The Next Characters to Enter the Public Domain

Copyright terms are so fucking stupid. Imagine getting into trouble for using Popeye. Make it the same as a patent duration and be done with it.

You can really see how invested the copyright owners were to get such long durations.
- "I'm not saying that's how it should be. I'm saying that's how it is."
  
  - Tom Scott, 2020
  
  YouTube's copyright system isn't broken. The world's is. (43 minutes long, but worth a watch)
Fuck Disney and congress for extending copyright protections to near infinity.
I feel like it should be the life time of the creator of the work provided that person is still getting a significant percentage of the royalties. Otherwise something like 20 years.

That way companies might be less likely to force artists to sign away all rights to their work. So like "hey this kid could live another 50 years, so lets make sure he gets his percentage so we can keep control longer."
- How would that work for anything produced by a company? If you're a continuing run of stories, and a random artist dies, copyright on parts of your product suddenly evaporate? Getting a job as an artist would be like making an insurance claim: with a risk assessment. Good luck getting work as you get older or sick.
- Could companies not also say "hey, this kid could live another 50 years, let's kill them soon so their work will be in the public domain and we can profit from it"? Or would companies not want the work in the public domain?
I dunno what the patent duration is, but copyright should probably just be 50 years max IMO. If you can't make bank in that time without changing the idea up (and thus getting 50 years on the new version) you don't deserve it.
- Originally I think it was closer to 20 years. Frankly I think 25 years is plenty. A quarter century is enough time to reward the creator of an IP and it respects the fact that all IP is built on top of the public domain so it's return is a natural part of the cycle.
I agree with copyright in a sense that people should have a chance to profit from their ideas before it gets stolen, but you are right that it is way too long of a term. It stymies creativity when people can milk the same idea for many decades.

I would think for creative license like an idea for a cartoon or comic, 10-20 years is more than enough. Then they should try and make new characters or start competing with others trying to improve the character.

Dude the superman and batman stuff is gonna be nuts

- Whoa! That's illegal buddy. In more ways than one...

Snow White and the seven dwarves are 200 years old and already in the public domain.

Wouldn't Disney harass somebody if they were try to make it tho? It would look too much like theirs?
- The Disney artwork would be copyright and probably some of the story that is unique to Disney's adaptation, but the characters themselves are fair game.
- It can look exactly like theirs, it’s public domain. They can harass people with malicious bogus legal issues, of course.
The stories are, but not the characters as drawn by Disney, it's like classic music, you can use the Music commercially (given that you Perform I), but you can't use a performance from someone else.

Same with classic stories, you can make your own snow white story, but you can't use snow white as performed by Disney (yet)

Already working on a Bambi: First Blood movie.

How about a sequel to Bambi meets Godzilla?

I want all of them to live together in one big house, reality TV style!!

... it appears there are mockups:

This show was really fucked up lmao my partner and I stayed at an Airbnb and while looking for something to watch and she saw this was like "honey this is kinda raunchy but we HAVE to watch it since you haven't seen it" and then 10 minutes in we had to turn it off because of how awful it was haha. Fat shaming goth cutter Betty boop, gay link, racist Pikachu, hypersexual pedo superman, generally just racist to every possible point like the pig character and stereotypes.

My partner just said, "the racist characters existing themselves I could handle, it was the racism they were perpetuating that made me tap out" lmao. [Edit: I said it already but I feel the need to re-iterate, this was all in the first 10 minutes!! end edit.]

But to your point, this sort of show done right would be hilarious with the public domain characters lol
- Yeah, they (the showrunners) used incredibly bad stuff to produce humour (well).
  
  And I've heard that 'the show didn't age well' but (iirc) the show absolutely at all times (with no doubt at all) portrayed all those characters as horrible.
  
  At no point was shaming-vagina tentacles presented as the morally right thing. If the jokes they did with that arent funny to you, sure, that's legit, but if they were funny to you but aren't anymore "bcs the times changed" that just means that you were wrong back then & now grown up, and you prob liked the shaming, not the jokes.
  Its like anti-lgbt stuff in recent history - it's not that 100 years ago being a bigot was any less horrible than now, the only difference is that now it might 'inconvenience you'.
  
  Its like people saying that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia characters "might be bad" ... you fucked up if you idolise them just because they are main characters, if you can't comprehend how bad they are (even tho they make it extremely obvious at all times) and how bad the lives of everyone around them make. Its like the whole point of a setup like that. None of them are anti- or edgy- heroes, they just suck.
  
  I don't think Drawn Together was like Family Guys Quagmires rapey jokes & deeds (that was his whole character for most of the shows run) that were always presented as "cool" & macho - that didn't "age badly", it was bad & horrible all along.
  
  And mass murderers with superpowers (Drawn Together, not The Boys) that indiscriminately and selfishly hurt absolutely everyone ... well, racism of those chars prob isn't the core issue or propaganda.
  
  And racism, shaming, etc, they exist. That's just a fact. And you can make fun of anything.
  
  Its what Louis-Dreyfus is saying with '"woke" culture isn't killing or limiting comedy', it doesn't (the context of that is that Seinfeld is bitching how anti-sexism is limiting (his) comedy, lul).

A timeline of shit horror movies.

Ah, but they'll lobby harder. Batman will enter the public domain in 2,635.

People said that for years before Mickey entered public domain. It didn't happen.
- Yeah, they had shifted for a Trademark strategy a few years before it happened. It was pretty clear they weren't interested in making it happen again, or had finally got pushback from the folks they donated to about it, or something. And if Disney decided to drop it, I don't think WB, with less than half the cash, will decide to try it.

Wait, you're telling me I can draw Batman x Superman porn in 10 years and sell it?

Copyright should be 14 years.

I wonder if this will herald an era of more original content and less of all this reusing of stuff all the time.

Apparently it will herald an era of crappy horror movies.
It won’t change anything. Old stories and characters are boring. Studios do it from time to time but like Robinhood movies aren’t great investments and since they don’t own the IP don’t lead to anything else.

Community made content is just for fun, so who cares if people make repetitive fan films, art, games.

*in the US and some other countries. Not worldwide

2035 will be so fun

oh yeah

Donald Duck is gonna be fire, I just know it.

Also, Disney has no rights to Snow White, they merely own the 7 very specificly named dwarves.

Stringy, Stingy, Stinky, Stampy, Strapping, Stressful, and Stephen Colbert
- Strapping the real odd man out tbh

I appreciate you posting here often but this is not a data visualization. This is just a graphic with dates on it

I see it as a way of visually presenting (character, year) data points.

Blaze@reddthat.com Surprised there isn't more stuff with Winnie Pooh considering he's in the public domain, pretty interesting graph tho

Can't make any money off Winnie the Pooh content in China... for reasons.

Bold of this graph to assume this society will last that long

Aw, I was thinking I'm gonna become the Joker. Now I gotta wait.

Basically “NO”

There is no example of fair use in this illustration. There is no real expiration.

Alec Robbins looking at 2026 like:

They are already public domain here ;)

I expect a flood of Popeye content in 2025 motherfuckers