Public domain works/characters

there anything you can't wait to see go into the PD?
popeye

youtube.com/watch?v=QIwUpvf2jXY
youtube.com/watch?v=3YUNRuCA3Nw

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Oswald. Surely, he will get in the PD in my lifetime..?

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The Oswald cartoons that were published in 1927 are public domain because Universal didn't give a fuck when they expired in 1955.

in 2023 i want to see Oswald drag Mickey kicking and screaming into the public domain.

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The question is old right? When is he public domain?

One possible side effect of the current "culture war" politics and unchecked conservative power, might be that they reduce the copyright term, in order to remove years of intellectual property from "liberal Hollywood"'s balance sheets. Rupert Murdoch just dumped most of his entertainment properties onto Disney, maybe that's the plan. Unfortunately if that happens, it'll be immediately followed by Michael Bay versions of Batman, Superman, and Steamboat Willie starring Nicolas Cage.

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>monthly 'brainlets don't understand the difference between copyrights and trademarks' thread
This thread was dildos before it even began.

>unchecked conservative power
>Hollywood isn't really lefty, guys, that's just a myth lol
>Rupert Murdoch is my idea of a conservative
>The copyrights are actually run out on Batman, Superman and Mickey Mouse, guys, it's gonna happen this time and there's nothin the corporations can do to stop it cuz it's too late XD
Might be the most delusional post I've read all day. Not sure how anyone else could be more wrong about everything.

Can't wait for Tintin to go to the PD so people can make more comics with him.

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>2053

If you can live that long

Dilate.

Based.

The Question is from the 60's. But most of his comics from the Charlton era (just the 60's ones) are believed to be public domain on account that the copyright was written wrongly and the books were never registered. In one case, there was a comic that didn't even have a copyright notice in it.

That's ages away. I'd be 30 or 40 by then.

soo... you came here for the dildos then? fag

pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/Question

That has a listing of the ones believed to be public domain. Mysterious Suspense #1 is definitely public domain on account it had no copyright in it. Back in the 60's you had to have the correct copyright notice in your work or it automatically went PD.

The only Charlton-era Question stories that are still copyrighted would be Michael Uslan and Alex Toth's Question story from the Charlton Bullseye fanzine, and the Blue Beetle/Question team-up in the 80's Charlton Bullseye comic.

Disney has the power to change copyright law to suit them.

If you want the public domain to be a thing again, Disney needs to die.

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>starring Nicolas Cage
But that'd be great

FACT: Nicolas Cage shouldn't be allowed to make another film until he makes National Treasure 3.

also by then he'll be even older. someone else should play Steamboat Willie.

National Treasure 3 and Ghost Rider 3 needs to become the same movie.

Why does every thread have to have some idiot who learnt what they think trademark is from kotaku wander in?

Trademark is not copyright. The court in the united states is very explicit it should not be treated like copyright, it will never prevent other companies from using a public domain "trademarked" character, or even from putting them on the cover/in the title.

Early versions of Mickey actually aren't copyright protected anymore.

Not quite correct.

Ignoring the controversy about Steamboat Willie failing to be correctly copyrighted. All of Mickey's early shorts are copyrighted.

But more importantly. When an artist creates something, they're actually copyrighting two separate things. The work itself, and the ideas behind the work.

So if someone writes a book where Sherlock Holmes goes to the moon, then other people are not supposed to copy the idea within the work of sending Sherlock to the moon, even if they can legally write a Sherlock book.

And as comic books have proven in trial law, this extends to characters too. So if you invent a new character, they are automatically copyrighted separately to the work itself. So even if the main work somehow goes into the public domain, the character still retains copyright.

However, this is a very grey area regarding Mickey Mouse and all characters appearing in works from before the 70s. Because back then they had a very primitive and simple idea about copyright laws, they never even thought about the technicalities like copyrighting the underlying characters in a work.

So to be copyrighted back then, you had to literally submit a request to the copyright office and renew it. And nobody would have ever done that for the characters themselves. Which technically means they could be considered public domain if any single work they were in became public domain... but judges often work with the spirit of the law, and I highly doubt the courts would rule any classic character was public domain just because the legal concepts behind copyrighting a character didn't exist 90 years ago.

What I'd like to know is what's gonna happen with this. This is probably the first time someone's outright trying to see if Mary Marvel's first appearance (and some other stories but not all of them) being PD, and DC being unable to use the Mary Marvel name on a cover, would let them get away with this.

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Mikey himself won't be in the PD, just the Steamboat Willie short. You try to use anything else and you're gonna get fucked.

>Importantly, Disney failed to renew the copyright on one cartoon with a modern Mickey design, and advert for Fig Newtons.
Yep, the Mad Doctor specifically, thought the Fig Newton design being PD is news to me. Got a source on that?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey's_Surprise_Party

Copyright expires but trademark doesn't.

Interesting when did this came out, did anyone got sued?

this they're both going to suck might as well it up into one and do something at least a little bit novel and interesting

Hollywood isnt lefty tho
Its certainly not conservative, but it def isnt left
Hedonism chooses no side but the one that will allow its sick habits to continue

Antarctic published Exciting Comics #2 recently, and so far that was only shown on the back cover. No word on anything yet, from what I've noticed.

The year that 1928 stuff goes PD, it's not just Steamboat Willie, the other shorts Plane Crazy (if test screenings count it as a 1928 release) and Gallopin Gaucho will be PD as well.

But yeah, you can't use Sorcerer Apprentice Mickey from Fantasia until 1940 stuff goes PD, and you can't use the Rudish stuff because that was created in this decade.

Also the Fig Newton thing is this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey's_Surprise_Party

Came here to say just this. I don't know why people are getting so excited about Mickey, you won't be able to do fuck all with him as he is trademarked.

One more thing, about a decade ago people were debating whether or not all of the old Fawcett Captain Marvel stuff was PD. The public domain sites put all of them up for viewing. But a few months ago, WB lawyers did send takedown notices to the PD sites... but only for a large portion of the comics, not the entire thing.

Among the stuff allowed to stay up included the first appearances of Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr, and Sivana. Mary Marvel had seven appearances in Captain Marvel Adventures (including her first appearance) and WB only requested three of those be removed from the PD sites. Mary also had stories in Wow Comics #9-58, but WB only requested #36-58 be removed. I guess Antarctic is trying to see how far this can get them.

For the millions time that is wrong and only morons think that.

I found a bit more info on this:

firstcomicsnews.com/bill-williams-talks-about-mary-miracle/

1st: Is Mary Miracle, Mary Bateson?

Bill: As far as I know, Mary has no other identity. She’s just Mary all of the time. Much like people who dive into their jobs one hundred percent, Mary is always herself, doing her job. For most costumed heroes, the secret identities are holdovers from an earlier age and an excuse to insert domestic drama in between fight scenes.

1st: Does she have a brother?

Bill: Not as far as I know. My first focus is writing a good entertaining story. I tend to build the world as the project goes along. Much like Mel from the Punchline comic, Mary has been a hero for a very long time. Other non-heroic family members she might have had once would be long gone by now.

1st: Does she say a magic word to become Mary Miracle?

Bill: Mary is always Mary. She does not undergo a transformation. There is no extended Miracle family. There’s no cave with leering statuary. Mary is not powered as an afterthought of six random deities.

Sounds like there's enough changes made to keep it separate from Mary Marvel.

Go ahead and try it then.

What? Make something with the countless public domain yet trademarked characters, like robin hood, Tarzan or Sherlock Holmes?

You can just go to your local cinema to see something like that.

Everything else is still copyrighted because America fucked up their copyright system so nothing important after 1924 is in the public domain yet.

When Mickey Mouse becomes public domain he will be just like any other public domain character. You or I could make a trademark with him if we so cared. More than one person can hold a trademark for a character, they just have to be materially different or in a space not occupied by another trademark holder.

So if you want to make Mickey Mouse Pizza when he goes public domain, nothing in the world can stop you, except someone else in your area trademarking Mickey Mouse Pizza.

Disney probably already trademarked Mickey to Hell and back just so anyone else couldn't do it.

There is a business man in my country that made most of his fortune just by catching trends, trademarking a bunch of words that would be likely to be used on business and holding them ransom for anyone that would want to make actual business with them.

Example, nobody in Honduras can use the word Oktoberfest without paying that Palestinian asshole money.

Why would/should I care about old properties going into the Public Domain?

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Well I would expect Disney to aggressively trademark anything they thought would be valuable.

However, trademarks, unlike copyright, can't just be held indefinitely without using it. I don't know how it works in Honduras, but there are mechanisms for stripping trademark trolls of their rights if they're just squatting on it for profit. Though often if can be cheaper to just reach a settlement than go to court over the matter.

>public domain yet trademarked characters, like robin hood, Tarzan or Sherlock Holmes
Robin's based on legends, so he's not necessarily trademarked as long as you don't base it on someone else's take

>Example, nobody in Honduras can use the word Oktoberfest without paying that Palestinian asshole money.
Source? I can't find one and it sounds like an urban legend, to be honest.

You can, and plenty of people have, Disney included, trademarked Robin Hood.

You will be able to do the same to Mickey Mouse in the future. And for the most part Disney is not going to give a shit because people will always view them as the authentic original.

No, because I'm focused on my own machinations and not the ones of others.

iirc, Robin Hood originates from the 1300s, so you can't trademark him in the same way you can trademark Mickey Mouse
it's like Trademarking Pooh Bear. as long as you don't use the yellow fatass with a red shirt, you should be golden

Probably the best reply of the thread.

There is literally, literally, no legal distinction between a figure in the public domain from 1300s or one that entered in yesterday.

You can trademark them in exactly the same ways.

And when Pooh Bear enters public domain, next year, he will be trademarkable in the same way too.

Of course the iconic Disney design for Pooh will remain copyrighted for decades to come. But next year if you want to make say, Pooh Bear's Toy Repair Shop™ there isn't anything Disney can do to stop you. Just make sure not to infringe on their copyright or the applicable trademarks.

Responding to your own post again?

Whoops, looks like Pooh won't enter public domain until 2022. He was first published in 1926, not 1924.

So if I write a story where Sherlock Holmes does something, no one can write another story where he does the same thing for the next 100 years? If he drinks a bottle of water and it's the first story were he does that, no one can have him drink water for the next century?

I'm calling bullshit on this, if a character goes in public domain then all of his stories goes in public domain too.
The only thing that it's forbidden is doing an exact one to one copy while my thing is new and it's still being sold. You can't do a real copyright of something that's based on public domain material.

Mickey Mouse went PD in January.

>So if I write a story where Sherlock Holmes does something, no one can write another story where he does the same thing for the next 100 years?

No, I think that user wasn't clear. It depends on if your story can be easily confused with a copyrighted story. It's like, Sherlock Holmes going to the future, that's a generic prompt. Sherlock Holmes being brought back to life in the 22nd century and teaming up with a robot Watson to stop a Moriarty clone, that's a very specific thing that you can't use, because Sherlock Holmes In The 22nd Century used it.

> If he drinks a bottle of water and it's the first story were he does that, no one can have him drink water for the next century?

Like patent law, the idea has to be considered 'non-obvious' to be eligible for copyright protection.

A book about Sherlock Holmes where he drinks a bottle of water would not copyright that idea, because no judge would call it a idea that merits copyright.

If however, you wrote a Sherlock Holmes book that was a plot about Sherlock drinking a poison in some mystery, that could potentially be granted copyright. Though I suspect it would be very limited to the exact way the elements the poison water bottle mystery story take place.

>I'm calling bullshit on this, if a character goes in public domain then all of his stories goes in public domain too.
Wrong. Sherlock is a prime example of this. Only part of his works are in public domain. And if you want to make an story unauthorized by the estate holders, you need to be very careful to avoid plot elements from the still copyrighted books.

The same reason you never see Tarzan adaptions from the later books with all the aliens and crazy shit.

Is Flip the Frog public domain?

>it'll be immediately followed by Michael Bay versions of Batman, Superman, and Steamboat Willie starring Nicolas Cage.
You say that like it's a bad thing.

>Flip the Frog
>first published in 1930

Only if the copyright holder failed to properly renew their copyright license.

He first appeared in 1930, so unless there's some sort of copyright screw up back then, he likely isn't public domain.

>The same reason you never see Tarzan adaptions from the later books with all the aliens and crazy shit
Excuse me. What?

Only a few of his cartoons are public domain IIRC

Not yet. He's owned by MGM.

think of it more like what happened in the works that aren't in public domain as non-cannon for your works

superman is an excellent example for this. Lex Luthor and Kryptonite weren't in AC#1, so if you wanna do a Superman story, you have to wait to use those

Tarzan had a lot of books. Public domain has kept his early adventures well known.
Due to copyright, and the ensuring lack of modern adaptions, many of his crazier latter books have been forgotten. Yes, there were aliens.

I am legit interested to see what happens with Superman in a few years. I feel like you'll only be able to use elements from the first comic, where most of the stuff we know about the character is missing. Still, a comfy late 30s/early 40s era Superman film would be rad.

It would appear that his debut cartoon, Fiddlesticks, is under disputed copyright status. MGM says it's copyrighted, but other people claim it was not copyrighted correctly and is public domain.

Theoretically if Fiddlesticks is in the public domain then you should be able to use him. But expect MGM to sue to test it in court.

Or to put it this way: The year Superman becomes public domain means only the first year of Action Comics goes public domain. You only get Lois, George Taylor and the Daily Star (because the 1939 comic strips forgot to put a copyright notice and became PD), and very generic gangsters. Only when 1939 stuff goes PD do you get Superman's first recurring supervillain Ultra-Humanite, and you have to wait till 1940 stuff goes PD to use the early Luthor.

I thought he was owned by Iwerks' estate but I could be mistaken

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I went to a submit on intellectual property organized by the Government branch that takes care of that sort of stuff, there was a panel and a lot of people where complaining about that. They couldn't give a solid answer in what to do with that Trademark troll, what he is doing is not technically illegal, the only thing anyone can do is wait the 7 years it takes for an unused trademark to be nullified, and be the first to take property of it.

there's currently precedent that could help against trademark
I'm pretty sure Betty Boop was put on handbags and tshirts by some british company in like 2014 and they were able to get away with it legally with the judge saying that copyright trumps trademarks

You also have to consider this facet As characters themselves are granted copyright, the courts might decide that all older characters deserve an implicit copyright, because it just wasn't a concept that existed back then, and they are certainly not going to just make all characters enter the public domain because of weird case law technicality.

They might just ere on the side of caution and make anybody wait until stuff from the year 1930 becomes public domain before the character Flip himself is made public domain, even if Fiddlesticks is public domain.

When Superman goes PD you get the first year of Action Comics (this is the first eight or nine issues of the title, depending on when they were released), plus the 1939 comic strips that accidentally fell in the public domain (some of these comic strips were later reprinted in the comic book in color). That gives you Superman, Lois, George Taylor, and the Daily Star (and Metropolis but set in New York), and "Jor-L and Lora" who lived on a Krypton that was full of people that had 1938-level Superman powers... but no recurring supervillains yet, no Smallville, no Lana, no Supergirl, no Legion of Superheroes.

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I'm actually excited for that because fuck DC for killing off Kal-L and just sweeping him under the rug. It's weird because in spite of Power Girl even the Earth-2 reboot avoided E2 Superman elements.

Although thinking about it, I guess they might want to make the early Superman stuff be completely forgotten exactly because it will fall into public domain in the near future.

Yeah, that was the part I hated about Infinite Crisis. But you bring up something else I hadn't thought of, Power Girl was created in 1976, so even if Superman went PD she'd still be under DC's usage for a long time.

They did try to reintegrate the 1930's stuff when the New 52 happened, but I think it didn't take. Even so, that new version is drastically different from the original 30's and 40's comics that people can't simply lift from that.

There seems to be rather compelling evidence that this is the case, and many legal scholars agree. Basically, Disney was a bit disorganized early on and appears to have screwed up the original copyright claims on some early Mickey Mouse shorts, which based on the law at the time would nullify the copyright altogether. Now, this would only count for those early clips, which had a slightly different version of Mickey.

Not surprisingly, Disney isn't particularly open to this argument. Not only does it dismiss the concept out of hand as "frivolous," it has also legally threatened a legal scholar who first published an analysis saying that the copyright was invalid. In a letter to the researcher, Disney warned him that publishing his research could be seen as "slander of title" suggesting that he was inviting a lawsuit. He still published and Disney did not sue, but it shows the level of hardball the company is willing to play.
techdirt.com/articles/20080822/1750312073.shtml

Felix is Public Domain but I bet Disney wouldn't let that shit fly... it's not fair.

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He partly is, but I think Dreamworks owns him, not Disney.

I guess I can't be too upset I'm pretty solid at character design so I can always make my own. It's just sad to see large companies whoring out IPs every couple decades so they keep the rights to them.

Speaking of Tarzan, this was from back in 2012:
techdirt.com/articles/20120228/18543417906/edgar-rice-burroughs-inc-using-trademark-law-to-prevent-use-public-domain-stories.shtml

That case ended with Dynamite getting the rights to publishing official John Carter and Tarzan comics, though I don't know how that court case went, settlement or something? I probably helped Dynamite that the John Carter film was such a box office disaster.

how comfy would an Action Comics #1 be?

maybe less than we think; in the first few pages he comes to the police with a woman he just beat a confession out of, didn't he?

I meant a film set in that time period with the general aesthetic. Not a direct adaptation.

the sad thing is that the reason there's this much disagreement is because nothing's been added to the public domain for so long that none of us are sure what it means anymore. The use of it has been beaten out of our culture.

I say that you see that disagreement because more people are starting to ask questions about it. Back in 1998 very few really cared about it, the groups weren't strong enough to fight back, the internet was only starting to be used by normies more often, so that extension got passed and caused a 20 year delay. Nobody thought of the possibility of the Fawcett or Charlton comics being public domain. Hell, only just a few years ago did someone try challenging the Conan Doyle Estate which ended with saying that they only had rights to the final 10 stories (now 9 as of this year).

>Wrong. Sherlock is a prime example of this. Only part of his works are in public domain.
IIRC aren't all of them PD by now? The Conan Doyle stuff, I mean?

Iwerks' family says no, they made some public statement about it in recent years IIRC

No, there's still nine stories under copyright in the US. Assuming there's no extensions, and 1924 stuff goes PD in January next year, that means three more Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock stories goes PD. After that you have to wait until 1926 and 1927 stuff goes PD for the final stories.

However, they're all PD in Canada and the UK already.

Daily reminder that copyright law shouldn't exist

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Ah, that'll be it, was misremembering.

>Mickey Mouse, I can’t wait for them to lose that fucking mouse.

user doesn't know that it's permentally trade marked.

I'm confused with the concept of different public domain laws depending on the country. How does that work? Also, are the copyright laws of classic Disney characters more lax in Europe, as there's countless of comics based on them?

The comics are officially licensed, just not directly made by Disney.

As to how it works, the internet makes it muddy, but simply means for an example that France gets to publish a book of new Popeye stories in France, but if that publisher or someone else tried to translate and publish that book in the US, King Syndicate would sue them.

>How does that work?
generally, most countries adhere to the same copyright laws except for a few (hence why there's so many bootlegs in a lot of shitty countries without legal shit coming their way)

I think Mexico has the longest copyright protection, but the us is definitely one of the longer ones and it has allowed many people to keep their copyrights
>Also, are the copyright laws of classic Disney characters more lax in Europe
no. the things you saw were probably either low-key enough to avoid disney's radar or licensed

>I think Mexico has the longest copyright protection, but the us is definitely one of the longer ones and it has allowed many people to keep their copyrights

Copyright is lifetime then after death 70 years.

>one creator
>lifetime of creator + 70 years after death
>two-more creators (not work for hire)
>lifetime of creator(s) + 70 years after the last to croak

after that, I think everything else is either 120 years after creation or 95 years after initial publication, whichever comes first

as far as I'm aware, for mexico it's the first set of laws for everything, but 100 years instead of 70

The original Conan stories are now PD in Europe, so French comics creators can make new stories there, they wouldn't be allowed to be sold in the US.

Like said, Conan is PD in Europe so there were a lot of graphic novels published based on the original Robert E. Howard Conan stories.

Another example is that all the James Bond books that Ian Fleming solely wrote is PD in Canada, because he died in 1964 and the rule is/was that 50 years after the death of the author, all the author's works go PD. Someone in Canada can do James Bond stuff based on the Fleming stories, but can't sell that new story in the US because Fleming's stuff isn't PD there yet.

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meanwhile the animated series from the late 50's onwards ain't going public domain for a long time

You're right and yet you're wrong, idiots who think they can use Mickey Mouse when Steamboat Willie goes PD are as wrong as those who think trademark is what makes them not be able to.

The fact is you could put Mickey, or Batman, or whoever the fuck you want in your comic, and people with balls have done so, and nothing will change on the date of SW becoming public other than Steamboat Willie, itself, the short, becoming public domain.

Which is pretty meaningless since you can watch it online any time for free for over a decade youtube.com/watch?v=BBgghnQF6E4

But muh Disney copyright meme is too strong

>Copyright expires but trademark doesn't.

Utterly wrong, tms expire fast as fuck unless you constantly renew 'em, and they are narrow as fuck so two different companies can have the same name in different areas

>Sherlock Holmes being brought back to life in the 22nd century and teaming up with a robot Watson to stop a Moriarty clone, that's a very specific thing that you can't use, because Sherlock Holmes In The 22nd Century used it.

You can't copyright ideas, someone else can certainly do that story. It's the kinda thing the brit pack would do just to rub the american's noses in how much better writers they were

>You can't copyright ideas, someone else can certainly do that story.
This is the dumbest thing I've ever read.

>But but but muh trademark can't keep PD books from market...

A superman film that has to avoid the name and branding in merch and marketing would make zero money so why would they spend money on it?

And people also don't understand that you can't just then take luthor as he is now. That's violating later copyright. Kids with no imagination just can help but imagine stealing work and putting their name on it.

Only a fool thinks they would have to avoid the name and branding.

To get around DC's trademark all they'd have to do is put something like 'Presenting Disney's SUPERMAN™'

You calling bullshit won't matter when you get a C&D or your indiegogo/whatever site takes your campaign down with no notice.

It's that simple.

Was this a joke?

You have to license trademarks from the holder dumbass

When Superman goes public domain multiple people can and will make trademarks on him, dumbass.

If Disney wanted to make a Superman movie, not only could they, but they could trademark their own version of Sumerman on top of their automatic copyright.

Look at the quality of fan films being produced now with super low budgets. If you could commercially release a Superman film without licensing fees it would be profitable whether you title it "Superman" or not.