Here's the more precise tables. You might get a year or more from these.
Of course, knowing this, we're told to save for 30 years of retirement starting at 65.
Star Trek Public Domain??
- Thread starter Ogrebear
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Of course, knowing this, we're told to save for 30 years of retirement starting at 65.
One of my former colleagues at Diamond retired this week. Dying at his keyboard at the office was his dream, and it was an elaborate one. Thankfully, it did not come to pass.I have no intention of retiring. I fully intend to drop dead at my keyboard like a proper writer.
I have no intention of retiring. I fully intend to drop dead at my keyboard like a proper writer.
Good news, then... the way things are going, most of us are probably going to have to work till we die, so you won't be alone in that.
Personally, I'm just hoping to survive the neverending layoffs long enough to make it to retirement, assuming such a thing does still exist by then. And if I'm really lucky, maybe I'll be able to afford to keep a roof over my head after retiring.
The first season of Star Trek will fall into the public domain in the US on Jan 1, 2061, so that's 35 years.
36 is correct. 1966 copyrights expire (in the US) at the end of 2061, not the beginning.
I can't imagine Disney will ever let characters like Mickey Mouse go completely into the public domain, or that DC/WB will let Superman and Batman, Lucasfilm will let Star Wars, or Paramount will let Star Trek, I'm sure they'll find some way to stop it. There's no way they're going to just let anybody do whatever they want with their core characters, they might be willing to put with a few early things going that way, since they tend to be fairly limited, but once we reach the point where the most famous elements of those characters or shows/movies are going, they're going to stop it somehow, there's just to much on the line for them.
I've always been a huge fan of puppets, and things like that, I'm a huge lifelong Muppets fan, and some of my favorite movies and shows are Farscape, Dark Crystal, and The Never-Ending Story, and one of my favorite parts of them is all of the puppet creatures.
Ironically, one of the most consistent things that actors who work with puppet characters like The Muppets or other Henson creations say, is that half the time they'd forget they were even puppets.
I've always been a huge fan of puppets, and things like that, I'm a huge lifelong Muppets fan, and some of my favorite movies and shows are Farscape, Dark Crystal, and The Never-Ending Story, and one of my favorite parts of them is all of the puppet creatures.
You're right. I'm sick and loaded up on medication and did my math badly.
I'm sure they'll get the laws changed.
I don't expect that. We're already a few years into Mickey Mouse cartoons entering the public domain. Disney seems to be fine with that.
Don't math on drugs, kids.
Right. I expect that if people start creating derivative works that are actually in competition with recent, still-copyrighted material, the corporations will try to throw up roadblocks. But keeping the original works themselves copyrighted doesn’t seem to be a priority anymore.
Don't forget that it will also be 100% AI-generated slop.
But who knows, maybe it'll be a distraction from the 50°C temperatures and the lack of potable water.
Maybe, but I just find it hard to believe Disney is really going to be OK with losing complete control over Mickey & Co.
They may or may not be OK with it— I’m sure in their dream world, copyrights are perpetual— but their window to avoid it has slipped by with no evidence that they care.
Honestly, the fact that “Steamboat Willie” has been public domain for two years and the resulting non-Disney Mickey Mouse works have been a bunch of low-budget horror films and other in-jokey ephemera suggests that the impact of franchises entering the public domain is not going to be what people imagined.
Honestly, the fact that “Steamboat Willie” has been public domain for two years and the resulting non-Disney Mickey Mouse works have been a bunch of low-budget horror films and other in-jokey ephemera suggests that the impact of franchises entering the public domain is not going to be what people imagined.
The ones to watch for, imho, are Superman in 2034, Batman in 2035, and Captain America in 2036, since the barriers to entry for comics are so low compared to film. I know people in the comic industry are already talking about these.
I have no intention of retiring. I fully intend to drop dead at my keyboard like a proper writer.
I can't die yet. I have books I haven't finished reading. Let alone the ones I haven't written (and/or) sold.
I'm not holding my breath for Superman to enter the Marvel Universe and Captain America to enter the DC Universe.
Two of oldest superheroes, the Scarlet Pimpernel and Zorro, have been in the public domain for years, but DC and Marvel have yet to include them. Many superheroes from the 30s and 40s are also public domain because no one bothered renewing their copyright. They've appeared recently in comics by Image and Dynamite, but again, DC and Marvel are not interested.
But the main reason you will probably never see Superman in Marvel is trademark law. When Mickey Mouse became public domain, Erik Larsen wasted no time putting him in his Savage Dragon comics. But even though he is called Mickey Mouse in the story, his name is never mentioned on the cover and the solicitations only refer to him as the Rascally Rodent. Larsen couldn't advertise using Mickey's name without violating Disney's trademark.
Marvel is even more careful. When they lost the rights to Fu Manchu, the father of Shang-Chi, they refused to say his name at all, even though Fu Manchu was in the public domain. They revealed that his real name was Zheng Zu and the other name was just an alias.
If they can't use Superman's name in marketing, why would Marvel bother with him? And I suspect that DC has also trademarked phrases like "Man of Steel" and "Man of Tomorrow".
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