Because public domain doesn't engender a lot of sympathy, I
have decided to compile some answers to a lot of doubts people often
have. I don't know if
people actually feel like this, or if it's industry shills going around, but I think it's high time I addressed them.
I mean we're four years away from 2019. Copyrights have been extended for 40 years. Let's talk about this without emotionalisms.
Do you think you have a right to other people's rightful properties?
I don't think so, I know so. But so do YOU!
"Entitled"
is a term that is often used to describe those that want shorter
copyright. After all, why should we have access to something we didn't
create?
But the thing is, we DO have a right. The American Constitution, not me, says that
copyright exists for a limited time.
Limited does not factor in if the guy made money in his lifetime, or if
he doesn't want his works turned into a proto punk furry porn opera or
if the guys made money from his work afterward aren't his kin. Limited
means it should end at some point.
But Big
Entertainment doesn't think it should end at "some point", therefore
they got congress to unconstitutionally stretch the duration of works.
Look, here's some graphics explaining it.
 |
| I thought of showing the ref getting his payola far too late. |
But what if an author doesn't make any money in the first x amount of years?
The
idea here is basically we're supposed to to feel empathy for the poor
struggling author. "Don't you want authors to get payed" is supposed to
be followed by "yes, goddamn it, and the only way to make sure is to
extend copyright 200 years more, woohoo!"
But here's
the thing: this art/creation/invention thing is NEVER gonna be a sure
thing. For every Batman that makes billions in comics, movies, cartoons,
videogames and halloween costumes, there's thousands of
Moongirls, whose owners just kind of forget, to ever bring out.
For
this works(the majority), being wrapped up in red tape for almost 100
years or more is a lose lose situation. The work just sits there
unused, it doesn't make anybody any money, but nobody can use it,
unless the author released the work themselves.
Intellectual
property is just as much property as physical property, and a work
going to public domain is like the government stealing your house from
you. What you own can't be taken away, right?
Intellectual property is not physical property, at least not like a house. It's more like...air.
Air
is something that, except for scuba divers and birthday balloons, is
available enough that there is little need to hoard it. On the surface
of the planet there is enough oxygen for us humans as well as
cockroaches and giraffes and dung beetles. Only a truly spiteful god
would insist that air should belong only to the plants that produce
oxygen for 90 years so they can charge for it as they will. Most plants
don't live that long.
But we want there to be more
plants, because we just can't get enough of that wonderful Oxygen. So we
give plants a break: we won't eat all their fruits, and rip out all
their flowers, and chew on all their roots for a time, so we can have
more plants.
As we have more plants, we can start
eating the older plant's fruits. We can pick their flowers and chew
their roots. They have fulfilled their purpose.
Well
copyright is just that. We want more artists creating, inventors
inventing, philosophers philosophizing and song writers twerking, so we
say "for a time, we will subdue our urge and, indeed, our RIGHT to take
something as intangible as the works of a mind, and duplicate it, remake
it, remix it, retell it, to give you creators a break, so that ALL of
us can eventually see the benefits. We just want the air. That's why we
held off."
The differences between a house and a song
should be obvious. A house that you no longer have rights to cannot be
inhabited freely by you. You can no longer do in the house as you see
fit. But obviously, it has a limited amount of people it can fit.
A
song you have no rights to is a song anyone can sing, play, be
reproduced by anyone. That includes you. It doesn't fit any normal
definition of stealing.
Also, If you truly believed
Public domain works are a form of theft, ethically you'd need to not
participate in any of them. Hands up if you've ever said "I'm not
watching if Bram Stoker's heirs aren't making money." "I'd be stealing
to watch Les Miserables!" "I can't watch Pride and Prejudice, the
original author didn't authorize."
What a mighty fine
thing, to rebuke the thief while spending his loot! If you don't
consider enjoying the spoils of the public domain tree stealing, then
don't treat if falling into pd as theft.
Why can't you come up with your own stuff, you lazy assholes?
This
is a fairly common one. After all, original works are highly valued,
while derivative works are the devil's clogged, overflowing toilet.
Okay,
first of all, originality isn't just in making brand new characters and
stories. I thought the Avengers was pretty original, even though every
one of it's characters is older than me.
 |
| Statistically, you hadn't been born when this happened. |
So when characters are copyrighted we beg
Marvel and DC to make them into movies and TV shows and games. We
swallow up adaptations of A Song of Fire and Ice, The Walking Dead and
many more. We get excited for the third remake of the adaptation of a c
omic from the 80's, and a new version of a
toy commercial from our youths, in movie form.
But when somebody says it'd be nice if they went public domain eventually, the same people turn around and ask everyone else if
can't make something new.
So
let's not do that. Let's not say only lazy people want to work off of
Tolkien's books, then rush off to pay for a LOTR MMORPG. Let's not say
"just make a NEW Superhero" only to bemoan how Wonder Woman isn't
getting a proper movie, or her costume sucks, or is a Thin Israeli
instead of a Muscly Greek( or a Thick Turk? I'm not sure what Amazons
actually were). That's the result of "WB can make with Wonder Woman as
it see fit."
Obviously there is financial value in
owning a recognizable character, because otherwise there wouldn't be
talks of remaking Highlander and Short Circuit. But here's my beef: the
handful of companies that own your favorite shit have nothing to fear
from Johnny Fanfiction and Suzie Kickstarter. They own tv channels,
Radio Stations, Game Develpment houses. Copyright is supposed to keep
you from giving up the creative world because everyone is copying you as
soon as your work is done. Are you really gonna tell me Best Geek
Ever's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a serious concern for Viacom when
they have a whole arm of channels and all I have is a fuckin' blog
that we have to award them "only game in town" status FOREVER, too?
But what if they turn my(or my favorite) work into porn?
This
could be fit under the wider banner of "what if they turn an author's
work into something they hate?" Like when WB did Alan Moore all wrong,
or like when Hitchcock was locked out the editing room. Something like
that but now that it's public domain, it's somehow badder.
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| Or like when Alan Moore turned public domain characters into porn, My head hurts. |
But I guess we hate porn now, huh? Ok
fine. What would happen if you make a well known work, it becomes public
domain, and you get to see your work become porni-sized?
I'll
answer the question with a question: what work currently in the public
domain is more known for the porn version than the real? Which anything
that has a porn version the porn version is more known than the real?
None.
Porn is fairly forgettable and underground. Axel Braun's superhero
porn parodies aren't getting on SuperheroHype's news page, that's for
sure.
If you're a fan of a work and don't want there to
be porns of it, bad news, kimosabe. If it's big enough, there's
probably porn of it. From E.T. to to the Room. From Mickey to
Dangermouse. From Robocop to The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo. Porn,
bitch. Porn, motherfucker. That is our current world, where long
copyrights reign, and we charge kids who download mp3s thousands in
fines. The world where we travel halfway across the world to arrest Kim
Dotcom.
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| It's besides the point that your drawings of Jason fucking Freddy aren't competing with any official ones. |
You, see, for the companies that own these works,
"the dignity of the work" and "the artists original intentions and
vision" are not the matters that keep them up at night.
And
finally the answer would be, get over it. American copyright laws
aren't there to protect you from hurt feelings. Why talk such big game
about freedom of speech and so on, if we're gonna wimp out as soon as
other people express themselves in ways we find objectionable?
It'll just lead to everyone making Batman works and nobody doing nothing else, you know?
The
thinking, here is that a work being superpopular and public domain
would wind creating a great super-saturation of said work's derivatives.
I use Batman as an example because he's pretty popular and at 75
years, frankly should have lapsed years ago. But you can substitute him
for Mickey, Superman, Harry Potter or the Ninja Turtles.
First of all, that's kinda the point. While copyright exists on a work, it removes competition from the originator. Like this.
But we all know competition is the spice of quality, and if we had everyone be able to work on the same work...
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| Asylum WOULD Present Batman, like ALL the time. |
...the market would determine which is best. The
market probably can't handle INFINITE Batman, thought, and I'm sure
eventually it'd subside.
How bad could it get? Well,
zombies are a good example. They went public domain decades ago. While
since there's hardly been a LACK of zombie happy works, there also
wasn't a year where we only had zombie movies, games, and cartoons and
songs.
And what would WB do in the face of such
competition? Well, coming up with new stuff seems like a solid plan.
After having worked on Batman for so many years, they should have a
reasonable advantage by 1995, and the new competition should force them
to up their game.
And further, works further enriching
the public domain would provide greater and greater possibilities. You
guys are all excited for Batman v Superman and Avengers: Age of Ultron.
In a world of reasonable copyright, both could have been a single movie,
and be released in 2005.
In a world of reasonable
copyright, we could totally have a Wonder Woman movie written by Gail
Simone and Directed by Lauren Faust. And Capcom can continue to use
Spider-Man in fighting games, even if Marvel would rather make it's own
fighting games.
Sure, we might see some uninspired shit
based on these works. But having Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies is a small
price to pay for playing Resident Evil.
 |
| Oh, my childhood! |
You just want free/cheaper stuff, you cheap bastards!
Maybe. I can't talk for everyone, but who doesn't like free shit? I wished I had millions of dollars to buy
pop culture icons wholesale ,
but until then I'm left with in the dishonorable position of making new
stuff... or waiting until stuff falls into the public domain so I can
take a stab at it. I've already done it and plan to, in the future, do
it again. So maybe.
But why is that greedy, though?
It's not like I want Batman all for myself. How come wanting works to be
widely available in libraries and online, legitimately for anyone is
greed, but fucking hording copyrighted works for 100 years is ok?
And
this is about more than me wanting pop culture. Books on nature,
technology, philosophy and history are being kept from being looked at,
while American education languishes. These works could be made available
to our young underprivileged that need it.
There are
works withering away, that nobody can save from disappearing forever
because they're copyrighted. Are we really gonna stand here and say
those are acceptable losses, and that making money off of the long dead
takes priority over keeping the long dead's words and art alive for
future generations?
It's not a debate about whether
the public domain should exist at all, but you'd be forgiven for
believing it so, as the current length and the last two extensions have
blasted the public domain into basically not including anything from the
19th century.
What IS under debate is...
How long should Copyright be?
This
is one that's been going on for literally hundreds of years(but not too
many hundreds. 300 at most). Amongst people that do think over 75 is
too long, there isn't a consensus. I've seen some say 30, 20, 15. Some
even shoot for single digits or say that there should be no copyrights
at all.
Personally, I feel the old 56
maximum duration was fine, and I'd go for that. But instead of having
to re-register every 23 years, you have to reregister every 10 or so,
with an accompanying fee.
Why? Well, if you really want
the US Government to spend the people's tax dollars on going after the
Megauploads and Napsters and Shareazas of life, you have to pay
SOMETHING. What, do you think copyrights just protect themselves?
Also,
it would prevent media from just becoming a game of "who can buy more."
It would force companies to consider if they really want to own that
IP, instead of forcing them to own the IP.
But what if an artist makes something something and it doesn't become profitable in that amount of time?
Ok,
are there any examples like that? Author gives up on work, reaps
rewards 50 years later? Is that a thing that happens that often, that
the whole law must be geared toward that?
Because if
we're gonna make the law based on what actually happens, then most
works make most of their profit within a 5 year margin. and the most
sensible copyright durations would be
14 years.
In
either case, copyright is supposed to protect you enough that you keep
creating, not maintain your shitty ass half a century spanning business
model. What, if the creator can't create without getting blown, are we
suppose to get them a girl, too?
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| It wasn't supposed to be Shakes. It just happened. |
Why so much whining about stuff that never belonged to you?
Here's
my beef with long copyright: If it was JUST that it's 95 years, and
that we don't get stuff our own grandfathers enjoyed, I'd be okay. I'm
not particularly interested in doing my own Mickey Mouse shit.
But when I realised that they had gamed the system to actively deny us of any work lapsing, I snapped.
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| "Also, I suggest staying away from the tobaco." |
It's like we were supposed to receive an
inheritance, but then the bank earning interests on the money decided
to delay the reading of the will for 40 years. If you won't call it
robbing you
of the money, you can probably call it things like "unethical",
"fucking underhanded", "extremely greedy", "unjust". And we're supposed
to just sit here like stupid idiots and say "well, that's the law, and
the bank is big and we're little"
Not so. An I'm certainly not just gonna wait until they do it again!
I
was not born before the 76 extension. There was nothing I could do. I
was a boy during the Sonny Bono act of 98. I didn't even know what
copyright was. There was nothing I could do. But if I can do something
now, I will. I won't let my children go through the same thing.
