without NoTLD going public domain, George Romero might have made a few movies, promptly forgot about it, and the Zombie Genre as we know it might not exist. A man can make a franchise, but it takes many men to make a genre.

Which other kind of monster would benefit from being public domain? Let me know below!

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Why Marvel vs Capcom 4 is never coming

Squishing shoulders!

The Marvel vs Capcom series is my favorite series of videogames. Frantic action, screen filling visuals, and recognizable characters all come together to create something truly special.


X-Men: Children of the Atom, the first in what would become the series, hit 20 December of last year. The historical context is important.

Marvel was at the height of a comics bubble that was about to crash the entire market. However, they had found great success in licencing their properties into cartoons, especially Fox's X-Men. And so, they licenced Capcom to make a fighting game.

Capcom was also riding a boom: a Sonic Boom. The success of Street Fighter 2 had created wave of imitators that became the fighting game genre. While the Street Fighter brand remained strong, Capcom did began to diversify it's fighting game output, uncluding 1994's Darkstalkers.

X-Men: Children of the Atom was a big success, and begat Marvel Super Heroes, a game taking on the general Marvel universe, which eventually led to a series of  crossovers with Capcom that became known as the Vs Series, starting with X-Men vs Street Fighter.

The latest game, released in 2011, might be called Marvel vs Capcom 3, but it's really either the 5th game in a crossover tag-team series or the seventh game in Capcom's Superhero fighting game series, depending on how you want to look at it. Whether that would also include Capcom's other crossover's with Japanimation company Tatsunoko, rival company SNK, or with Tekken, well, that'a also up to the reader, as the mechanics are sufficiently distinct as to consider them separate.

So what do we have to look forward to in the series? Well, things have changed a bit. The fighting game genre isn't quite as booming as in the early 90's, is it? Most of the franchises that set up shop there are already gone. Capcom itself is now in the position Marvel was back then, of trying to license it's product into movies. It's found great success with Resident Evil(in that, and in general)  and is currently busy promoting Street Fighter 5.

Marvel, however, has changed, too. It saw so much success from licensing it's works into movies, it started doing the movies themselves. And THAT was so successful, Disney bought it.

Disney's plans for Marvel in terms of videogames seems to ever less involve licensing out, and more to involve natively making works. While that may eventually change in the over 40 years that most of these characters will remain copyrighted, the sad reality is that it probably won't.

Curiously, within this next decade, most of the characters from Silver Age would already be lapsing, according to the laws of their day.  This includes Spider-Man, Galactus, and most of the original X-Men. While Capcom would certainly not be able to use the word "Marvel" in the title, it would sure enough be able to use Spider-Man and Cyclops in an ensemble cast of sorts. Captain America, having been made in the 40's, could have already been in a game.

So I'm not trying to say Marvel vs Capcom 4 is a casualty of long copyright, but it's certainly keeping these characters out of the public's use. Would YOU like for Captain America, Marvel Girl, and Galactus to be public domain before the 2050s? Chime in below!

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Limited Time´s suggestions for a better copyright

Alright, I´ve made a few posts about our screwed up copyright. "It is how it is, what do you want?" you may have asked yourself after reading it.

Well, well, thank you for asking exactly what I needed to segue into this write up, hypothetical person!  Besides bitchin' and moanin' about our stolen inheritance, I do have some ideas to make copyright not-as-monstrous.  Well here's some of my suggestions.

An Orphan Works Potential Exemption
 
Sometimes a work is obviously not being used, and it's actual owner is not anywhere to be found. It's become a serious problem even for people who'd be willing to pay the license to said works, because they can't actually license it, and can't actually use it and copyright can't actually end within any reasonable timeframe, either. 

Now, there should be a system in place where, with reasonable evidence of non-usage of copyright and innaccessibility to the owner of the copyright, the state itself kind of licenses the work for a small fee, to be payed to the copyright holder should they ever resurface.

Require a fee every 10 years after the first 50.
 
I can't fix the U.S. relationship with the Berne Convention, which is basically an agreement that it made with other countries saying "We're all gonna follow this rules to work with each other's copyright, and whichever country doesn't, we can use their stuff."

One of the agreements of the Berne convention was that copyright should not be shorter than 50 years. So anyone wanting a copyright shorter than that should just skip the local laws and go straight to the International treaty heart of the problem.

However, 50 years is practically reasonable compared to 95 or more, and so, within that, re-registry fees should be brought back. Upon the first 50 years, and every 10 years after that point, there should be a fee required to maintain copyright.


Obviously if the work is "Keep the grandkids comfy" successful, they'll make it a point to pay the fee. If it's not...well if it's that near and dear to your heart, you'll definitively pay the fee, anyway. If it's not profitable and not near and dear enough to your heart then WHY SHOULD IT BE COPYRIGHTED NEARLY 100 YEARS?

Everything made before 1955 should become public domain

The purpose of copyright is quite specific. To promote the creation of new works. It's on the constitution and crud. There's no actual evidence that lenghtening the copyright of works from decades ago does that.

It's kind of surprising to me that the same Americans who would consider "guns" a right  because the second amendment said so, would sit idly by while the very specific "for limited times" and "to foster  the progress of the science and the useful arts" are told to go suck a lemon by a lobbied up congress. I  think while guns are useful to an extent to maintain a society, we have copyright precisely to move forward society. And holding this works back does not move us forward.

There is a saying in my island. "A payed musician does not  play well." The idea being that, if a job is payed for before it is performed, most of the incentive to do the work well is gone. While that's not all true,(as a musician, you'll probably want to be contracted again and again and by different people, which won't be accomplished if you do a half assed job all the time) think about it in terms of copyright. We´re giving this already published, already existing works decades of copyright. Instead of saying "If you find some success once, make more and better inventions. We want that." we're saying "If you find success once, you can license that shit for 100 years, and you don't really need to come up with something new."

There will be no children going home hungry from works whose copyright was extended going into the public domain. What there will be, though, is more children with access and capacity to create based on old works. Prosumers, giving their own take on the 20th century classics, in the digital age. What it will provide though, is a level ground where the companies that held this rights for decades will be forced to compete with each other and with people to decide which version is best, rather than pull legal rank and shut down any competition.

An actual, true way to help you control your own copyright.

Maybe you want your works to go into public domain after you die. Maybe you, prolific creator, feel like you've benefited enough from it. Maybe you want a different kind of creative group to beat the mainstream, such as the time BMI beat the music industry with public domain music.

But that's not actually possible. While the creative commons license is a step on the right direction, it doesn't allow you to actually rescind your copyright. You certainly can't set it on a last will and testament. There's a time limit to licenses that might very well come into play should estates or heirs come into play.

But if copyright is to benefic creators, why can't creators control how much their works are actually protected? Why aren't there any settings on this thing between 100 years and nothing at all?

So for the benefit of all peoples, shorter  copyrights on works should be available, with the lapsing dates obviously available to anyone searching the archives. Like, obviously the Disneys of the world aren't gonna apt for anything under the maximum, but why put a damper on culture's growth just because of them?

In fact, people willingly choosing shorter copyright should be encouraged by throwing it at a smaller fee, with an option to pay the additional fee for the full length should the author desire it. I mean, why not?

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Naked Batman! 5 facts we'd have to live with if Batman where public domain...

This happened.

The maximum duration of a copyright used to be 56 years.  As we've discussed, this means that everything made before 58 should have reasonably lapsed into the public domain. In Batman's case this means most of his most well known characters and concepts would be available for all to use, free of charge and free of litigation.

I have brought this matter up to fans, and many of them are concerned. They can't even picture a world where you can  go ahead and make your own Batman. As much grief as fans can give companies like DC, many think Batman is rather safe in DC/Warner's hands.

Here's 5 realities of a world where Batman is public Domain.

5) DC still owns real Batman.

Let's face it, guys. We're not talking about a riot where we go into DC's office and rob them of Batman. As the day the first Batman comic goes public domain, this is what you'll have to work with.

He just threw a man by the neck! "Regular Exercise" my ass.

It's gonna take you a couple of years to get to "Batman as we know him" today, and by then the character will already be far, far from that. You get no Batmobile. You get no Batgirl, or Batmite or  Bane. Not for a while.

Nobody still like Jason Todd.

This is Batman and his nu 52 era buddies, some of them with Wikia pages longer than the Bible. By the 2030s all Batman related Wikia pages will have more words than the Bible. You don't get that, not initially. You get the starter Batman: an orphan richboy who wants to punches criminal while dressed vaguely like a bat.

Under previous, you'd already get to adapt this.

DC needn't fear your Batman. Unless...



4)Your Batman might be better than  their Batman.

He's Nicholas Cage. He's awesomer than most things by default.

A lot of people I saw were afraid of "any old fanboys" having their  terrible ideas on Batman.  Can you imagine what that would look like?

I don't have to. Fans all over the world are currently engaged in writting stories about Batman meeting Fluttershy or something. Fanfiction is already a thing, a thing widespead enough that WB hasn't put any major efforts to stopping it. Maybe some of this stories might be good, or great. Maybe all of them stink. At least some of them involve Robocop and Batman having sex. Frankly I opt not to read them.  I can safely ignore them and so can you.

But consider Sandy Corolla. A skilled filmaker who once made a couple of fanfilms starring DC characters, and sometimes Predator and Alien. Everybody loved those fan films. Most of us would have given Corolla our money to see the full films. But WB owns Batman, and he couldn't have secured any financing for a full film except from WB, which already had plans for Batman. Under previous law, Corolla could have taken his skills towards actually making such films. He could have asked another studio to finance them. He could have taken it to kickstarter.

Where's my "realistic" body armor?

Instead he didn't. Let's face it, guys, not all the people who could make great Batman stories work for WB and DC. Some of them might work at Marvel. Some of them might work at Image. Some of them might even work at Fox. The only difference between DCs writters and, fanboys, other writters is that  they are legally allowed to work on Batman. That's all.

However, they wouldn't all be anything close to "real" Batman because...

3) We would have a lot of weird takes on Batman

Well...he's more like a bat, isn't he?

In 1998 I saw The Mask of Zorro, a movie that followed a former bandit played by Antonio Banderas adopting the mantle of Zorro from perrenial pseudo-Hispanic Anthony Hopkins. It was a fun movie. But I kept wondering where it had left the original Zorro's mute butler. You know, from the TV series. Then there was the animated, future set series. I didn't see it much. Zorro's in the public domain, currently, so anyone can work on him and many do.

Naturally, once people get to working on Batman, they're not all going to want to have the same take. After all, that is the fun of public domain. Does Batman really have to be an only child? What if he had siblings? What if  Batman is  really Alfred? What if Batman is really a bat that, through training, became a human? Maybe we get Arronofsky's Batman where he's a bum helped by a big black mechanic named Big Al? Maybe one is just naked all the time.

This is especially true before some elements are public domain. After all, if WB still own the concept of Batman living in a cave, where will yours live? Your version should already be trying to distance itself from other Batmans, maybe yours sleeps in a casket, like Dracula. Maybe he goes back to the planet Bat or something.

It only  sounds stupid because they haven't done it yet. Eventually any and all this versions could find a place in people's hearts. We'll have many Batmans, and don't be surprised when not all of them are "Bruce Wayne, playboy billionaire orphan who becomes Batman at night

2) DC would not use Batman as much.

Jesus Christ!

DC likes Batman. He makes them a lot of money, and money's where it's at. Batman's in movies. Batman's on television. Batman's on cartoons. Batman's on videogames. Batman's on lunchboxes and sweaters and sweatshirts.

However, if someone else can make Batman, that's no fun anymore. WB, overwhelmed by greed, would probably begin promoting "their" characters a lot more, if Batman was usable by anyone. They'd probably promote some silver age character to Batman's spot of importance, if they could at all.

This would not be all bad. If Batman's as overexposed in the 2030s as he is now, a little winding down might not be as bad as it sounds. The character's never not been popular, but maybe it's best to not have 50 Batman products a month in your face.

1) You'd get Batman everywhere

SAFE!

If Batman was public domain today, do you think they'd put him in Street Fighter? In Final Fantasy? In Johnny Test? WWE? GTA?

Off course they would. More than a deluge of new Batman movies every year, it would result in 1000s of "appearances" in stuff. Think of it like this: imagine every cartoon version of Dracula you've seen. Imagine all his appearances in franchises that aren't adaptations of Bram Stoker's books. That's what we're looking at.

Even when the over-saturation reaches critical levels, you'll still see Batman show up every once in a while to help or hinder the characters in question. It wouldn't be rare. And maybe that's gonna be just fine.

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Talking Points: The Starving Artist

You should have had your ears to the ground, buddy.

I get into plenty of comments sections discussing the topic of copyright.  You might be surprised, that some arguments start to form a pattern, and then I feel that, instead of replying to each and every one of those, I´d rather do a column adressing them.

For example, I´ve already seen at least two people bring this kind of talk :

"This is a bad era for artists! I spent so and so effort making an art, and then e'rebody stole it. You guys don't know what it's like to create something because you all want something for free!"

No, this wern't comments in videos and articles about "END COPYRIGHT FOREVER, FREE SHIT FOR EVERYBODY". These were comments in videos explaining in great detail how copyright was manipulated to do the entertainment industry's bidding.

I'd like to say all those guys are just People from the RIAA and MPAA sockpuppets  trying to change public opinion in their favor, but I have no evidence of that. In truth, piracy does affect a huge number of upstarts, which is most of the reason it exists. There may be people that legitimately feel those things, and I don't want to be patronizing to those people. But I have to disagree.
So this one's for you, Starving Artists. I'm gonna run you through a gamut of answers to your concerns.

A) It's not a battle of "All the copyright vs No copyright".

There are certainly those who feel copyright is an unnecessary element of law.  But people like Lawrence Lessig aren't those people. People like me aren't those people. We don't want copyright to  go away, we want it to do it's friggin' job. no more no less. It's job is giving artists a fighting chance in a world where duplication could ruin them.

Oh, look, a nice urinal

When we're discussing HOW copyright should be, it is wasteful to say "B-b-b-b-but copyright should exist." We know, baby, we know. Besides we already have some strong copyright and...

B)What happened to you  did not happen because not enough copyright.

 It's understandable to want the kinds of protections copyright promises (but can't actually enforce). But let's get serious here: Copyright lasts  more than the average human lives, and covers so many things it's not even funny.  In this world. This is the world where copyright reigns. There's not much more copyright out there to give.

I'm almost as old as copyright lasts!

If in THIS WORLD, your entire enterprise was taken down solely by pirates, then it is irrelevant to our discussion. In fact, yours is exactly the kind of work that should go public domain in a short time,  so that people could freely reuse it as they see fit. If you can't really make it in 10 years, you aren't likely gonna make it in 95 years. If you find that disheartening, maybe this will cheer you up.

C) Your project might have been doomed to failiure from the start.

If at first you don't succeed...you still got until 2082.

The world of art isn't a sure thing, buddy. For every artist that makes it and becomes well known and quoted, there are 30000 that nobody will ever know.

Perhaps your work wasn't good, perhaps it was not something that people would like, perhaps you didn't market yourself properly, or maybe you're just trying to make an outdated model work. Maybe it was too niche, or maybe too broad. Either way, your project just failed, as so many do.

But what's that got to do with stretching the copyright of works already made? The point of copyright is to inspire creativity, not hug every cat.

While anecdotally you may claim it was pirates, all loving your shit and not buying it, there's other people out there making money off of works. It might just be a personal failiure.

D)Many Other Starving Artists would like to use works under copyright, at some point, eventually.

See, Warner? You're the problem, not the solution.

Sure, from your stance I assume your works are entirely original, based solely on your own creative genius and gumption. And that's respectable. But it's not the only way to create art.

And that's part of it. Art building on other art. For example, next Summers Batman v Superman draw plenty of inspiration from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, which itself drew inspiration from decades of Batman comics. Is Zack Snyder NOT a lazy sack of shit for not coming up with his own thing instead just because the company he's working under owns the property? Coolio took Stevie Wonder Wonder Song and made it about Gangsters. Is he a lazy sack of shit for not coming up with his own thing? Smash Bros was going to not star known Nintendo characters. And I dare say we love it all the more BECAUSE they didn't come up with something new!

Well, there's someone out there who'd make a killer Batman/Superman comic. He doesn't have the money to pay for Warner's license(if they'd even let him), and he can't work there. Is he different from Zack Snyder?

Maybe someone out there is just starting in music, and has a great idea for a cover of Stevie Wonder's Superstitious. What's the difference between him and Coolio?

And maybe there's a breakaway game designer waiting to make a game reuniting the unsung heroes of defunct games from the 80s for a final game. Is he different from Nintendo, who knew that using popular characters instead of new ones would result in a more appealing (and profitable game)?


We've made existing works profitable enough to dominate the box offices and music charts for years, now. But that comes with an agreement that, you know, those works eventually  should become public domain. Hopefully  before 2019.




E) This companies don't care about you

I get royalties, they get the REAL Money.

Disney made Mulan. We say that, like Disney is a person, and Mulan is a chicken dinner. People made Mulan. Animators put effort into making the characters the Character Designers made move fluidly and with grace. Colorists gave it a beautiful pastel palette. A director whose name is not atop the movie's billboard guided the voice actors to express the emotions the scriptwriter wanted. And guess what? Most of those where only payed once.

Once the artists have built the centerpiece, Disney begins to build commercialism around it. Mulan toys which the character designer won't see any money from. Mulan Backpacks, which exploit the palette the colorists put into it, without liking it. And a live action remake, which the director, scriptwriters and actors who made the original likeable won't be getting paid for. And all this built around an old chinese poem from the public domain.

These laws aren't about you, guy who's trying to be an upstart. You're about as well covered as you're gonna get.  It's about THEM, enormous corporations who rule certain mediums and want to continue ruling them. They've been working together so long, they don't even understand the concept of  actually competing, and it fucking scares them.

So I hope this answered your questions. If you're gonna take away anything from this is that we need to seriosly look at our copyright, how works, what is it purpose, change the parts that aren't working. Is that so wrong?

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Talking points: Return the Stolen

YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR. I mean, I assume. For all I know you might be a car thief of some sort. I wouldn't have any way of knowing, and frankly if the car does not belong to me and mine, I can't muster up any significant rage.

But we all remember that campaign, right? Where stealing  a handbag is exactly like having a movie's copy without paying for it? We had a good laugh  while we waited for these unskippable ads to get the hell out of our way and let us see our legal copy of District 9. After all, even if you don't know that the Supreme Court doesn't consider copyright infringment "theft" the differences between helping yourself to someone's only car and you having a movie which operates outside of the allowances of the owner is sufficiently large to give it some thought.

But what about the opposite? When early in the Year Boingboing reported on yet another sad Public Domain day, many objected to the title's assertion that these works had been "stolen" by the copyright extention.  After all, these works weren't YOURS or MINE to begin with.  What has been stolen.

Now, obviously  I don't know the true intent of the author. But hear me out.

You might yet have some older living relatives. If that is the case, you might be in for an inheritance. Effective following the death of said relative, you might be legally entitled to receive a benefit from that person.

Now, let's say that the inheritance is a sizable amount of money, held in a bank. This bank is earning interest from this money, and it is on it's best interest to keep the money where it is. So, after the reading of the will is done, you expect  the money to exchange hands. But the bank begins using trickery to delay you from getting your money. and they manage to keep the inheritance from actually ocurring for 40 years.

But it's not really YOUR money. It's just a money you where going to have, and well, the bank liked it, and had the means to keep it. Who are you to say the bank STOLE your inheritance? They might have robbed you of having what you legally(if not morally) deserve, but is that really stealing something from you?

Yes. Yes it it. It is immoral and unethical to undermine a legal transfer of goods. The entertainment industry might have "legally" convinced congress that copyrights on works then older than a generation needed  to remain under copyright more time, but that doesn't make it not stealing. They stole our inheritance, one that was going to benefit everyone.

 There are many rationalizations out there for the 76 extension and the Sonny Bono Act.  And if you want to believe them, go ahead and say that it's just a happy coincidence that the major beneficiaries from these laws are the people who spent millions of  dollars trying to get them passed. But all I see is a constitution disregarded, and a world where the prosumer remains bound by laws designed by consumer.

But maybe you disagree? If it's not stealing, what is it?

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Joe vs the Nintendo

It seems weird to say, but we're still adjusting to the existence of the World Wide Web. Some of you where born to a world where connecting with everyone else via the internet is normal, but many, many more weren't, including the one who writes this piece. Even those working on the technology business just don't understand fully what is happening.

There's Let's Plays. You watch someone ELSE play a videogame. You know how I used to call that before the Internet? "Is it my turn yet?" However, I'm not surprised it's become somewhat popular and lucrative.

To make this a bit more grand than it probably is, you're not just playing a videogame with no interactivity, or watching cousin Joel hog all the  Super Mario World to himself, but rather  opening up a window to another person's mind, at the cost of nothing but  a bit of time.

Nintendo, and other companies with similar minds, don't think that's something you should be able to do, without paying them.  In concordance with Youtube, and under the ever widening umbrella of our copyright, Nintendo totally expects those who monetize videos of themselves playing Nintendo games to cut them a bit of the share, or kiss those videos goodbye.

A Let's Play is not a "Performance" or a "Reproduction". It's a documentation of an event. Nintendo should not be the ones  earning money from that. That's fair use!

Other companies, such as Capcom , have taken a different approach: taking down negative  discussions of their videogames by flagging videos for copyright. Youtube has a pretty strict "Better safe than sorry" policy regarding copyright, and that makes it an ordeal to finally prove that, yes, their video is a Fair Use video.

And people get angry with Youtube's way of handling copyright, which includes automatic scanning of videos for copyrighted content. But can you blame them? They're the world's most used video hosting site. According to current law, if they where to be sued for enabling the distribution of copyrighted content, they'd be facing  a loss of thousands of dollars FOR EACH COUNT, without mention of the court costs.  Now multiply that by all the videos being put on Youtube that contain copyrighted content NOT made by the poster, and you can see how it could bring the whole thing down. They MAY or may not want to side with the Angry Joes of the world, but they certainly can't afford it.

The law was not made for this. The law was not made thinking that one day a recording of yourself playing a videogame might be something  people would be able to monetize.  That I understand. What I don't understand is how companies who live and breath digital technology fail to embrace this new  cultural dynamics as a feature, and not as a bug.  Will "cutting a check to Nintendo" catch on? Time will tell.

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5 weird uses of public domain on gaming

Well, how am I gonna go ahead if I don't mention Knights of the Round every few posts?

As my Game jam aproaches, I think more on these stories and characters that so influenced the gaming landscape. Sure, some like Castlevania and God of war do the obvious and pull familiar names and concepts for you to murder.

But that's not always the case. That's why I present you the 5 weirdest use of Public Domain material in games.

Sonic and the Black Knight

Pulling it off is easy.

The Blue Blur realized awhile ago that it was wasting it's time. Sonic has at times been a plumber, a doctor and a hotel manager. Sonic, though let himself get typecast as a hedgehog.

And so, he went off in the search of a new, marketable Identity. Which is how he ended in Camelot for Sonic and the Black Knight.

As a fish out of water in the Arthurian myth times, Sonic must Hack and slash in a world he never knew,in which not only did swords get jammed in rocks to decide who is king, but also the usual characters from lore such as Lancelot were now played by his friends/enemies.

Is this the fan fickiest shit you've ever seen or what?

It seems like a strange choice, I admit. The Sonic Fan in me hates it for not being Sonic 2, but the realist in me loves that isn't Sonic 2.

Dr Jeckyl and MR Hyde

NOT THE HEAD-BITE!

The story of Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde is one that makes sense for a game if you think about it. Drinking something to become an unstoppable monster? That's already an established formula!

The game, though, is not remembered for making sense. The good Doctor must traverse a world full of minor inconveniences, which trigger his rage and make him turn into his evil alter ego.

You just got hustled for a wad of cash, tell me what you gonna do? Act a Fool!

Sadly, the game is even more remembered for  sucking and giving the AVGN material.

Cthulu saves the world

"PART OF YOUR WOOOOOOORLD!"

The works of HP Lovecraft hold a special place in nerddom, especially Octopus Faced Cosmic Monstrocity Cthulu.

Appearing in games from high profile to obscure, there's certainly an interest in using the Great Old One as an antagonist. But one game asked the right question: what if Cthulu was the hero?

"YES, GODDAMNIT, YOU ALREADY SAW THAT EPISODE OF ANCIENT ALIENS!"

So this indie RPG casts you as the nightmare monster, as he, as expected, has to save the world in order to be able to destroy it. You guys can tell me if it's great or no.

Earth Worm Jim 2

What's the russian word for "Groovy!"?

Oh, you don't remember public domain stuff in EWJ2? Well, maybe your ears weren't paying attention. Earthworm Jim uses several songs from the public domain. Funiculi, Funicula for one, is a famous Italian opera I presume  is not an ode to the art of catching puppies.

But perhaps more pointedly, Tchaikovsky's '1812 Overture is used in the stage "Jim is now a blind cave salamander" which the titular hero becomes...err, you know.

Well, it could always be worst. This could be Clayfighter.

Besides the obvious asspull that the hero annelid is now a hero reptilian, and how nard crunchingly hard the level could feel, the most memorable part of it was the calm, soothing music, and how much weirder it made the whole thing.

You see, modernly, a lot of folks would have told Tommy Tallarico to just make his own damn music (or, implicitely, to go licence the Tchaikovsky song to whoever owns it). But that's the thing: the maker FELT like this pd song fit this moment, and was empowered to use it.

Mortal Kombat vs DC universe.

"If you hear a lightening, run and be a frightening, because here's a teenager that can tear you in half!"

Oh, you didn't know? There's a public domain character in a Mortal Kombat game! No it's not Santa.

I'm talking about Captain Marvel. NOT Captain Mar-Vell, Monica Rambeaux, or Carol Danvers, the original Big Red Cheese, Captain Marvel.

You see, it's a long story, but before Dc had to rename him Shazam, Cap Marvel was a Fawcett comics character. One day the company went under, not in little part thanks to litigation from DC. Dc swooped in and bought the company...all wrong.

You see, DC bought, or so they say, the physical place Fawcett comics was in, but not the assets. This means that DC had the physical original drawings that made up the first Captain Marvel Comic, but not the rights to the works themselves, which means that Cappy (as well as others that never fought Scorpion, so who cares) and his friends started slowly slipping into the public domain.

They got wise and stopped it just before Black Adam got into the mix, but by then it was too late. That means that Captain Marvel, Billy Batson,  the Shazam family up to and including Freckles Marvel belong to all us.*

YOU CAN'T MAKE YOURS HAVE THE RAGE! WE CAME UP WITH THAT!

Essentially all his traits in MKvsDC come from the PD version, albeit his appearance and moves like holding and Shazaming people come from DC's stories.  Later on Midway died, got revived and bought by WB under a different name, and they made Injustice, Gods Among Us, which included Shazam. He's got a little redesign and they finally gave up on him being Captain Marvel (and I guess Mary Marvel is now Mary Shazam, right?)

This is...actually not your father's Captain Marvel.

Altered Beast

Zack Gilliafanakis Looking fit next to Adrien Brody.

Oh , you remember this one, don't you? Two burly bros from the ancient times have to rise from their graves, to knock the snot out of assorted undeads and monsters, eventually ditching their homoerotic human forms to become homoerotic  anthros.

What's from the public domain? The setup. Athena, Greek Goddess of Wisdom, can't stay out of trouble, and gets captured by a Wizard. Naturally Zeus, Almighty God of Olympus, sends two guys to rescue her. You still get some Goddess on Furry action at the end, though.

"I'd rather give my daughter away to this buff werewolf than get off my lazy ass"-Zeus

Sure, you don't need Zeus and Athena into a story like this to get it going. It's basic rescue the princess shit. But it's still somewhat interesting and weird how they got that going on, and made your characters have no emotional attachment to the lady in question.

King of Fighters/Athena

I hope I'm this modest in EVERY future representation of me.

Similarly, you don't need  Greek Myths to explain why a schoolgirl can shoot fire from her mittens in a fighting game. But in this case it's special.

Athena, wearing a red bikini and purple hair. Are YOU gonna tell a chick gave birth to herself what she can and can't wear?

 Athena once again shows up, in a little known SNK game of her namesake, where she falls down a hole in Heaven and has to fight badguys.

But as things tend to happen in SNK land, it all came to end in SNK's endless crossover series The King of Fighters. There her descendant, Athena Asimiya(first name/last name?), became a mainstay in it. However, Real Athena did show up a few times.

"You see? There, clothes, boom, sexism is over."

Good or bad, weird or serious, the Public Domain has enrichened videogames since the beggining. Perhaps, soon, we can help videogames return the favor in kind?

*But first someone would have to challenge DC's unfounded claim that it still has ownership of the character. Could it be YOU? Also, Captain Marvel, Billy Batson, and Shazam are trademarked, so avoid using those names in promotion or as the title of your work, if yeh know what's good for y'all.

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