Bunny Blog

As we plow ever onward into the new media megafuture, one thing thoroughly gumming up the works has been copyright, and what exactly it means in a digital age. Copyright no longer serves its intended purpose, to encourage creativity. The idea was that if a creator could maintain control of their work, other people couldn’t just rip it off, they’d have to go make their own. That’s not how it worked out, digital is making it even worse, and very few people are trying to adapt.

Lots (seriously, LOTS) more below the fold.  This is an issue that is ignored, but I believe has a huge impact on the entertainment industry.  More people should care.

Blame it on the Mouse.

Disney ruined copyright for everybody by insisting that their copyright to Mickey Mouse never expire.  So now Disney can sit pretty on Mickey until the end of time (do you really think it won’t get extended again in 2019?), likewise with Warner Bros/DC Comics and Superman, Batman, and the rest. None of this protects the creator and his/her rights. Copyright always lasted at least the length of the creator’s lifetime, plus a few ears for good measure. All these extensions do is keep things out of the Public Domain, which is a shame, and keeps DC, for instance, from ever having to invent a new superhero. If the essence of Capitalism is competition (and it is) then it is healthy for the creative marketplace to have turnover.

Once something has been around long enough, and been popular enough, it belongs to the public. It has become such a quintessential part of our culture, and sometimes even our national character, that it shouldn’t be controlled by just one company. Beyond that, great works can gain much from reinterpretation. Just imagine if only one company still held all the rights to Shakespeare’s plays, Sherlock Holmes, or Wizard of Oz. Creativity is stifled at both ends: classics cannot be reinterpreted by anyone with the inspiration to do so, and there is no incentive for companies with incredibly popular characters to invent/promote new ones.

Once again, the purpose of Copyright is to encourage creativity.  Current copyright law actively stifles it, freezing much of popular culture.  Ever wonder why we have a never-ending stream of re-imaginings and rehashes of old characters and very few new ones?  This is a big part of it.

Congress is also tackling the problem of Orphaned Works (those released from copyright, or ignored by the creator and released to public domain) but its unclear whether this is a nessecary addition to current law or a giveaway to big companies,  in which any work is an Orphan until you pay to register it.

Now we get to the digital age.  In a world where it is easier than ever to reproduce, reuse, and remix the work of other artists, what constitutes fair use for an artists work?  If I do a sweet remix of several tracks is it artistically less legitimate than when Beck does it?  (Nevermind my complete lack of musical ability) In the eyes of the law it is, because Warner Music can pay for all of Beck’s samples.  That effectively takes an art form, the sample/remix, and places it squarely in the hands of those backed by big money.  Uncool.  But sampling the work of others without compensation is… also uncool.

This applies to video, too.  Do you really want to live in a world where this is illegal because of copyright infringement?

What’s the fix?  Nobody really knows.  There are plans out there to institute a system of total public domain, in which artists are compensated by tax dollars (check a space on your 1040EZ that says you want to donate your share to a specific artist) but that has far too many inherent flaws to really work.  For the time being we just struggle through.

In the short term, though,  get ready for the big fight in 2019.  There’s just no good reason that the copyright on a character should last over 100 years.  You can keep him as your logo, Disney, but the character should be public domain.