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.
