@anotherusername said in Copydumb:
@masonwheeler said in Copydumb:
if the story involved Abu, Jasmine, or Jafar, or was set in Agrabah, that would be infringing on Disney's copyright of their specific version of the story
@e4tmyl33t said in Copydumb:
Say I want to tell the story of the Little Mermaid, except she marries a Princess instead of a Prince. Every other detail is the same, except the person she falls in love with is a different gender. The story remains the same, the events remain the same, but I cannot write and publish this story because Disney retains the copyright to the Little Mermaid.
Y'all are confusing the concepts of copyright and trademark. The characters are protected from this if Disney holds a trademark on them, not a copyright. This entirely avoids the question of "fair use" in a derivative work; no such concept exists for an actively protected trademark.
A copyright prevents you from producing derivative works without license, but even if the work entered the public domain you still couldn't make free use of the trademarked characters. If all of Disney's old films entered public domain this instant, the only thing that it'd mean is that you could copy them freely, distribute copies, and exhibit them publicly without paying royalties to Disney.
If we're talking about in the US, you're the one confused.
Patents protect ideas.
Trademarks and Service marks protect names and logos.
Copyright protects everything else, including characters in books; movies; and TV programs.
As shown in the 10 Copyrights Cases link earlier, Disney has every right to be afraid that Mickey Mouse's character design will be able to be used by anyone once Steamboat Willie's copyright expires as Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate set a precedent for it.
Of course, Disney still holds the trademark over the name Mickey Mouse.
@antiquarian said in Copydumb:
@boomzilla said in Copydumb:
Yeah, that's part of why I'm thinking about trademarks, where if you aren't using and actively defending them they go away.
If copyrights worked that way, it would be better than how they work now, even if they were permanent. I can get behind that change.
As for making copyrights last forever, in the US that would require a constitutional amendment as Artticle I, Section 8, paragraph 8 of the U.S Constitution forbids Congress from passing copyright (and patent) laws of infinite length.