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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