[HN Gopher] Winnie the Pooh to Enter the Public Domain in 2022
___________________________________________________________________
Winnie the Pooh to Enter the Public Domain in 2022
Author : gscott
Score : 121 points
Date : 2022-01-01 04:46 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (comicbook.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (comicbook.com)
| ddtaylor wrote:
| It seems like just yesterday he became President of China but
| it's been almost 9 years!
| More-nitors wrote:
| hm I guess he's already a PUBLIC figure anyway... now he's
| officially public-public!
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| " _Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic
| tangents._ "
|
| (especially the most shallow and common kind)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| backspace_ wrote:
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| It's New Year's Day, man. Everyone's fucked up right now.
| Chill. :)
| ddtaylor wrote:
| It will be interesting to see if there is an increase in Pooh
| memes about Xi. I mean, to be clear, there are already so
| many it's hard to envision an increase, but somehow I believe
| the Internet can do it.
|
| Also, if calling Xi a cartoon character upsets you I suggest
| NOT doing Internet.
| backspace_ wrote:
| And those memes are just as bad as your "joke"
|
| If someone criticizing your low quality joke upsets you,
| maybe you need to find a better place to join that circle
| jerk.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| I can't believe that still copyrights last that long
| [deleted]
| merricksb wrote:
| This was a part of the discussion about works entering public
| domain 2 days ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29734933
| echelon wrote:
| The big question: what happens when Mickey Mouse enters public
| domain in 2024?
|
| Will people be able to make Mickey cartoons independent of and
| without the blessing of Disney? Will they be able to sell
| merchandise? Market themselves using the Mouse? Incorporate the
| character in their logos?
|
| Does this only apply to the "Steamboat Willie" version of Mickey?
| Can one use artistic license to get closer to modern Mickey
| without running afoul of modern copyright?
|
| Pooh is one thing, but Mickey going public domain will be
| monumental.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| So, there are some really weird cases that lead to very
| interesting lawsuits. Sherlock Holmes was involved in one: A
| derivative was made based on early books becoming public
| domain, and the estate sued them because they felt aspects of
| his character shown in the derivative work wasn't actually
| added until a later book which was not yet in the public
| domain.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/25/21302942/netflix-enola-ho...
|
| Which is to say, if you happen to put a red shirt on your Pooh
| rip-off, it's very likely Disney can, and will, sue you. This
| alone means that if you want to adapt Pooh (or Steamboat
| Willie), you probably need to go a very different direction
| than Disney has, such that the character is not likely to be
| recognizable as the same.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| The Sherlock Holmes case is the one I was reminded of as
| well. With such high impact fictional characters it took
| years, spread over a range of published works, to establish
| the quintessence and backstory people know them by now (not
| that Mickey Mouse has many redeeming qualities beyond being
| instantly recognizable).
|
| That said, I'm looking forward to a potential noir detective
| reimagining of Pooh. I hope they don't do the zombie thing
| though; that feels overdone by now.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Less than you think: I can't remember the report, but Disney
| said the Pooh franchise had four times as much revenue as
| Mickey Mouse at least in recent years.
| kibwen wrote:
| AFAIK Disney still has a trademark on Mickey Mouse, which will
| last as long as Disney successfully continues to enforce it;
| losing the ability to control the reproduction of Steamboat
| Willie doesn't lose them that trademark. (IANAL)
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Trademark and copyright are separate. So it's legit to stand
| outside of Disneyland selling Blu-rays of Steamboat Willie, but
| there are still limitations on how you can use the _character_
|
| Some level of remixing/reediting the movie is probably OK, but
| I'm not sure where the line gets drawn
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Will people be able to make Mickey cartoons independent of
| and without the blessing of Disney?
|
| Note that Mickey Mouse is trademarked and will undoubtedly
| still be trademarked come 2024.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| I believe that there's some disquiet about trademarks being
| used to essentially create an unlimited copyright on
| characters.
| electric_mayhem wrote:
| Disney has bought legislation to extend copyright term every
| time MM has been up for expiry.
|
| Do you have reason to believe history won't repeat itself this
| time?
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| The last time copyright was extended was in 1998. Copyright
| was considered a boring topic then, so no one but a few
| librarians cared about a copyright extension. The political
| landscape has changed since then. Organizations such as the
| EFF and even Google would present strong resistance to
| another extension of copyright.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| They have to balance the willingness of people to accept
| copyright as fair with the few benefits extending copyright
| even further would have. At this point the few bits of
| intellectual property that will become public domain are so
| few and mainly of historic interest, that a protracted
| lobbying attempt (which could fail) would do more harm to
| their brand than just defending trademarks and existing
| copyrighted works.
|
| I think the generally held view of the major content owners
| is that the current (absurdly protracted) limits are good
| enough.
| bruce511 wrote:
| Sucking a statistic out of thin air, I'd be amazed if you
| can get 1% of people to even be aware of copyright terms,
| much less feel politically motivated to spend political
| capital fighting Disney.
|
| It's the easiest lobbying in the world to extend copyright
| terms. There are waaay more important one-issue topics on
| the table than to worry about mickey mouse.
|
| If Disney wants to extend it, they will. And if they do
| there might be 15 seconds of bad press, then the next big
| story will come along...
| echelon wrote:
| Google and other tech companies exist now that would like
| to see copyright contracted.
|
| But maybe none of it matters anyway. As tech improves,
| the cost to create approaches zero.
| EarlKing wrote:
| > This only applies to the original works, and not to the
| subsequent adaptations and merchandise, which allows for Disney's
| incarnation of Winnie the Pooh to still be held under trademark
| by Disney.
|
| Oh bother.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Something similar happened with Sherlock Holmes, where IIRC the
| first two volumes of stories fell out of copyright, but the
| third volume was still copyrighted and using elements
| introduced there was forbidden.
|
| This is a terrible conceptual mistake on the part of copyright
| law.
| anjbe wrote:
| Yes, last year--erm, I mean in 2020--the Doyle estate sued
| Netflix for creating a movie in which Holmes shows emotion...
| they claimed:
|
| "Among other copied elements, the Springer novels [on which
| Netflix's film is based] make extensive infringing use of
| Conan Doyle's transformation of Holmes from cold and critical
| to warm, respectful, and kind in his relationships." [1]
|
| This is essentially the entire substance of the lawsuit: that
| creating a new sister character that Holmes felt affection
| for infringed on their copyright of a single passage in one
| of the later Doyle stories where Holmes expressed concern for
| Watson who had gotten shot.
|
| Netflix settled.
|
| [1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6956021-Sherlock.
| htm...
| vmilner wrote:
| The complaint reads:
|
| "When Conan Doyle came back to Holmes in the Copyrighted
| Stories between 1923 and 1927, it was no longer enough that
| the Holmes character was the most brilliant rational and
| analytical mind. Holmes needed to be human. The character
| needed to develop human connection and empathy."
|
| This seems surprising given:
|
| "I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my
| friends, and especially, my dear Watson, to you." - The
| Final Problem (1894)
|
| ""My dear Watson," said the well-remembered voice, "I owe
| you a thousand apologies. I had no idea that you would be
| so affected." - The Empty House (1903)
|
| "Upon my word, Watson!" said Holmes at last with an
| unsteady voice, "I owe you both my thanks and an apology.
| It was an unjustifiable experiment even for one's self, and
| doubly so for a friend. I am really very sorry.""You know,"
| I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen so much
| of Holmes's heart before, "that it is my greatest joy and
| privilege to help you." - The Devil's Foot (1910)
| unbanned wrote:
| I wonder... Is tax paid on these settlements?
| account-5 wrote:
| I think most of copyright law is a conceptual mistake seeing
| as it hardly serves the artists at all.
| anthropodie wrote:
| I think copyright laws should focus more on attribution to
| original creator rather than who is copying and whether
| they have paid or not.
| gambiting wrote:
| I think the biggest mistake is the assumption that if
| others were allowed to use your creation in their works,
| you would suffer in some way, that it would be taking money
| and/or fame from the original artist. I think it couldn't
| be further from the truth.
|
| For instance, look at Dmitri Glukhovsky and his Metro books
| - be basically allowed anyone to write any books placed
| within the same universe, still using the "Metro" logo and
| characters. Dozens of other books appeared, telling the
| tales of other metro systems elsewhere in the world and how
| they've dealt with the apocalypse - but the point is, all
| those other books have only increased the popularity of the
| original, and expanded it.
|
| The other good example, weirdly, was always Star Wars books
| - especially pre-Disney star wars was _very_ lenient with
| what stories could be told, and unless it was just straight
| up smut it would be allowed - as a result, star wars fans
| had hundreds(thousands?) Of books telling stories with
| their favourite characters and new ones but taking place in
| the universe they loved. Yes Lucas took a cut, but in
| general you could just write a book about Han Solo and it
| would be fine.
|
| That's how copyright _should_ work. Why not let other
| people tell stories with Pooh and the rest?
| OtomotO wrote:
| I totally and wholeheartedly agree with you.
|
| Here is the but: imagine someone were to publish a story
| set in your universe where suddenly the nazis took over
| and everyone liked it.
|
| This is an extreme point, but it's one reason not to
| allow everyone to use your trademark without prior
| asking. Because maybe you're not okay with that AND
| suddenly your a bit famous works are in the same pot with
| something you wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole aaaand
| your sales go down.
|
| Today's outrage culture could cancel you, even if you did
| nothing wrong.
|
| In a better universe I am all with you and I personally
| would feel honored and flattered if other people would
| use my created worlds for their works
| gambiting wrote:
| I think that's throwing the baby out with the bathwater -
| what _could_ happen should stop us? I mean, sure, but I
| somehow don 't think this is a real problem.
|
| Going back to my example - among those thousands of star
| wars books, there are some which are incredibly bad
| nowadays, sexist, racist, or just pure trash that came
| and went. I suspect its impact on the actual Star Wars
| the franchise was zero.
|
| >>Today's outrage culture could cancel you, even if you
| did nothing wrong.
|
| Maybe, but I don't want to live in a world where worrying
| about it restricts my choices. If someone wrote a book
| where the Pooh is now a dictator running a fascist
| hundred mile forest, and it somehow sold a million
| copies......then I'm going to laugh at the idiots calling
| for the original to be cancelled. They shouldn't be given
| any authority over this, outrage on twitter is cheap.
| OtomotO wrote:
| "what could happen should stop us" this is the base
| assumption for a lot of laws and compliance bullshit. So
| apparently, yes.
|
| Also, you don't want to live in such a culture. That is
| fine. You may create something beautiful and then
| "donate" it to the public domain.
|
| The choice is yours entirely.
|
| Again, as a consumer I totally understand where you're
| coming from. As a producer I would think differently
| (that's simply empathy though, I am not a successful
| producer)
| anjbe wrote:
| > aaaand your sales go down.
|
| Whatever valid arguments might exist to restrict speech
| through copyright, sales going down is not one of them.
| Otherwise you could lawfully prohibit negative reviews.
| OtomotO wrote:
| Sales going down by someone using your original
| world/characters in a way that is then deemed unpopular
| is definitely restricted/not possible in a world with
| enforceable Copyright.
|
| And that was my point, not sales going down on their own.
|
| Negative reviews have nothing to do with someone else
| being able to take e.g. James Bond and making him a
| homosexual or taking Conan the Barbarian and making him a
| woman or a sidekick etc.
|
| Drastic or even small changes can always be unpopular and
| affect the whole franchise. If said franchise is no
| longer under your control alone, this is an argument pro
| copyright from the viewpoint of a creator.
| anjbe wrote:
| The point is that sales don't factor into it in the first
| place. An infringing work could _increase_ sales, and the
| copyright holder would still have just the same rights.
| Think of anime fansubs--which effectively brought
| Japanese anime to mainstream popularity in the west, yet
| are still heavily cracked down upon by license holders,
| and always have been.
| OtomotO wrote:
| Yes, it could. That is why you, as the copyright holder,
| have the final say in the matter and may take the risk or
| not.
|
| Think about e.g. Warcraft. It was supposed to be a
| Warhammer game. The license was "revoked", so they spun
| up their own story/world and created a successful
| franchise.
|
| The thing is, I totally am opposed to copyright and
| patents, yet I can see where they are coming from and I
| can see reasons for them.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| The original concept of copyright was quite straightforward
| and the author held it for a very limited time. See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne.
|
| It is the later extensions that have perverted the concept.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| How is that the original concept of copyright? That article
| begins by saying this:
|
| > Prior to the statute's enactment in 1710, copying
| restrictions were authorized by the Licensing of the Press
| Act 1662. These restrictions were enforced by the
| Stationers' Company, a guild of printers given the
| exclusive power to print--and the responsibility to censor
| --literary works.
| Jon_Lowtek wrote:
| the original concept of copyright was to throw a bone to
| middle/upper class printers so that the proliferation of
| printing presses could be arbitrarily limited as the
| ability for anyone to print anything threatened the
| crone, the state and the upper class by printing
| revolutionary ideas.
|
| "Licensing of the Press" allowed to control who could
| print, by lawful threat of violence, and that enabled
| censorship of ideas. Copyright sweetened that deal to
| those who owned printing presses: enforcement of scarcity
| enabled a business model where good content could be kept
| expensive and money is funneled to the publisher who owns
| the exclusive right to make copies. For this they agreed
| to do censorship.
|
| The argument that copyright is a right of the content
| creators, who were mostly dependent on patrons, and that
| those creators could only be paid fairly by the
| publishers if their product was exclusive, was peddled
| back then and swayed some of the intelligentsia to
| support the concept, but this was not the core ideal. At
| the beginning copyright was about entrenching a small
| circle of collaborators, who got the right to copy, and
| violently removing the means of production of those
| printing revolutionary thoughts.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| We should make an IceBear fork!
| robin_reala wrote:
| Honestly, why would you bother with Disney's boring incarnation
| of Pooh when you've got Shepherd's original illustrations?
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| Because it's the one all kids know from books and TV. I
| wouldn't even know where to look for a book with the original
| illustrations (I mean, if I spent some time searching hard I
| guess I could, but that's not the point).
| mcv wrote:
| Finding a book with the original illustrations will be a
| lot easier once it's public domain.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Here you are: https://www.waterstones.com/book/when-we-
| were-very-young/a-a...
|
| Took less than 30 seconds.
| Ingaz wrote:
| For me it's: "why would yoy bother with Disney's boring
| incarnation of Pooh when you've got brilliant Soviet Winnie?"
|
| I'm serious. Try find it if you didn't saw it
| dubya wrote:
| May I recommend the audiobook version with Stephen Fry as
| Pooh, and an ensemble of other very talented actors? It's on
| Audible but your local library may have it on CD. I've heard
| it dozens of times by now and look forward to hearing it
| again sometime.
| [deleted]
| open-source-ux wrote:
| There is an alternative animated version of Winnie the Pooh
| made in Russia in 1969 by the director Fyodor Khitruk. Pooh
| is more lively than the Disney version - and has a very
| different character design to Disney (or Shepherd's original
| illustrations). To be fair to Disney, their Pooh design is
| closer to the spirit of Sherpherd's illustrations (but can't
| match the charm of Sherpherd's illustrations).
|
| " _When Khitruk visited the Disney Studios, Wolfgang
| Reitherman, the author of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery
| Day that won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Animated Short
| Film, told him that he liked the Soviet version better than
| his own._ " [1]
|
| _Winnie the Pooh (1969) in Russian with English subtitles_ :
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCXegrxlKbI
|
| [1] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-
| Pooh_(1969_film)
| xattt wrote:
| To give a sense of Russian "Vinny Pu", he was a pleasure to
| watch for kids and adults alike. There was a running
| commentary on everything that was happening around him. The
| fourth wall was occasionally broken.
|
| The closest equivalent to current television's programming
| is the Australian show Bluey.
| unbanned wrote:
| Sounds an awful lot like Yoshi
| irrational wrote:
| When Peter Pan entered the public domain, there was a plethora of
| new books reimagining the Peter Pan story. I look forward to see
| what will be coming out around these new books entering the
| public domain.
| cableshaft wrote:
| Board games too. There's several board games that are Cthulhu
| or Alice and Wonderland themed, for example, because those are
| in the public domain and no license fees are needed. I wouldn't
| be surprised if we start seeing several Winnie The Pooh themed
| games as well in a year or two.
|
| Coming out this year alone are two Alice in Wonderland themed
| games: Paint the Roses and Wonderland's War. Another old
| favorite is a simple card game called Parade.
|
| https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/253759/paint-roses
|
| https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/227935/wonderlands-war
|
| https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/56692/parade
| spoonjim wrote:
| There is already a great Winnie the Pooh prequel just out.
| deusum wrote:
| Proof that copyright and patents stifle innovation?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| For every good Winnie the Pooh story, there will be a
| hundred acres of bad stories and questionable-taste
| material made for it.
|
| Expect the furries to have lots of fun with this. Is that
| innovation? Things are always more nuanced than they
| appear.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > Is that innovation?
|
| Well, yes. People associate innovation with good new
| ideas, but the process inevitably involves a lot of bad
| ones.
| shash wrote:
| Of course it is!
|
| Look at fairy tales, Robin Hood stories or Aesop's
| fables. Not every adaptation is good, but every now and
| then, you end up with a classic.
|
| What's annoying is how often companies like Disney take a
| public domain work, make an interesting derivative and
| then turn around and lobby to make it impossible for
| their derivatives to enter the public domain. They did,
| after all, benefit from the same public domain...
| spoonjim wrote:
| The furries can and do write Winnie the Pooh stories
| today. Nobody will stop them because those stories didn't
| have any sizable income potential to begin with. They
| live on furry web sites that don't catch the attention of
| IP lawyers.
|
| What public domain enables is for-profit adaptations of
| Winnie the Pooh.
| Kaze404 wrote:
| Things you personally dislike are innovation as well.
| lettergram wrote:
| I'd argue potentially the opposite is true. Trying to
| figure out new ways of doing things and new stories likely
| lead to further innovation.
|
| That said it might not lead to the maximum benefits, but it
| should lead to the maximum diversity.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Proof that copyright and patents stifle innovation?
|
| Proof that forever-copyrights stifle innovation.
|
| It's a balance. No money and people who need to eat have to
| dig ditches instead of creating. A hundred years of
| monopoly when fourteen would have been enough and you're
| constraining third parties more than you're providing
| incentive to the original author.
| mlyle wrote:
| Yes, thank you.
|
| I do think the original 14 years is a trifle short. Maybe
| 14 years, with a cheap 14 year extension, and then one
| more very expensive 14 year extension. Then you can get
| long-lived film franchises, etc, while works that are
| commercially irrelevant enter the PD relatively soon.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| > No money and people who need to eat have to dig ditches
| instead of creating.
|
| Which is why no creative works exist from before the
| invention of copyright laws. Walk into any library,
| concert hall, art museum or theater and you won't find
| any works from before copyright.
|
| /s
| mlyle wrote:
| Sure, patronage systems worked on a small scale. I don't
| think they would work in our society.
|
| Yes, not all art or literature would stop, but the number
| of people who could pursue it as a profession would drop
| precipitously.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| The prequel was an authorized story, not related to the
| recent copyright expiration.
| tzs wrote:
| OT: does anyone here still have the ebook of Winnie the Pooh that
| Apple included for free in your library when you set up iBooks on
| an iPad?
|
| They included it from the launch of iBooks (now called Apple
| Books) in April 2010 until sometime in mid-2011. In mid-2011 it
| became a paid book for new iBooks users but remained in the
| libraries of existing users.
|
| I noticed a couple years or so ago that it was no longer in my
| library. I don't know when it disappeared because I only rarely
| use iBooks, but everything else I remember getting in that first
| year is still there.
|
| Checking my account for ebooks on the account that are not on my
| Mac, I don't see it, so it isn't the case that I somehow just
| happened to delete it from my Mac. Nor is it on the list of
| hidden books.
|
| I'd have expected that if Apple had deleted it from existing
| libraries when they lost the rights to give away free copies that
| would have made the news but I've found no mention of that. In
| fact, all I found was just the opposite--apparently there were
| people who didn't want it in their library and were having
| trouble figuring out how to get rid of it! [1].
|
| [1] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-do-i-delete-
| winnie-...
| KANahas wrote:
| I've still got my copy... interestingly enough though, it
| appears as several volumes now, of which only the first is
| free. The others are $9.99. IIRC it used to only be one book.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| This conversation's hard to follow, esp w/ all the IANAL
| disclaimers...are there any lawyers who could maybe lay it
| straight for me.. if I wanted to create my own darker version of
| winnie the pooh...say in the same world as The Walking Dead...
|
| If I use my own artwork, I can or cannot use all the character
| names and attributes? Like Tigger is a Tiger that bounces.... or
| Rabbit is...a Rabbit... Pooh's a bear....etc..
| anjbe wrote:
| You would be able to use only those elements whose copyright
| had expired, meaning only what's in the original book. (See,
| for example, _Pride and Prejudice and Zombies_.)
|
| You wouldn't be able to use Tigger, because that character was
| introduced in _The House on Pooh Corner_ , whose copyright
| doesn't expire until 2024.
| kingcharles wrote:
| As with many articles on IP they are conflating copyright and
| trademark.
|
| The stories and illustrations will be copyright free, but the
| names of the characters (certainly the titular character) are
| covered by trademarks.
|
| I'm no IP expert, so I don't know the repercussions of putting
| out a book titled Winnie The Pooh containing the public domain
| stories. Certainly you'd be in the clear if it was titled Fat,
| Honey-Loving Bear Stories.
| bdowling wrote:
| > Certainly you'd be in the clear if it was titled Fat, Honey-
| Loving Bear Stories.
|
| If you're publishing the original book, you'll be able to use
| the original title because you'll be using the name not as a
| trademark, but as a descriptive term for the book.
|
| For derivative works, you will probably want to make up your
| own name that you can use as a unique trademark to identify
| your derivative. (See, e.g., the recent Sherlock Holmes
| derivative works: Sherlock, Elementary, Enola Holmes.)
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If you're publishing the original book, you'll be able to
| use the original title because you'll be using the name not
| as a trademark, but as a descriptive term for the book.
|
| You seem to be arguing that it would be descriptive fair use,
| but the probability of confusion prong of the descriptive
| fair use test seems likely to be problematic, especially in
| an active franchise with newer works under the trademark that
| are actually exclusive to the trademark owner by copyright as
| well.
| bdowling wrote:
| If you cite the test you're referring to, then I'll tell
| you why it doesn't apply to the title of a literary work in
| the public domain.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > The stories and illustrations will be copyright free, but the
| names of the characters
|
| This doesn't make much sense. If the stories enter public
| domain, they enter in their entirety.
|
| Trademarks (usually) don't have such a broad application as
| "this name X is forbidden for use everywhere forever and ever".
|
| You will definitely be able to re-print and re-use the original
| text, the original name and possibly the original illustrations
| illustrations.
|
| It's possible you won't be able to use certain name
| combinations, illustrations etc. in merchandising, movies etc.
| because Disney trademarked those.
| Closi wrote:
| > This doesn't make much sense. If the stories enter public
| domain, they enter in their entirety.
|
| In the USA all character names and book titles are public
| domain anyway - but these can still be protected under
| trademark (The name being public domain doesn't mean that
| anyone can create derivative works though - these are still
| protected).
|
| For instance, the name "Mickey Mouse" is in the public domain
| (i.e. someone can say it without it being licensed) while
| stories about Mickey Mouse are still under copyright, and you
| cannot use 'Mickey Mouse' in your own advertising or to sell
| a product as it is still a trademark.
|
| As another example, I can create the character "Dude The
| Donkey", own the trademark "Dude The Donkey" and also write a
| story about Dude The Donkey that I put into the public domain
| (e.g. CC0), however the fact I have written a story and put
| it into the public domain doesn't mean that someone else is
| allowed to sell "Dude The Donkey" branded merchandise - as I
| have a trademark on that.
|
| (This is just my understanding, IANAL)
| rbobby wrote:
| Disney will be suing. I'm sure they already have worked out
| an overall litigation strategy.
|
| But... with 2 years left there's plenty of time for
| legislation to be updated.
| anjbe wrote:
| Disney has options even if copyright legislation doesn't
| change. For over a decade now, Disney has used clips of
| _Steamboat Willie_ in their logo. Even after _Willie_ 's
| copyright indisputably expires in 2024, they may attempt to
| litigate under trademark law.
|
| That kind of thing doesn't always work though. For example,
| Lego has repeatedly attempted to trademark their brick
| shape in various venues after the patents expired. Their
| many resulting lawsuits against Mega Bloks have (to my
| knowledge) been generally unsuccessful, because the
| functional elements of an interlocking brick design turn
| out not to be trademarkable.
| bdowling wrote:
| > Trademarks (usually) don't have such a broad application as
| "this name X is forbidden for use everywhere forever and
| ever".
|
| Unlike copyrights or patents, trademark rights last for as
| long as they are used continuously to identify a source of
| goods or services. So, not quite forever and ever, but as
| long as they are used continuously by the same source.
|
| You're right that it will be fine to use the names of the
| characters as long as you don't create a likelihood of
| confusion with a senior user of the same or similar
| trademark.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >You will definitely be able to re-print and re-use the
| original text, the original name and possibly the original
| illustrations illustrations.
|
| that's nice for anyone who wants to publish books I guess, or
| for downloaders of Project Gutenberg material, but I don't
| think that is really what people care for who argue about
| copyright being too long etc.
|
| I guess what people really want is something that is anyway
| covered by fair use but people are afraid to do because big
| corporate lawyers. But I guess if the characters are
| trademarked you still have to worry about big corporate
| lawyers.
|
| Anyway, Pooh is only copyright free in US, still under
| copyright in UK - unsure if copyright free in EU, assume not.
| pmontra wrote:
| EU: 2026 if this post is right
|
| https://publicdomaincharacters.tumblr.com/post/660184235411
| 4...
| slickdork wrote:
| So who here is gonna be the one to write Zombie the Pooh?
| divbzero wrote:
| Well, we do already have _The Tao of Pooh_ [1].
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tao_of_Pooh
| jhbadger wrote:
| And earlier, the Pooh Perplex from 1963. It's a series of
| satirical interpretations of Winnie the Pooh from various
| perspectives -- Freudian, Marxist, etc.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pooh_Perplex
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