I wish there was a larger fraction of artists out there doing respectful, earnest, creative or inspired things with these works going into the public domain.
But I understand the notion that Disney has not worked to earn those good graces.
But it’s public domain now, can’t the public have these things without perverting them?
Maybe that’s a reason copy write extension has been argued so hard for, for so long.
Maybe both sides are equally bad and there are no winners?
As a citizen with access to this work I don’t wish to see any perversions of it, I hope there will be people out there who seek to do good things with it, and they’re just drowned out by the angry mob of repressed Disney rule 34 creators (self corrected from the aptly put creatures).
I think that’s going to happen once the spite burns out. This character has kinda become the symbol of a denial of culture for corporate greed. And I don’t think that he’ll ever be the real icon of what becomes more common. I suspect in the mischievous cartoon character we’ll wind up with a lot of interesting takes on bugs bunny when we can and that should be fun.
But that’s not where I think we’re really stunted. A hundred years ago it was 28 years copyright automatically and could be extended another 28 to 56. That means this year we’d be getting content from 1968 that’s maintained and 1996 that isn’t. That means everything from the 1920s would not only be in the public domain, some stuff that’s created using 1920s public domain content would be too. It would mean that the lord of the rings would’ve been in the public domain for a decade now. And it’s characters and content like that that I think is where public domain really shines. We’ve already seen it with fanfic and with characters like Sherlock Holmes.
So yeah, give it a few years, let people’s anger die down and let something they love fall into the public domain and I think you’ll at the very least see the love that can come from public domain.
Perversion is subjective. But nothing, especially in the case of Disney is truly wholly 100% original these days. Everything is derivative of something else. A recombination or a slightly different mix. That has been the cornerstone of human culture for millennia. The problem with copyright is that it’s stifles human culture.
As we all celebrate Mickey mouse finally entering the public domain 50 years later than he should have. Disney now controls and owns the lion share of modern popular culture in many ways. They should be broken apart. Well honestly they never should have been allowed to get so big in the first place. And are a threat to society as a whole.
Add comment