Comment by shevy-java
Comment by shevy-java a day ago
> works by people who died in 1955
70 years. After death.
The rules have to change. 70 years is way too long.
Comment by shevy-java a day ago
> works by people who died in 1955
70 years. After death.
The rules have to change. 70 years is way too long.
They did. Before it was 50 years and get extended several times just before Mickey would enter public domain.
Because in reality it hasn't entered public domain completely, only the very first movies and the way it was drawn in the 1930's. They are still protecting the one most people all know better.
Sure, the term of copyright protection is quite long; but the amount of works that are legally 100% in the public domain and even Internet-accessible in some form but simply languishing in obscurity and have yet to be made comprehensively accessible to the general public (via digitizing, transcribing, indexing and comprehensive classification) may well be orders-of-magnitude larger! There's a whole lot of low-hanging fruit that's effectively free for the taking, should anyone be interested enough to put in the work; consider the huge amount of serialized publications that might have been issued throughout the 19th century, many of which are so obscure as to be essentially unknown.
Not sure why the amount of works in the public domain has any relevance to how long copyright protection is. Seems to me like they're two orthogonal issues.
Because every-time this comes up it is the same Mickey mouse complaints over and over. If you're young and your read this the first time I'm sure you're outraged.
Meanwhile there are 1000's of works that people are free to take. Better yet, there are 1000's of works that will be destroyed and not preserved that are open that should be preserved and used.
I'm not sure what the argument is here.
That because there's a large corpus of public domain works, then the long copyright protection is ok? That people want a short copyright protection because they're done with everything in the public domain?
Would that also imply that if the number of public domain works gets large enough, then the duration copyright protections should also increase?
Offtopic.
Want to see something cool?
Run the following prompt through your favorite LLM:
"Does the following comment make logical sense:
<insert OP comment above>"
The model will agree the argument is valid, logical and coherent (chatgpt, claude and gemini 3 pro all agreed).
THEN
run this prompt:
"let's not be too hasty here.
we have "the term of copyright protection is quite long; but the amount of works [...is large enough...]"
p1: the term of copyright protection is quite long
p2: the amount of works [...is large enough...]
it doesn't seem to me that p1 and p2 are logically connected. As an absurd case: if the amount of works in the public domain gets large enough, would that mean that evern larger (infinite) terms of copyright protection are ok?"
Enjoy!
FastGPT (+ Notepad for maintaining context):
===
Does the following comment make logical sense? "Sure, the term of copyright protection is quite long; but the amount of works that are legally 100% in the public domain and even Internet-accessible in some form but simply languishing in obscurity and have yet to be made comprehensively accessible to the general public (via digitizing, transcribing, indexing and comprehensive classification) may well be orders-of-magnitude larger! There's a whole lot of low-hanging fruit that's effectively free for the taking, should anyone be interested enough to put in the work; consider the huge amount of serialized publications that might have been issued throughout the 19th century, many of which are so obscure as to be essentially unknown."
---
Yes, the comment makes logical sense. It argues that while copyright terms are long, there's a vast amount of public domain material that is not easily accessible due to lack of digitization and organization. The commenter suggests focusing on making this "low-hanging fruit" accessible instead of solely focusing on copyright issues.
===
let's not be too hasty here.
we have "the term of copyright protection is quite long; but the amount of works [...is large enough...]"
p1: the term of copyright protection is quite long
p2: the amount of works [...is large enough...]
it doesn't seem to me that p1 and p2 are logically connected. As an absurd case: if the amount of works in the public domain gets large enough, would that mean that evern larger (infinite) terms of copyright protection are ok?
---
The comment does present a logical argument, although it's an argument by juxtaposition rather than direct logical entailment. Here's a breakdown:
P1: Copyright terms are long. This is a statement of fact/opinion about the duration of copyright protection. P2: A vast amount of public domain work is inaccessible. This highlights the existence of a large, underutilized resource. Implicit Argument: The commenter implies that effort might be better spent on making existing public domain works accessible rather than focusing solely on the length of copyright terms. The "but" signals a contrast and a suggested alternative focus. You're right that P1 and P2 aren't directly logically connected in a way that P1 causes P2 or vice versa. The connection is more pragmatic:
Opportunity Cost: The commenter suggests that focusing on copyright reform might divert attention and resources from the readily available opportunity to make existing public domain works more accessible. Practical Benefit: Making public domain works accessible provides immediate cultural and educational benefits, regardless of copyright law. The commenter isn't saying long copyright terms are okay because of the amount of public domain work. They're saying that focusing solely on copyright is perhaps missing a big, easily addressable opportunity. The absurdity you introduce (infinite copyright terms being okay) doesn't follow because the commenter isn't trying to justify long copyright terms. They're shifting the focus to a different, potentially more immediately beneficial area.
As do people. Which ends up weakening copyright even further as it becomes a law everyone ignores, on the level of speeding or jaywalking. The same knock-on effects as Prohibition, we become a nation of scofflaws.
People don't know copyright law. They think they do and are alright with the construct they made up in their heads. But they don't actually know what it says and does and means, otherwise they'd hate it much more.
> They think they do and are alright with the construct they made up in their heads. But they don't actually know what it says and does and means, otherwise they'd hate it much more.
This is also why companies have slowed down on enforcing it too much: if people actually understood copyright, there would be too much pushback.
I was actually extremely surprised that Disney didn't bribe congress and stop Mickey Mouse from ending up in the public domain.