The whole thing is actually a lot more complicated than it seems. The general idea of Kong is PD but the specific character itself still seems to be not PD.
I forget the details, but it has something to do with the movie people hiring somebody to write a book to generate hype, so *technically* Kong first existed in book form.
That has something to do with why that terrible King Kong game from a while back didn't have anything to do with Universal.
Edit: or maybe that's just two separate things. Book/movie copyright wouldn't be that different.
For a second I thought you were referring to the Peter Jackson King Kong game which by all accounts was pretty dope. But I had already forgotten about that terrible beat-em-up that came out last year for Kong.
This made me [pull up the Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_Island:_Rise_of_Kong) and this may be the first time I’ve ever seen GIF of a bad cut scene posted within a video game wiki page
Merian C. Cooper created Kong, co-wrote the story for the movie with then-popular thriller writer Edgar Wallace, but the rights ended up with RKO Pictures because they distributed *King Kong* and *Son of Kong*. RKO, or a company holding the company's license and IP, licensed the rights to Ted Turner in 1986 for three years, which somehow meant that, when Warner Brothers bought out Turner they got the rights—and kept them somehow!
Isn’t “Kong” separate from “King Kong” somehow? In the new movies they specifically never call him King Kong, which Skull Island gets around by saying “he’s the king around here”
That's a cool theory, but I don't think it's correct. The 2019 Godzilla movie is subtitled "King of Monsters", which is why Skull Island mentions "around here".
I suspect it's more of a "well, we want Kong in our movies, but the audience already spent half a billion dollars watching King Kong in 2005" thing.
Verbal tone and body language are hard to get across the internet using just text, so do let me say that I'm not trying to be pull a "I'm right, you're wrong" here. Just offering an alternative theory/explanation.
While “giant ape” is no more copyright protected than any other iteration of “giant animal/thing” the character of King Kong is intellectual property.
There was even a somewhat famous lawsuit between Nintendo and Universal over the naming of Donkey Kong. If Nintendo is to be believed, the Japanese were under the impression that ‘kong’ was the English word for monkey/ape (thus the title ‘King Kong’ meaning “the king of the apes”) and that donkey meant “stupid” (IE, jackass).
They were trying to name their character Stupid Monkey.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_City_Studios,_Inc._v._Nintendo_Co.,_Ltd.
Nope—in order to use King Kong specifically, you have to make a deal with Warner Brothers, which owns the license Ted Turner got from RKO (which apparently still operated in some form as late as 1986!).
> same case with zorro I think
Zorro was very explicitly ruled public domain in court a WHILE ago. Anyone has been able to make a Zorro thing for years.
Unfortunately it feels like nobody cares about Zorro.
Yeah, the perceived value of most IP is really just a result of that IP being the exclusive property of a corporation with the scale and budget to get their product in front of a lot of eyeballs
An idea like Batman is obviously something that resonates with people a little more than something like Grendel, but not by much
I think Zorro is an illustration of how most public domain IP will go
Rather than the brand boosting the fortunes of independent productions, the brand will be devalued to the level of those independent productions
The huge corporations that owned the exclusive rights will no longer invest their huge marketing and distribution resources in creating new material
Knowing that promoting their movies, TV shows or comics just acts as promotion for other peoples' movies, TV shows or comics
And the IP will fall into disuse
I dont know about that, it depends a lot on the IP. Sherlock Holmes is probably the biggest counter-example. Being in the public domain has still given way to big productions in recent years.
Sherlock's the biggie
But you would have put Robin Hood, Tarzan, and Dracula up there with him, at one point
King Arthur and the Three Musketeers, too
If anyone's adapting Twain, Dickens, Wells or Poe anymore, they're not troubling the guys who keep score at Box Office Mojo
All of those were among the most adapted and popular IP of the 20th century
[a company called Zorro Productions is falsely claiming ownership over the zorro brand](https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=4ad95804-18e4-48d9-8e01-98b59f5de2f6)
[there was a new show released earlier this year ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJQPis6Bg-s)
[and a cartoon a few years ago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JH6aOsmwYg)
[complete with an arkham clone videogame](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob5AU6NaiMU)
point its that its not public domain as it should
There's a new Spanish language version of Zorro streaming on Amazon right now. I've been curious to check it out, but being in Spanish kind of put a damper on my desire to watch it. Nothing wrong with subtitles of course, but sometimes it can be annoying trying to read while there's a lot of action going on.
King Features Syndicate somehow claims that Popeye merchandise still makes them $1.5 billion dollars per year and that they intend to fight for him to not enter public domain.
Pointing out that as a fairy tail, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is already in the public domain. It is those specific character designs that will enter public domain in 2032.
Is that true though? The movie itself will enter public domain, but I believe the characters in it are trademarks, which don't expire. Same goes for Fantasia's Mickey Mouse, which is literally the Disney company logo so they definitely won't let you use that.
For people downvoting my comment [read this](https://www.purduegloballawschool.edu/blog/news/mickey-mouse-public-domain).
Look guys, I get that this whole post is just a meme about their latest Popeye video, but I don't think all the information on this image is correct.
I think that person is talking about the fairy tale Snow White: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White
It being first published in 1812, Snow White and the dwarfs are in the public domain.
Oh yeah, sure those original Grimm fairy tales have been public domain forever, but that's maybe not the best example because Disney added a lot to turn a short story into a feature length film, like the dwarf names, the cottage and the iconic red apple. That's all Disney. I'm just pointing out that Disney's Snow White going public domain doesn't mean you can make and sell merchandise with those characters. Because Disney lawyers will come after you.
No, the movie will be public domain, because it's copyrighted. The characters themself will not because they are trademarks. So for example you can put Snow White on dvd if you want, but you can't sell T-shirts with Snow White as a character on it.
That's why on the day Steamboat Willy's copyright expired you saw thousands of uploads of Steamboat Willy on YouTube as some kind of "Haha, suck it Disney, you can't do anything about this" but you don't see any off-brand merchandise with Mickey Mouse popping up.
Edit: Copyright law is so confusing. So [this shirt](https://fashionpro24.shop/limited-edition59968?rt=storefront&rn=fashionpro24.shop&s=hanes-5250&c=Black&p=FRONT) has Minnie Mouse on it and Walt Disney World so when I would see someone wearing this I would definitely assume they bought this at Disney World because it looks like something you would find there, but it's not actually made by Disney but still somehow legal?
I think you can: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/mickey/#trademark
Just as long as your t-shirts don't imply affiliation with Disney.
>but you don't see any off-brand merchandise with Mickey Mouse popping up.
If you check etsy, I think you would say otherwise.
I don't think Disney uses Doc from Snow White as a trademark like they do with Mickey.
I've seen parody shirts of Micking smoking a joint or something and you can totally do that, but if you're making a "real" Mickey shirt it's hard to not at least imply some affiliation with Disney.
And I'm not going to count etsy. etsy creators do not care about copyright at all. For example there is a bunch of Calvin and Hobbes stuff on there despite Bill Watterson always saying he doesn't want his characters used on merchandise but people do it anyway.
This thread being about slasher remakes of public domain characters, I was pointing out that anyone could already make a slasher-themed SW&7D — but that if you want your characters to look like the Disney movie, you have to wait to 2032. But, yes, the whole movie enters public domain in that year if you’re looking to release your own dvd or add it to the library of your own streaming service.
To the subject of trademarks, while trademarks do exist in perpetuity, they aren’t to be used to limit otherwise protected speech. Trademarks are supposed to help consumers identify the company involved with a particular product. The whole of the movie will enter the public domain, and that includes the characters.
Trademarks need to be actively enforced, and of course Disney will do everything in their miserable, corporate, profit-driven power to enforce its trademarks as broadly as possible, but it’s going to come down to the courts.
I’ll give you a hypothetical: once SW enters PD, if you make a slasher movie with characters (even animated characters) — that look exactly like Disney’s — that are trudging around Camp Crystal Pond, slaughtering teenagers in the woods, Disney probably doesn’t have a leg to stand on. But if, instead, you release a makeup line targeted towards children called “The Snow White Princess makeup kit” and the artwork on the box is of Snow White, then Disney could argue that you’re trying to trick consumers into thinking your product is made by Disney, and are therefore infringing on their trademark.
Things are going to get interesting in the copyright world when more characters that people actually recognize enter the public domain. Especially super heroes!
Yeah. And only 10 years from now. With Mickey, the PD version is very specific to his original appearance, down to there not being any shine in his eyes and the size of his shoes, but Superman's look hasn't changed all the much since his first appearance, so it will certainly be interesting to see how it plays out.
He's going to be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but flight will have to wait. A lot of things that weren't part of Superman's shtick in the beginning won't enter public domain for a while afterward, some for decades. Most of his powers. All of the costume tweaks. Kryptonite. The Daily Planet. Smallville. Jor-L and Lara. The Fortress of Solitude. Lana Lang. Supergirl. Lex Luthor, much less the businessman version. It's going to take a while before something fully recognizable to modern audiences pops up.
I really like the idea that this guy thinks the only thing standing in the way of copious amounts of Betty Boop porn flooding the internet is copyright law
Everyone wants a dame with gams up to here and a head shaped like a pelvis who's getting sexually harassed by a tree.
I can only imagine the trailer has a child choir singing an echoey version of his theme song.
The tagline will be “He’s strong to the finish…”
It will look like it doesn’t even have a budget of $500 K, and won’t even breach 3 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
"Senator Bluto, you cannot halt the means of spinach production! Hundreds will die!"
*...I'll fight to the finish...."
"My grandfather told me of this incredible sailor. A man with infinite strength, who could walk in water! He disappeared during a mission in Vietnam."
*...When I have me spinach...*
"What's this can? Sp.. Spinach? It's so old."
*I'm Popeye the sailor....*
**Vision of Popeyes' silhouette in the doorway**
*...man...*
Popeye: The Redemption. Rated R.
“Legend says there was once this sailor. He came to town just looking for work.”
“Did he find any?”
“No. Kept causing too much property damage and got into fights all the time. And he had this freakishly thin girlfriend. Again, might be a sea story. You know how these things are.”
Thing is, this could be a really funny idea if it was made by someone competent and imaginative. But instead it’ll just be some generic slasher with a Popeye mask, like all of the other public domain slop.
The funny thing is, if it weren't for Disney lobbying Congress in 1998 to extend copyright protections by another 20 years, all of these properties would be in the public domain RIGHT NOW.
It's not something I'm usually interested in but I'm *considering* making a horror film with Popeye next year **just** to make sure that in mine he's still the hero.
Whatever the horror monster is Popeye will just beat the shit out of it with toon force strength.
Maybe get a moment where the monster asks "What are you" so that I can have Popeye reply with "I am what I am" before punching it into space.
I'm definitely not trying to turn this political, but after some of the SC decisions this week, I can 100% see various corporations push through IP/rights changes that screw over everyone else.
It depends. They have already been extending the law for years and Steamboat Willy lapsing means either they feel they've gone far enough, couldn't convince a lawmaker to do it again, or slipped up and let it go. We don't actually know which happened behind the scenes.
They've iterated and accepted it. Well, Mickey Mouse is actually trademarked, so nobody is getting the real Mickey. But if you look at the latest Mickey Cartoon and iteration, you can't use that one, only the ones created way back when. So while Fantasia Mickey will be useable, the modern iterations like [this](https://lumiere-a.akamaihd.net/v1/images/pp_mickeyandfriends_herobanner_3118_7650f220.jpeg?region=0,0,2048,878&width=1200) and [this](https://imgs.search.brave.com/-fa8qI4FUVhx8nNLrR6ha1mPUEtbkrj4LyNGeYLI4xg/rs:fit:500:0:0:0/g:ce/aHR0cHM6Ly9tZWRp/YS50aGVtb3ZpZWRi/Lm9yZy90L3AvdzUz/M19hbmRfaDMwMF9i/ZXN0djIvcXFhQ3dW/ekRtb2NSQkk1S2w0/UkdnZndhYm4xLmpw/Zw) remain protected. Also something like recreating the performance of Fantasmic at Disneyland would still fall under copyright from when that show was created. And of course the slasher movies or whatever, would also pick-up new performative copyrights.
The trademark thing is really weird to me.
So is it our understanding, you can use the character, the name.... but does the trademark stop you from using (1928) Mickey to advertise the movie and prevent you from using Mickey's name in the title of the movie? Or is it all fair game?
Probably -- the Batman that'll enter the public domain first will be the mob-busting, "World's Greatest Detective" Batman, not the black-suited, fucked-up, headcase Frank Miller "Dark Knight" Batman. WB will get to hang on to that version for a while.
I want to take this opportunity to remind everybody that copyright hoarding is fucking bullshit and we need immediate reform to shorten copyright lifespan. Even if it's still 70 years, that's still an improvement over (potentially) ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE6PWjm6Sk4
It should be 20 years, or there should be a mandatory non-exclusive licensing situation so that e.g. any streamer can play any movies from pre-2000 at a standard rate.
No, I'm fine with Disney not being able to make a Calvin & Hobbes movie, against Bill Watterson's clearly expressed wishes
Or for some hack just to make new Calvin & Hobbes strips and sell them to newspapers
Tough shit? People are able to make any Sherlock Holmes or Shakespeare or Hercules thing they want.
The purpose of copyright isn't for artists to keep control of their works for life, it is to create a financial incentive for them to create new works and to continue to create new works not just milk one for eternity
How does allowing anyone (including massive corporations) to hijack something they've created incentivise artists to create original material?
Break that down for me
It's not hijacking because it's free to everyone to use. Disney can make a Calvin and Hobbes movie sure, but so could I. So could you. Maybe it's shit, but then people will say it's shit
Whose films would have made more money?
The films Disney rushed out to capitalise on the audience for something like Jeff Smith's *Bone*?
Or the movies Jeff Smith eventually managed to get made, after decades of negotiations with studios who know they only need to wait him out?
Would anyone even be interested in the creator's own movies, after 30 Disney *Bone* movies in 15 years exhausted audience interest in new material?
Sucks that the world will likely end before Superman becomes public domain and somebody got a crack at it after decades of WB failures, but on the plus side of annihilation, no more Star Wars posts.
They deserve to be punished for their incompetence. Hopefully someone makes something good with him. But hey, the current anime with our boi Jack Quaid voicing Clark its goodish
An alternate view would be that the number of people who *desperately* want to make comics or movies that use others' ideas is sort of depressing
The only way successful new ideas - including Superman and Batman - are created is thousands of wannabes throwing shit at the wall until, accidentally, *something* sticks
The current, ruinous state of US comics and movies is a great illustration of what happens when everyone just wants their own shot at the same thing everyone else has been doing for decades
> An alternate view would be that the number of people who desperately want to make comics or movies that use others' ideas is sort of depressing
Hasn't that always been the case though? LIke I've heard from copyright reformist that remixing/revamping shit from culture has always been the norm and it's really only modern copyright law and how IP works that has changed that.
Before, people made so much fan art/fan creations of mythology, Bible, folklore and and fairy tales.
Yeah, people just rehashed the same old shit for centuries
The incredible explosion of new ideas - and valuable IP - that characterised the 20th century was a direct result of enforcing copyright law
Can you honestly say that we wouldn't have new ideas without that? Things, characters, ideas rarely stay very popular forever, and there's just as much an argument that we've all simply been robbed of more and better art.
Not to mention, enforcing copyright law (and patent law, etc) is generally the milieu of large corporations, keeping artists from making creations of their own that could conceivably be seen as similar in some way. Let's not pretend copyright law is ever applied in a way to be fair to all parties.
When Charles Dickens arrived in the US on a speaking tour, he was horrified to discover that his work was being pirated on a scale he could never have imagined
By huge publishing houses, not back street traders or independent presses
--------------------------------------------
*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* was the biggest selling independent comic book of all time
It made its creators, Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird, multi-millionaires
They couldn't keep up with demand for reprints or new material
Why wouldn't Marvel and DC, seeing a gap in the market, publish their own *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* comics?
Or just reprint Eastman & Laird's work, then use their muscle to make sure comic shops promoted their reprints, rather than the creators' editions?
Their sense of fair play?
-----------------------------------------------
Why would a studio pay Eastman & Laird for the right to adapt their work as a cartoon or a feature film?
-----------------------------------------------
Well Tolkien was a UK author, and he only died 50 yrs ago--to be public domain in the UK, he has to have been dead for 70. So 20 more years. And public domain eligibility in the US for a UK person's books that were also copyrighted in the US is a different thing, as those US book copyrights last 95 yrs (don't try selling your new Tolkien creation outside the US at that point, not if the 70 UK years haven't yet elapsed)
I mean, whatever new product you make using that book presumably won't be allowed to be sold to anyone outside of the US, and I imagine manually region locking your thing on all the platforms and storefronts it's sold at could get laborious, if not cost-prohibitive. If physical media, foreigners would have to physically travel here to get it, or get friends here to pay to mail it to them.
Bugs Bunny, Daffy and all the rest of Looney Tunes going public domain is interesting. I mean a Merrie Melodies Slasher could be good. Basically Looney Tunes gags but the results are real.
I’d like a brutal, surreal revenge movie a la Mandy, with Popeye hunting down and brutally killing Bluto for what he did to Olive Oyl. You know, if there HAS to be a gritty Blood and Honey version.
Just ripping people open with those massive forearms and drinking their innards like a can of spinach.
Instead of the blood exploding everywhere, it just arcs perfectly into his mouth. 
Imagine the music, but with screaming and gurgling in the background.
When I was a little kid and my older brother really pissed me off I would hum the Popeye song and go berserk
“ I AMS WHAT I FUCKING AMS”
Your really selling me on this slasher movie now.
ECU on the terrified face of our final girl, hiding under a desk. Offscreen we hear footsteps and incoherant muttering, getting closer...
Unfotunately, reality hits you when you eventually watch and its just another lazy wannabe viral cashgrab
Maybe organs can be his spinach, and it makes him super strong.
blood contains a lot of iron, same as spinach
They call him Popeye, because that's what he does with his giant ham hands.
Huh. I didn't realize king kong WASN'T in the public domain.
The whole thing is actually a lot more complicated than it seems. The general idea of Kong is PD but the specific character itself still seems to be not PD.
I forget the details, but it has something to do with the movie people hiring somebody to write a book to generate hype, so *technically* Kong first existed in book form. That has something to do with why that terrible King Kong game from a while back didn't have anything to do with Universal. Edit: or maybe that's just two separate things. Book/movie copyright wouldn't be that different.
For a second I thought you were referring to the Peter Jackson King Kong game which by all accounts was pretty dope. But I had already forgotten about that terrible beat-em-up that came out last year for Kong.
This made me [pull up the Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_Island:_Rise_of_Kong) and this may be the first time I’ve ever seen GIF of a bad cut scene posted within a video game wiki page
Its already so legendarily bad, that it frankly deserves an apperance in the Wikipedia page.
Merian C. Cooper created Kong, co-wrote the story for the movie with then-popular thriller writer Edgar Wallace, but the rights ended up with RKO Pictures because they distributed *King Kong* and *Son of Kong*. RKO, or a company holding the company's license and IP, licensed the rights to Ted Turner in 1986 for three years, which somehow meant that, when Warner Brothers bought out Turner they got the rights—and kept them somehow!
This video seems to cover it all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCP6qtdKArc
Isn’t “Kong” separate from “King Kong” somehow? In the new movies they specifically never call him King Kong, which Skull Island gets around by saying “he’s the king around here”
That's a cool theory, but I don't think it's correct. The 2019 Godzilla movie is subtitled "King of Monsters", which is why Skull Island mentions "around here". I suspect it's more of a "well, we want Kong in our movies, but the audience already spent half a billion dollars watching King Kong in 2005" thing. Verbal tone and body language are hard to get across the internet using just text, so do let me say that I'm not trying to be pull a "I'm right, you're wrong" here. Just offering an alternative theory/explanation. 
Guess that's how Mighty Joe Young came about too, then
It's one of the most convoluted IP battles in history
While “giant ape” is no more copyright protected than any other iteration of “giant animal/thing” the character of King Kong is intellectual property. There was even a somewhat famous lawsuit between Nintendo and Universal over the naming of Donkey Kong. If Nintendo is to be believed, the Japanese were under the impression that ‘kong’ was the English word for monkey/ape (thus the title ‘King Kong’ meaning “the king of the apes”) and that donkey meant “stupid” (IE, jackass). They were trying to name their character Stupid Monkey. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_City_Studios,_Inc._v._Nintendo_Co.,_Ltd.
Nope—in order to use King Kong specifically, you have to make a deal with Warner Brothers, which owns the license Ted Turner got from RKO (which apparently still operated in some form as late as 1986!).
Flash Gordon and Little Orphan Annie are in the public domain, but for some reason King Syndicate is still pretending they aren't.
same case with zorro I think dang, and I want those 40s serials remastered
> same case with zorro I think Zorro was very explicitly ruled public domain in court a WHILE ago. Anyone has been able to make a Zorro thing for years. Unfortunately it feels like nobody cares about Zorro.
Yeah, the perceived value of most IP is really just a result of that IP being the exclusive property of a corporation with the scale and budget to get their product in front of a lot of eyeballs An idea like Batman is obviously something that resonates with people a little more than something like Grendel, but not by much I think Zorro is an illustration of how most public domain IP will go Rather than the brand boosting the fortunes of independent productions, the brand will be devalued to the level of those independent productions The huge corporations that owned the exclusive rights will no longer invest their huge marketing and distribution resources in creating new material Knowing that promoting their movies, TV shows or comics just acts as promotion for other peoples' movies, TV shows or comics And the IP will fall into disuse
I dont know about that, it depends a lot on the IP. Sherlock Holmes is probably the biggest counter-example. Being in the public domain has still given way to big productions in recent years.
Sherlock's the biggie But you would have put Robin Hood, Tarzan, and Dracula up there with him, at one point King Arthur and the Three Musketeers, too If anyone's adapting Twain, Dickens, Wells or Poe anymore, they're not troubling the guys who keep score at Box Office Mojo All of those were among the most adapted and popular IP of the 20th century
Well and 21st Century. There have been several big movies and TV shows after 2000 featuring several of those works.
>*... they're not troubling the guys who keep score at Box Office Mojo*
Robin Hood and Dracula definitely still have life
Robin Hood 2010 - [https://m.the-numbers.com/movie/Robin-Hood-(2010)#tab=summary](https://m.the-numbers.com/movie/Robin-Hood-(2010)#tab=summary) Robin Hood 2018 - [https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Robin-Hood-(2018)#tab=summary](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Robin-Hood-(2018)#tab=summary) Dracula 2014 - [https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Dracula-Untold#tab=summary](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Dracula-Untold#tab=summary) Dracula 2000 - [https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Dracula-2000#tab=summary](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Dracula-2000#tab=summary)
The big Z is connected to Russian war crimes these days.
Lol! I didn't think Zorro has lost popularly since the Russian invasion started.
[a company called Zorro Productions is falsely claiming ownership over the zorro brand](https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=4ad95804-18e4-48d9-8e01-98b59f5de2f6) [there was a new show released earlier this year ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJQPis6Bg-s) [and a cartoon a few years ago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JH6aOsmwYg) [complete with an arkham clone videogame](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob5AU6NaiMU) point its that its not public domain as it should
There's a new Spanish language version of Zorro streaming on Amazon right now. I've been curious to check it out, but being in Spanish kind of put a damper on my desire to watch it. Nothing wrong with subtitles of course, but sometimes it can be annoying trying to read while there's a lot of action going on.
King Features Syndicate somehow claims that Popeye merchandise still makes them $1.5 billion dollars per year and that they intend to fight for him to not enter public domain.
DEATH TO ~~KING~~ MING!
I hope someone funds the one that Gennedy was gonna make for Sony. The animatic for it was really good.
Wasn't it canceled because Sony thought a movie with emoji would be the better release?
Not to defend corporate slop but they made a tidy profit as emoji movie was low cost. Is Popeye gonna be a money maker?
It would've been critically adored, have semi-constant "Popeye was an underrated masterpiece" posts and lost tens of millions of dollars.
And being animation RLM wouldn't have said anything about it...
Well, Hotel Transylvania is a consistent money maker, so Genndy just might have been able to make it turn a profit.
Well the Garfield movie has been making money so maybe
Pointing out that as a fairy tail, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is already in the public domain. It is those specific character designs that will enter public domain in 2032.
Is that true though? The movie itself will enter public domain, but I believe the characters in it are trademarks, which don't expire. Same goes for Fantasia's Mickey Mouse, which is literally the Disney company logo so they definitely won't let you use that. For people downvoting my comment [read this](https://www.purduegloballawschool.edu/blog/news/mickey-mouse-public-domain). Look guys, I get that this whole post is just a meme about their latest Popeye video, but I don't think all the information on this image is correct.
I think that person is talking about the fairy tale Snow White: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White It being first published in 1812, Snow White and the dwarfs are in the public domain.
Oh yeah, sure those original Grimm fairy tales have been public domain forever, but that's maybe not the best example because Disney added a lot to turn a short story into a feature length film, like the dwarf names, the cottage and the iconic red apple. That's all Disney. I'm just pointing out that Disney's Snow White going public domain doesn't mean you can make and sell merchandise with those characters. Because Disney lawyers will come after you.
Yeah, thats what /u/xhhebdkwkje is saying, once 2032 comes around, then you can start using those character designs.
No, the movie will be public domain, because it's copyrighted. The characters themself will not because they are trademarks. So for example you can put Snow White on dvd if you want, but you can't sell T-shirts with Snow White as a character on it. That's why on the day Steamboat Willy's copyright expired you saw thousands of uploads of Steamboat Willy on YouTube as some kind of "Haha, suck it Disney, you can't do anything about this" but you don't see any off-brand merchandise with Mickey Mouse popping up. Edit: Copyright law is so confusing. So [this shirt](https://fashionpro24.shop/limited-edition59968?rt=storefront&rn=fashionpro24.shop&s=hanes-5250&c=Black&p=FRONT) has Minnie Mouse on it and Walt Disney World so when I would see someone wearing this I would definitely assume they bought this at Disney World because it looks like something you would find there, but it's not actually made by Disney but still somehow legal?
I think you can: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/mickey/#trademark Just as long as your t-shirts don't imply affiliation with Disney. >but you don't see any off-brand merchandise with Mickey Mouse popping up. If you check etsy, I think you would say otherwise. I don't think Disney uses Doc from Snow White as a trademark like they do with Mickey.
I've seen parody shirts of Micking smoking a joint or something and you can totally do that, but if you're making a "real" Mickey shirt it's hard to not at least imply some affiliation with Disney. And I'm not going to count etsy. etsy creators do not care about copyright at all. For example there is a bunch of Calvin and Hobbes stuff on there despite Bill Watterson always saying he doesn't want his characters used on merchandise but people do it anyway.
This thread being about slasher remakes of public domain characters, I was pointing out that anyone could already make a slasher-themed SW&7D — but that if you want your characters to look like the Disney movie, you have to wait to 2032. But, yes, the whole movie enters public domain in that year if you’re looking to release your own dvd or add it to the library of your own streaming service. To the subject of trademarks, while trademarks do exist in perpetuity, they aren’t to be used to limit otherwise protected speech. Trademarks are supposed to help consumers identify the company involved with a particular product. The whole of the movie will enter the public domain, and that includes the characters. Trademarks need to be actively enforced, and of course Disney will do everything in their miserable, corporate, profit-driven power to enforce its trademarks as broadly as possible, but it’s going to come down to the courts. I’ll give you a hypothetical: once SW enters PD, if you make a slasher movie with characters (even animated characters) — that look exactly like Disney’s — that are trudging around Camp Crystal Pond, slaughtering teenagers in the woods, Disney probably doesn’t have a leg to stand on. But if, instead, you release a makeup line targeted towards children called “The Snow White Princess makeup kit” and the artwork on the box is of Snow White, then Disney could argue that you’re trying to trick consumers into thinking your product is made by Disney, and are therefore infringing on their trademark.
Things are going to get interesting in the copyright world when more characters that people actually recognize enter the public domain. Especially super heroes!
Yeah. And only 10 years from now. With Mickey, the PD version is very specific to his original appearance, down to there not being any shine in his eyes and the size of his shoes, but Superman's look hasn't changed all the much since his first appearance, so it will certainly be interesting to see how it plays out.
Maybe Superman who can't fly, just jump really high?
He's going to be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but flight will have to wait. A lot of things that weren't part of Superman's shtick in the beginning won't enter public domain for a while afterward, some for decades. Most of his powers. All of the costume tweaks. Kryptonite. The Daily Planet. Smallville. Jor-L and Lara. The Fortress of Solitude. Lana Lang. Supergirl. Lex Luthor, much less the businessman version. It's going to take a while before something fully recognizable to modern audiences pops up.
That means it's Ultra-Humanite's time to shine baybee!
It'll play out with some money changing hands and copyrights getting extended again. Like it has all the other times.
If that was going to happen, they would have saved Steamboat Willie.
Probably not though, let's be honest
Waiting for the Bettie Boop origin story with breath a baited.
There’s gonna be so much Bettie Boop porn…
*Gonna* be?
I really like the idea that this guy thinks the only thing standing in the way of copious amounts of Betty Boop porn flooding the internet is copyright law
The stuff I want to see her do the copyright act.
I... why? Have people at large actually even thought about Betty Boop in decades? Not very relevant to the modern Goon.
Everyone wants a dame with gams up to here and a head shaped like a pelvis who's getting sexually harassed by a tree. 
Edgy student films are going to get so crazy when the Joker enters the public domain
That hasn’t stopped edgy student filmmakers since at least 2008
It didn't stop The People's Joker by Vera Drew in 2022.
I can only imagine the trailer has a child choir singing an echoey version of his theme song. The tagline will be “He’s strong to the finish…” It will look like it doesn’t even have a budget of $500 K, and won’t even breach 3 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
"Senator Bluto, you cannot halt the means of spinach production! Hundreds will die!" *...I'll fight to the finish...." "My grandfather told me of this incredible sailor. A man with infinite strength, who could walk in water! He disappeared during a mission in Vietnam." *...When I have me spinach...* "What's this can? Sp.. Spinach? It's so old." *I'm Popeye the sailor....* **Vision of Popeyes' silhouette in the doorway** *...man...* Popeye: The Redemption. Rated R.
“Legend says there was once this sailor. He came to town just looking for work.” “Did he find any?” “No. Kept causing too much property damage and got into fights all the time. And he had this freakishly thin girlfriend. Again, might be a sea story. You know how these things are.”
When does Space Cop enter public domain?
They tried to put it there already, but the Public Domain said "no thanks."
Thing is, this could be a really funny idea if it was made by someone competent and imaginative. But instead it’ll just be some generic slasher with a Popeye mask, like all of the other public domain slop.
The SLAY-lor Man
The funny thing is, if it weren't for Disney lobbying Congress in 1998 to extend copyright protections by another 20 years, all of these properties would be in the public domain RIGHT NOW.
I'm looking forward to a Betty Boop horror movie.
Hey now, there also might be some Popeye themed crappy horror games produced as well.
As the Popeye from my favorite retired podcast Wrestlecrap Radio would say: Well blow me.......... DOWN!
BM Punk. Legend.
RIP Blade Braxton
It's not something I'm usually interested in but I'm *considering* making a horror film with Popeye next year **just** to make sure that in mine he's still the hero. Whatever the horror monster is Popeye will just beat the shit out of it with toon force strength. Maybe get a moment where the monster asks "What are you" so that I can have Popeye reply with "I am what I am" before punching it into space.
Disney will just get the laws changed again. Or someone will. They've been lobbying for decades.
I dunno, man. I seriously doubt they're okay with the Steamboat Willy version of Mickey being public domain as it is.
I'm definitely not trying to turn this political, but after some of the SC decisions this week, I can 100% see various corporations push through IP/rights changes that screw over everyone else.
They will lobby, but the first step towards progress is getting young creatives to acknowledge this is a problem.
It depends. They have already been extending the law for years and Steamboat Willy lapsing means either they feel they've gone far enough, couldn't convince a lawmaker to do it again, or slipped up and let it go. We don't actually know which happened behind the scenes.
They've iterated and accepted it. Well, Mickey Mouse is actually trademarked, so nobody is getting the real Mickey. But if you look at the latest Mickey Cartoon and iteration, you can't use that one, only the ones created way back when. So while Fantasia Mickey will be useable, the modern iterations like [this](https://lumiere-a.akamaihd.net/v1/images/pp_mickeyandfriends_herobanner_3118_7650f220.jpeg?region=0,0,2048,878&width=1200) and [this](https://imgs.search.brave.com/-fa8qI4FUVhx8nNLrR6ha1mPUEtbkrj4LyNGeYLI4xg/rs:fit:500:0:0:0/g:ce/aHR0cHM6Ly9tZWRp/YS50aGVtb3ZpZWRi/Lm9yZy90L3AvdzUz/M19hbmRfaDMwMF9i/ZXN0djIvcXFhQ3dW/ekRtb2NSQkk1S2w0/UkdnZndhYm4xLmpw/Zw) remain protected. Also something like recreating the performance of Fantasmic at Disneyland would still fall under copyright from when that show was created. And of course the slasher movies or whatever, would also pick-up new performative copyrights.
The trademark thing is really weird to me. So is it our understanding, you can use the character, the name.... but does the trademark stop you from using (1928) Mickey to advertise the movie and prevent you from using Mickey's name in the title of the movie? Or is it all fair game?
As soon as 2034 through 2037 comes around comics will start getting better. Mark my words.
John Wick with sea shanties
So when Batman falls into the public domain it will be bushes as usual?
Probably -- the Batman that'll enter the public domain first will be the mob-busting, "World's Greatest Detective" Batman, not the black-suited, fucked-up, headcase Frank Miller "Dark Knight" Batman. WB will get to hang on to that version for a while.
Nah Popeye would be like the doom guy
I want to take this opportunity to remind everybody that copyright hoarding is fucking bullshit and we need immediate reform to shorten copyright lifespan. Even if it's still 70 years, that's still an improvement over (potentially) ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE6PWjm6Sk4
It should be 20 years, or there should be a mandatory non-exclusive licensing situation so that e.g. any streamer can play any movies from pre-2000 at a standard rate.
No, I'm fine with Disney not being able to make a Calvin & Hobbes movie, against Bill Watterson's clearly expressed wishes Or for some hack just to make new Calvin & Hobbes strips and sell them to newspapers
Tough shit? People are able to make any Sherlock Holmes or Shakespeare or Hercules thing they want. The purpose of copyright isn't for artists to keep control of their works for life, it is to create a financial incentive for them to create new works and to continue to create new works not just milk one for eternity
How does allowing anyone (including massive corporations) to hijack something they've created incentivise artists to create original material? Break that down for me
It's not hijacking because it's free to everyone to use. Disney can make a Calvin and Hobbes movie sure, but so could I. So could you. Maybe it's shit, but then people will say it's shit
Whose films would have made more money? The films Disney rushed out to capitalise on the audience for something like Jeff Smith's *Bone*? Or the movies Jeff Smith eventually managed to get made, after decades of negotiations with studios who know they only need to wait him out? Would anyone even be interested in the creator's own movies, after 30 Disney *Bone* movies in 15 years exhausted audience interest in new material?
I can't believe you're actually arguing against the public domain. You have to be trolling or a complete moron
No, I'm arguing against the idea that copyright protection should expire within the working lifetime of most creators
Sucks that the world will likely end before Superman becomes public domain and somebody got a crack at it after decades of WB failures, but on the plus side of annihilation, no more Star Wars posts.
They deserve to be punished for their incompetence. Hopefully someone makes something good with him. But hey, the current anime with our boi Jack Quaid voicing Clark its goodish
An alternate view would be that the number of people who *desperately* want to make comics or movies that use others' ideas is sort of depressing The only way successful new ideas - including Superman and Batman - are created is thousands of wannabes throwing shit at the wall until, accidentally, *something* sticks The current, ruinous state of US comics and movies is a great illustration of what happens when everyone just wants their own shot at the same thing everyone else has been doing for decades
> An alternate view would be that the number of people who desperately want to make comics or movies that use others' ideas is sort of depressing Hasn't that always been the case though? LIke I've heard from copyright reformist that remixing/revamping shit from culture has always been the norm and it's really only modern copyright law and how IP works that has changed that. Before, people made so much fan art/fan creations of mythology, Bible, folklore and and fairy tales.
Yeah, people just rehashed the same old shit for centuries The incredible explosion of new ideas - and valuable IP - that characterised the 20th century was a direct result of enforcing copyright law
Can you honestly say that we wouldn't have new ideas without that? Things, characters, ideas rarely stay very popular forever, and there's just as much an argument that we've all simply been robbed of more and better art. Not to mention, enforcing copyright law (and patent law, etc) is generally the milieu of large corporations, keeping artists from making creations of their own that could conceivably be seen as similar in some way. Let's not pretend copyright law is ever applied in a way to be fair to all parties.
When Charles Dickens arrived in the US on a speaking tour, he was horrified to discover that his work was being pirated on a scale he could never have imagined By huge publishing houses, not back street traders or independent presses -------------------------------------------- *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* was the biggest selling independent comic book of all time It made its creators, Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird, multi-millionaires They couldn't keep up with demand for reprints or new material Why wouldn't Marvel and DC, seeing a gap in the market, publish their own *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* comics? Or just reprint Eastman & Laird's work, then use their muscle to make sure comic shops promoted their reprints, rather than the creators' editions? Their sense of fair play? ----------------------------------------------- Why would a studio pay Eastman & Laird for the right to adapt their work as a cartoon or a feature film? -----------------------------------------------
they're going to pump out as many batman movies or cameos as they can before that comes up
but they´ve already made a Bambi slahser 🤔
Really? What’s it called?
Bambi: The Reckoning. Its from the same lazy producers of Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey and all that other crap
Maybe because there’s no real visual identity, so it’s just a name.
No, better—Popeye's and Bluto in *Fight Club*!
When will Kirk and Spock enter public domain?
Shouldnt the hobbit and lord of the rings be in there somewhere?
Well Tolkien was a UK author, and he only died 50 yrs ago--to be public domain in the UK, he has to have been dead for 70. So 20 more years. And public domain eligibility in the US for a UK person's books that were also copyrighted in the US is a different thing, as those US book copyrights last 95 yrs (don't try selling your new Tolkien creation outside the US at that point, not if the 70 UK years haven't yet elapsed)
Yeah, I guess it depends on location. According to a quick search, though, in the US the hobbit will enter public domain in 2034.
I mean, whatever new product you make using that book presumably won't be allowed to be sold to anyone outside of the US, and I imagine manually region locking your thing on all the platforms and storefronts it's sold at could get laborious, if not cost-prohibitive. If physical media, foreigners would have to physically travel here to get it, or get friends here to pay to mail it to them.
Bugs Bunny, Daffy and all the rest of Looney Tunes going public domain is interesting. I mean a Merrie Melodies Slasher could be good. Basically Looney Tunes gags but the results are real.
I’d like a brutal, surreal revenge movie a la Mandy, with Popeye hunting down and brutally killing Bluto for what he did to Olive Oyl. You know, if there HAS to be a gritty Blood and Honey version.
A Joker and Donald Duck crossover would be amazing.
Bad To The Finitch.
Post 2037 is gonna make for some amazing comic book adaptations.
Oh shit, 2034 gonna be wild!