I don't want to get grand here, but the fact that we're here, talking about the past and law in such, owes much to the concept of people building on other people's concepts. I guess this is why the law, not I, says that intellectual properties eventually lapse into public domain, in darn near most countries. This is why, legally, they can''t change the duration of copyrights to "forever and ever", as I'm sure they'd like. Copyright is meant to give authors a TEMPORARY legal exclusivity on their intellectual property, most reasonably now considered within the author's lifetime + some amount of years in most places. This is not something I think. This is how it is.
It's unreasonable for descendants to own an IP forever. How many descendants must the author of "The Epic of Gilgamesh" have by now? Are you gonna cut each one a check? Yes, that was thousands of years ago. But so will be Batman, one day. So will be Robocop. So will be Avatar.
The only thing to wonder is if current copyright law is reasonable. Is it reasonable that a corporation can own an IP they didn't even create for 95 years, without having to use it or re-register it? Is it reasonable to not only alter the duration of said copyrights, but to do it retroactively so that it will affect works made before the law?
Now, some of you are worried about franchises being tarnished. Don't be. We already have Wonder Woman XXX. We already have all the bad fanfiction. I'm surprises at how much they can get away with on smut drawing, to the point of actively profiting from them. And I don't see anyone confusing that for the real stuff. You know what we don't have? A Batman film made by Sandy Corolla. You know, of "Batman Dead End" fame? Because Sandy Corolla would have been sued to ground beef had he taken his stuff to make a full featured film. No studio would have backed him using Batman. He wouldn't even have been able to get a Kickstarter going. His story ended up reasonably well, as he's working at Warner, even if not on Batman. But it goes to show you that besides low quality stuff and smut, there's also talented people, talented authors, who might have something to offer. Under previous law, Sandy Corolla would have been able to do most of the stuff from his World's Finest fauxtrailer into a fullblown movie, except, I guess, for Luthor's Armor, which is more modern, I think.
DC WB would always own "real" Batman, anyway. When his first comic goes Public Domain in the 2030s, you'll get to work with
THIS while they work on all
this, and more. Under previous law everything before 56 would be up for grabs. It's not like DC and Marvel haven't worked in public domain characters either. Blue Beetle and Doctor Nemesis, to say some.
I am not against copyright law. I don't think anyone here really is. But in my opinion, the law as it is is not benefiting the original authors who have died, on account of them being dead, and in cases of corporate ownership, the law is unreasonable to request at least some kind of re-registering of the work, or even usage of the work. But maybe I'm wrong, and it's reasonable to sit on an IP for nearly 2 lifetimes without doing anything with it, as it is in many cases. As they say in my country, like the Landlord's dog: not eating, not letting eat. I just think the law should be for the benefit of authors, and having a healthy public domain aids them more than it hinders them. On this, the law and I agree.
But I rant. I want to thank all those among you who
signed the petition. I think sending a strong message out there about this stuff is important, and I could not do it alone.
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