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As noted a few days ago, many notable works from the 1920s have ascended to the public domain in the US this year, as of New Year's Day. Cartoon Brew asks, What Happens When 'Steamboat Willie' Hits The Public Domain In 2024? and briefly covers a bit of what the public is set to gain. Notably, the earliest iteration of Mickey Mouse will enter the public domain then as a result.
Assuming that 17 U.S.C. §§ 108, 203(a)(2), 301(c), 302, 303, 304(c)(2) is not modified yet again, be sure to observe the difference between trademarks and copyright.
Previously:
(2022) 2023's Public Domain is a Banger
(2022) Digitization Wars, Redux
(2022) Public Domain Day 2022
(2021) Public Domain Day in the USA: Works from 1925 are Open to All!
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What Happens When ‘Steamboat Willie’ Hits The Public Domain In 2024?
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The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey.
-- Andy Warhol
(Score: 5, Insightful) by turgid on Tuesday January 03, @09:57AM (8 children)
They'll extend copyright another 20 years.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Tuesday January 03, @10:12AM (7 children)
I doubt they'll get away with it another time. However in this case it won't matter because the character in Steamboat Willie isn't anything like the current Mickey Mouse. It wasn't until The Band Concert in 1935 that we got the current colour scheme, and even then it's still not quite the current version, although reasonably close.
So they've got more than ten years to work on something.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 03, @11:41AM (5 children)
Why not? They got away with it the first time. Nobody involved was punished in any way. Just like 19 years ago, there's extensive lobbying paid for by a handful of giant copyright owners including the Mouse, and basically no money behind protecting the public domain.
They'll do it, and there won't be much by way of opposition.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by canopic jug on Tuesday January 03, @12:58PM (4 children)
The difference is that at the moment, in retribution for "woke" politics, approximately half of congress is dead set against anything Disney proposes. US Senator Hawley, representing Missouri, even proposed a bill specifically targeting Disney [senate.gov]. Sadly that's piggybacking the subject of copyright to completely unrelated politics and is preventing reform from getting the attention it deserves. Worse, approximately half are going to end up dead set on the side of the heinous copyright extension simply because it has been tied to an unrelated topic which they favor.
See Republicans took away Disney’s special status in Florida. Now they’re gunning for Mickey himself [latimes.com] at The Los Angeles Times and Disney's Mickey Mouse Copyright in Republican Crosshairs Over LGBTQ Stance [newsweek.com] at Newsweek. It's unfortunate that confgress is mixing up unrelated topics and not taking on copyright reform as a topic of its own. It certainly deserves more attention in and of itself.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 03, @01:40PM (1 child)
And I'm certain those vaunted principles will be worth a significant amount of money to those in Congress who know full well how their bread is buttered.
I know about the anti-woke rhetoric. I also know that when push comes to shove, money has a way of greasing the wheels in Washington.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by canopic jug on Tuesday January 03, @01:52PM
Yeah, the whole thing could be a combination of grandstanding for a specific target audience while giving a strong hint to Disney and co that more money would be appreciated. When it comes down to it, it is nearly always the money which determines the outcome of not just the elections but the decisions made by the politicians while in office.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday January 03, @05:24PM (1 child)
> certainly deserves more attention in and of itself.
Yes! I feel however, that copyright issues have been forced to take a back seat to more urgent problems, that being pulling our politics back from the brink. That a US President, empowered by mobs of the violent, predatory, cruel, bigoted, unfair, and stupid, actually tried a coup and is today nearly 2 years later still free though we keep hearing that he's in Big Trouble, has diverted a lot of attention that was needed elsewhere. He still has way too many supporters. One of the most enraging things about the situation is that it was all so unnecessary. To allow such assholes to get that far in acting out their dark fantasies in which they murder the Vice President, Speaker of the House, half of Congress, and anyone else who gets in their way, to save the world from non-existent, invented threats that were drummed up for purposes of ratings and excuses, is a huge failure of national leadership. It should never have happened, and it wouldn't have happened had the politicians not been so craven about stopping the chief authoritarian when they had the chance. But it did happen, making the problem twice as bad. Now we have yet more work to do to clean up that mess.
There are a lot of interconnections, however. For instance, to the extent that copyright impedes education and research, it contributes to the problem of extremism. Poor health could be another factor driving people towards extremism, and the US health care system is notoriously greedy. It's harder to think clearly when you're hurting or sick. Meanwhile, in the back, the problem of Global Warming gets bigger and worse. That too is connected-- there's research showing that the term "hot tempered" to mean one prone to anger and violence, and "heated argument" to mean an argument that is on the edge of turning into a fist fight or other physical confrontation, is not a purely invented expression that has no connection to the meaning of the component words, hot temperatures really do make people more hot tempered.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04, @07:31AM
The problem is that there is not one single thing he said in that speech that some other politician hasn't said, usually in an even more inflammatory way. "We will Fight!", "We won't give in", "We'll win this", "Take the fight to Congress". It's all rhetoric that every politician uses.
You can argue that Drumpf actually meant it, but there's no way to prosecute him for speech without also greenlighting prosecuting almost every other politician for their speech. It's why two years later there still is no prosecution, and despite the constant noise there never will be.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday January 03, @07:27PM
Talking of which, Steamboat Fatty [wikipedia.org].
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].