Cruel Irony
Since our reading indicated that Disney was the reason for the change in copyright laws – the change that increased a copyright from 28 years to the creator’s life plus 50 (or 70) years – I decided to see what Disney material could and couldn’t be used or found in the public domain. At first, it seems like this specific company’s copyright should have ended by now, but then again, Disney movies have started going onto DVDs. This presents the problem where digital technology is protected longer due to the encoding of the discs and the machines that will play them. Although I didn’t find a definitive answer to whether or not Disney movies are in the public domain, I did come across some other entertaining information and think that I can make my own argument about the matter.
When broken down into the simplest language, copyright protects the form that an idea takes. It doesn’t necessarily protect the idea itself. So, whomever originally thought up the idea for Mulan, didn’t have this story line protected by copyright until he wrote it down or recorded it or made it into any other hard-copy form. I am going to consider a DVD as merely another form that an idea can take. With this in mind, as long as the copyright has expired and if you can find the Mulan storyline in a non-encrypted form, then Mulan is in the public domain. I doubt that this actually coincides with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but finding support one way or the other was more than difficult.
I can strongly say that fair use is limited by this specific aspect of copyright (DMCA). If you can’t “break the code” on a DVD, regardless of the copyright length of the content that’s on this DVD, then you can’t use it. Plainly stated, that’s not fair.
Overall, I think copyright laws have lost sight of their original intention. These laws no longer encourage creative ideas for the sake of the ideas, instead they encourage creation with an emphasis on the money you can make. Copyright laws are overly protecting the creators and under representing the public, which wants to learn about these creative ideas. The laws have handicapped the spread of inspired thoughts at the literal expense of the public domain. Even though copyright protects just the form of an idea, how can you use that idea if its form is forever locked thanks to digital protection?
- Appropriation. « Mike Nigro's Blog pingbacked on 2 years, 4 months ago
“Hey. That’s kinda like what he said to you when you got fired.”
Love that movie!
| Posted 2 years, 4 months ago“I know. It’s called a cruel irony; like my dependence on you.”
I think this is an interesting concept, I’m sure Disney definitely makes a ton of money because of these laws. And it would be hard to stand up to Disney, because they somehow own so many different companies, and different mediums (from radio to tv to movies to music to cruise ships, they’ve sure got a lot.) It reminds me too of Disney’s “Vault”, where they lock away movies for like ten years at a time so you have to rush to buy it during the short period it is out, and soon there is no where you can buy it unless you find a used copy. Sounds like a total marketing strategy, but I bet it works pretty well. I wish they wouldn’t though! I wonder if Disney would make more money if all their movies were available currently. Do these laws give Disney the right to decide how/when their stuff gets distributed?
ah ha! I’ve gotten this comment thing working finally, yey!
| Posted 2 years, 4 months agoAnyways, yes the whole copyright thing is really crazy and actually, while I was looking into Disney, I was aiming to find out about the whole Disney vault thing. It seems like most Disney stories and movies would be in the public domain by now, but by putting them on DVD, I think that makes them copyrighted basically forever thanks to the DMCA. Uncool. Disney owns so many things anyway that the last thing they need is to make more money. They’re one of the top six largest media companies in the USA (one of the many things you learn in Comm370 or with this website http://www.newint.org/issue333/Images/ni333-media.pdf). One thing that really interested me was Disney’s semi-recent addition of the Marvel Comics copyright. Apparently, some of the Marvel copyrights are going to expire which puts Disney’s latest and greatest “buy” in jeopardy. I still hold that they don’t need it for the money, but for creative purposes I can understand. That was just one thing I came across in my original researching for this blog (the article is http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/capital-commerce/2009/09/20/marvel-disney-deal-copyright-law-complexities.html fyi). I do agree that it is particularly ridiculous but I think Disney has much influence over these issues due to its sheer size and just how much of the media world it actually owns.
I’m glad you liked my clip though! I found another one about censorship via the FCC and I’m trying to work it into one of the topics…stay tuned, haha.