What do Nancy Drew and Miss Jane Marple have in common with Betty Boop, Pluto the pup, Blondie and Dagwood, and Albert Einstein? Or for that matter, how does Sherlock Holmes and Sam Spade relate to Winnie the Pooh and Steamboat Willie?
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Answer: Copyrights of the first group mentioned expire sometime this year. The remainder have already recently expired.
We’re talking Einstein’s famous and much abused photograph, not the man himself. In fact, the photo’s copyright expired on the 1st of January.
Steamboat Willie, the first incarnation of Mickey Mouse, came to public attention when Florida Governor Ron Dion DeSantis attempted to seize control of Walt Disney World and, among other things, dangled the possibility of handing out rights to the characters. That’s when some people realized Steamboat Willie was due to enter the public domain. Note that later versions of Mickey, Pluto, and other character style changes are still protected.
The United States has a frustratingly long copyright period with arcane rules, which factor in the lifespan of the creative genius. In short, U.S. copyrights extend seventy years past the death of the creator, assuming the death date is known.
Lengthy copyright periods stifle creativity and, in the US, copyrights conceivably could last as long as a century and a half. We might never have seen the film Wicked, if the Wizard of Oz copyright hadn’t finally expired.
Copyrights have lengthened over the years, thanks to greedy great-great-grandchildren who lobby and feed at the public trough. They argue that creators can rely upon transformative ‘fair use’, but in fact, authors and composers and artists can not trust fair use thanks to wildly varying court rulings and armies of attorneys supporting those avaricious descendants.
Great-great-grand-greedies of Arthur Conan Doyle fought to prevent Holmes entering the public domain even as expirations slipped past. The public eventually won the right to use character and events, but only those stories that passed their individual copyright date. The family could still prevent use of characters and events in later stories.
Nancy Drew presents another problem. The original four novels will soon enter public domain, but the Stratemeyer daughters rewrote the stories to ‘modernize’ the girl. Who knows if the syndicate could argue the original characters and plots are still protected?
So, when you see Wicked, thank the expiration of the Wizard’s copyright.
Leigh, your statement, "Lengthy copyrights stifle creativity," took me aback. While I love some riffs on originals—two that come to mind are Laurie R. King's Mary Russell as the brilliant young half-Jewish wife of the aging Sherlock Holmes and Wicked, both Gregory Maguire's novel and the Broadway show, which I saw with Australian friends who'd never heard of The Wizard of OzI think of them (long copyrights, if you've gotten lost in my sentence) as a way of making sure my royalties, if my work is lucky enough to do that well, will go to my granddaughters, whom I love, and their children, rather than my work being exploited and distorted by random strangers. Of course, what happens is unpredictable in any case. The author's dead hand, however it's steered by the law, is still a powerless hand in the long run.
ReplyDeleteLiz, you raise a good point. I confess I detest pastiches that sound nothing like the original author. Pity an author's dead hand can't rise from the grave and smack those straying hacks.
DeleteYou might enjoying checking out the online publication The Public Domain Review, which keeps tabs on copyrights as they enter the public domain, and publishes an informative blog on the topic with well-researched articles.
ReplyDeleteJoe, I had not heard of that. Thanks.
DeleteOh—the Wizard of Oz/Wicked issue was complicated by the fact that the 1939 film does not enter public domain until 2035, and the film rights are now owned by Warner Bros. This is why certain elements of Wicked (the book, play, and films) had to borrow from the Baum books and not the 1939 film. One example: silver slippers in Wicked vs. ruby slippers in the 1939 film.
ReplyDeleteI remember that! As you say, Joe, stories that made it to the silver screen or even the little screen have to be careful. I pictured Joan Hickson above, but her performances remain under copyright for another half century, but the underlying novels are emerging into the public domain.
DeleteI just wish they'd enforce copyright on current works! I know that my own Rowena Through the Wall was downloaded 41,000 times from one pirate site alone, in one year. And all my books have been stolen for AI (and as a Canadian, I get no compensation from the lawsuit, due to a loophole.) But I do like your term, great gran greedies :)
ReplyDeleteMelodie, I ran into the opposite problem. Someone was publishing one of my earlier stories as her own on Wattpad. When I asked for a takedown, Wattpad told me I had to hire a Canadian solicitor! Damn. That's not nice! I should have hired you, Melodie, to give them a smackdown!
DeleteI came across this article today. And I didn't know there's a Betty Boop Broadway musical on the way!
ReplyDelete