#ooc

I like copyright protection. I just think that it also should have a limit.

Yeah, that's what I remember from when I took Law and the Arts back in the 80s.

i'm not sure that their great great great GRANDKIDS should be a factor

Nobody here is arguing for no copyright protection whatsoever.

And I'm REALLY against modern Day Corproate Welfare

And yet, if the property was created by the corporation to begin with, then it has the right to the protection. Not a fan, but I think that's reasonable.

Anne Rice did a reinterpretation of Sleeping Beauty that is NOT "G".

But not perpetual.

Artificial people don't create, they hire people to create for them.

But that's my grumble

Oh, my 'favorite' is the Outlander lady.

Her scotsman is a rip-off of a Dr Who companion. She even named him Jamie!

I don't see why we currently have Corprorate Copyrights lasting LONGER than real people opyrights

She aggressively harrasses fan fiction writers, even though they are not, in fact, making any profit from it.

Corporations scream "For the artists" but the people they hired to make it aren't the ones raking in the profits

Well, if the employees of the Corporation agreed to corporate ownership of their product....

Still no justification for perpetual copyright

And I've never seen Outlander, but I think Doctor Who chose the name Jamie for the Scotsman character because it's a stereotypical Scots name...not sure how much it's a rip-off after that point.

heck, you talk about derivative - see also: studios releasing terrible movies to maintain rights on the characters. (cough Fantastic Four cough)

I think you have to provide copyright protection, to protect the artist, and to entice corporations yes.

I think what's worse is when Corps buy rights to stories and then SIT on them.

But not perpetual or even good as perpetual

They use the character to make a new work - Mickey in Mickey's 2019 Adventure - then Mickey's 2019 Adventure is THEIRS until 2119. Even if the abstract "Mickey" isn't.

Oh yes

Like when Stormy Daniels sold the rights for her story, and then the publisher sat on it so it couldnt be released, Shades?

And prevent others from making art with those properties

Yes.

Movie studios do it too.

hence why public domain is important. MegaFoxParaDream can't stop somebody from making a film of The Great Gatsby

Or making a bad fantastic four movie to keep it slipping back to Marvel Disney like Fox did 😉

Yep.

Or a ton of neglected works - ones that have been bought up, or ones where the copyright holders/the heirs are not interested in negotiating at all

sigh I can't keep up with this convo and the RP, so forgive me if I bow out of this one.

There are orphan works - things not in the public domain, that you still can't "get," legally

sorry

And these dreams fade. Because some things aren't used, but are sat on... wonderful creations ...poems forgotten, characters faded, paintings you never see. What's meant to be 'protecting the artist' becomes Cultural Erasure

Annd understood. I just wish I were more eloquent. There are college professors who explain the dangers of the Sony Bono act better than I could

How much is that "sitting on" actually happening, though, and how much of it is a hypothetical?

It's actually pretty significant. A lot of focus is on the "big name" properties, the famous ones - but, like, archival footage and photos from WWII are moldering because of limits on reproduction. It is the small works who suffer more.

Plays that fall out of publication because of copyright tangles, books that cease to be published.

I guess...I look at it through a sort of Changeling context. Limited access increases glamour.

Mickey and other corporate properties are safe, because trademark doesn't expire as long as it is in current use

I know from experience how... messy... rights are for early 20th C plays. You can find the scripts, physical copies of the play, but then you have to fight for performance rights.

And if you have the MONEY to fight , you might win, but that's a big If

We had to give up on a play because the playwright had recently died and the daughter was unreachable

(an in Ireland. Elderly, and without a phone. No, I'm not kidding.)

Big properties are less likely to be squashed - easier to find Arthur Miller than Ernst Toller.

I've gone through similar things, I get it, but I don't necessarily think that it's wrong. Inconvenient, sure...but not necessarily wrong.

But that doesn't mean Toller doesn't have merit. And orphan rights mean fewer old gems get rediscovered or reinterpreted. There is merit in "derivative" work - like Anouilh's "Antigone." We remix and retell stories to fit the times, we build new from the old.