Star Trek Public Domain??

[Greg Cox]

Spoken like someone who doesn't actually make a living as a writer/creator of intellectual property. You think authors have it too easy in this marketplace? Give it a try. Show us how easy it is before you denigrate the one thing that makes our careers even remotely feasible.

Bingo. I mean, don't most people work at their jobs and businesses in order to provide for themselves and their families, even after retirement or death? Why are writers and artists held to a higher standard than, say, some guy who started a cupcake business or whatever?

"Sorry, dude. You can't rest on your laurels and put your kids through college if you haven't invented a new cupcake recipe in years. In fact, you're going to lose all rights to the family business you've worked your whole life to build because . . . public domain!"

It's not a hobby. It's a job, and, for some of us, our primary source of income. So, yeah, I want royalties on my work for the rest of my life -- and for my partner's life at least.

Why shouldn't we be able to leave the fruits of our labor to our loved ones?

 

[Christopher]

I'd be interested to see what @Christopher might do with the public domain elements of Krypton in a Star Trek novel a decade from now.

That would be nothing, since I don't like mixing different franchises. I might throw in homages here and there -- The Higher Frontier is drenched in Kamen Rider homages -- but there's a difference between homage and outright copying.

Besides, we know from ENT: "Shuttlepod One" that Superman comics exist as works of fiction in the Trek universe, so that would seem to rule it out.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Star Trek is not going into public domain in our lifetimes.

I'm not even that young, but I still think there's a good chance I'm still around when TOS goes into the public domain.

Unless of course you mean something like either:

• Corporations lobby for, and receive, yet another copyright extension that pushes its scheduled public domain date even further down the road
• Collapse of society, due to war, environmental collapse, or other factors, renders the concept effectively meaningless before the scheduled public domain date

Then I would probably (reluctantly) be forced to agree with you.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

That would be nothing, since I don't like mixing different franchises. I might throw in homages here and there -- The Higher Frontier is drenched in Kamen Rider homages -- but there's a difference between homage and outright copying.

Color me disappointed, sir.

Someone will reimagine Krypton (and two decades later, Oa and Thanagar) in the Star Trek and Star Wars universes, no doubt.

Corporations lobby for, and receive, yet another copyright extension that pushes its scheduled public domain date even further down the road

Given that Disney hasn't lobbied for such, and the early Mickey Mouse cartoons are now public domain, then I suspect we've seen the last copyright extension in the foreseeable future.

 

[Christopher]

Color me disappointed, sir.

Someone will reimagine Krypton (and two decades later, Oa and Thanagar) in the Star Trek and Star Wars universes, no doubt.

Why in the world would that be desirable? Maybe they'd appear as holodeck programs, like Sherlock Holmes, but wouldn't it be better for actual planets and species in a Star Trek story to be new creations rather than just lazy copies of something from outside Trek? Heck, there are many alien species in Trek canon that have barely been developed, like all the background aliens in TMP or TVH. I'd rather see something done with them.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Why in the world would that be desirable?

Because it would be fun.

A comic book where Jay Gatsby and Sherlock Holmes fought Godzilla and Dracula was one of my favorite comics of last year. I'm weird like that.

 

[Greg Cox]

Because it would be fun.

A comic book where Jay Gatsby and Sherlock Holmes fought Godzilla and Dracula was one of my favorite comics of last year. I'm weird like that.

Tell me more.

 

[The Wormhole]

Some of the younger crowd here will live to see the 1966 episodes become public domain thirty-six years from now, but I don't believe I will.

Thirty-six years from now? I'll be in my late seventies, so it's possible I'll still be around.

 

[Extrocomp]

Someone will reimagine Krypton (and two decades later, Oa and Thanagar) in the Star Trek and Star Wars universes, no doubt.

Oa already exists in the Star Trek Universe. It appeared in the Star Trek/Green Lantern: Stranger Worlds miniseries. This was explicitly the Star Trek version of Oa because the entire DC Universe had been destroyed by Nekron. The main difference was that this version of the Guardians of the Universe had not created the Green Lantern Corps and were still using Manhunter robots.

But yeah, Star Trek can never reference it again until Green Lantern #1 (1960) becomes public domain.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Tell me more.

Godzilla's Masterpiece Theatre, by Tom Scioli, published by IDW. It was a hoot and a half.

 

[Extrocomp]

Monsterpiece Theatre.

It also had Wells' Time Traveller, the Frankenstein Monster and a cyborg Jules Verne.

 

[Greg Cox]

Godzilla's Masterpiece Theatre, by Tom Scioli, published by IDW. It was a hoot and a half.

I'll have to check that out.

I admit I've already put in an order for the upcoming Planet of the Apes/Fantastic Four crossover.

(And this is where I brag about writing for both of those series, back in the day.)

 

[Dukhat]

Thirty-six years from now? I'll be in my late seventies, so it's possible I'll still be around.

I’ll be 88. Something to strive for!

 

[Greg Cox]

Okay, probably not in my lifetime . . .

(Says the guy who watched TOS on NBC back in the day.)