On Wed, Oct 05, 2005 at 05:16:23PM -0700, m ike wrote: > On 10/5/05, Michael O'Keefe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I didn't know this, thanks. It seems ridiculous to me that Disney has > > > to do such things in order to maintain their copyright. I cannot image > > > that anyone's life or happiness depends on their being able use for > > > free a Disney character for profit (or non-profit). > > > > Someone could quite easily build a competing "Disneyland" if all the > > characters were in the public domain > > If I understand you correctly, you are stating that competition is a > good thing, and that limiting the duration of a copyright fosters > competition? > > Best, > Mike
Not competition. Creativity. Say I decide that the Disney "Winnie the Pooh" cartoons are mindless pap (that's too kind). I want to do a cartoon version of my own going back to the beautiful illustration style of Shepherd and using Milne's magnificent prose. I'd get my ass sued. Why? Disney bought the copyright to the Milne books (written in the 1930s, over 70 years ago), and the copyright has been extended twice. Why is this so? What is just about it? How does it benefit society? Disney didn't have the original genius of creating these wonderful characters. They bought a piece of paper from the Milne heirs (OK, not an entirely bad thing ... A. A. Milne _might_ have approved) and based their schlock on it. What is their moral right to prevent anyone from reinterpreting these stories effectively forever? Copyright expiration isn't about competition. It's about letting new generations of artists have access to the common cultural base so that they can create new things. -- Lan Barnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux Guy, SCM Specialist 858-354-0616 -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
