I am not the first person to notice this by a long shot; in fact, the argument about how long copyright should last for is probably as old as the idea of copyright itself. The argument in favour of copyright is a noble one and I think that it should be self-evident that people who make stuff and create stuff should have a monopoly on the right to say what happens to the stuff that they have made and the right to profit from the stuff that they have made. The argument about how long copyright should last for, is not an argument against the creator's rights to derive benefit from their stuff but rather the ability of people who follow to be able to transform and carry on working.
Perhaps the most famous protagonist in the fight to extend copyright is Disney Corporation. I think that this is ironic given that they themselves derive massive amounts of income from works which they themselves didn't invent and have transformed and intellectual property that they have subsequently acquired; partly in the wake of the manipulation of copyright legislation which they have argued in favour of and benefit from. Disney Corporation apart from taking a bunch of fairy tales and pre-copyright intellectual property, was started probably on the basis of another piece of borderline theft; with the mouse being a derivation of another animated rabbit (allegedly?).
However my speck of irritation today is not about the mouse (because quite frankly I think that he is boring) but rather that juggernaut of culture, Star Wars.
The Star Wars space opera monstrosity with nine numbered movies and a bunch of other adjacent movies and television series, is possibly the most valuable piece of popular culture in the last 50 years, outside of sport. Yet the past two decades have produced three abysmal movies and three adequate movies. I think that this is partly the result of the action of copyright legislation.
I was born in 1978; which was before the age of widespread home videotape and way way before widespread home access to the internet. The world was certainly a different place. For instance, if you wanted to talk to someone far away, you needed to find a device attached to a wire in a wall; which I bet that modern kiddos would recognise as a telephone because of skeuomorphism but not be able to use if confronted by one. Likewise, the only way that you saw a movie, was if it was in the cinema or if it was on television.
From after the end of The Return Of The Jedi, the movie set of three was the complete set for a long time. Naturally Lucasfilm released the movies on video and then DVD but that was it.
I want you to cast your mind back to 1999. George Lucas is sitting in his room as the only one allowed by copyright law to do anything with the intellectual property. The beautiful nerds of the world are all sitting around waiting for the next thing and then when Episode I was released they all get really excited before they all collectively come to the awful realisation that it is objectively rubbish. Then Episode II happens. Then Episode III happens which is probably worth about half of a good movie. All of the beautiful nerds are now scarred and scared.
I want you to imagine for a second that there is no such thing as Episodes I, II or III. Let's pretend for a second that copyright legislation was never poisoned by the mouse. Had copyright legislation remained at the original 30 years, then as early as 2007, all of the beautiful nerds could have had at it and made their own movie. I ask the question, would a movie in 2008 which had been produced by people who care and without any knowledge of Episodes I, II and III have been better than what George Lucas inflicted on the world? I suppose that such a movie could have been worse but given that there might have been more of them, the marketplace of ideas would have killed off the terrible ones really quickly.
I think that this general line of argument can be applied to a bunch of things. Let me take the example of Batman. I have seen the 1960s television series with Adam West and I will admit that the only movie that I have seen was the 1989 Tim Burton movie. Nevertheless, I have read the entire run of comics from 1939-1949 thanks to a public library collection.
Somewhere down the line, someone decided to change Batman who had appeared in Detective Comics, into a superhero whose superpower is spending money while undermining public discourse. Had Batman drifted into the public domain in 1969, then independent comic writers could have imagined Batman as a detective, doing detectivey things. Batman as a detective in the town of Gotham, Nottinghamshire; with the entire cast of no-goods being reimagined as vaguely dodgy English racketeers, would have been far more interesting than the darker and edgier and darker and broodier thing that we have now.
Can you imagine what we might have had if characters from different universes had been allowed to inhabit the same space? Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown and Perry Mason would have solved the Jack The Ripper cases. Speed Racer could have gone to Le Mans to race Michael Valliant. Walter White would have been caught by Van Der Valk. I do not like knowing that we have missed out on something just because copyright legislation prevents people from running with what they love until the creator is long dead.
When it comes to issues of copyright surrounding sport, I am grateful that there have been really old motor races and football matches that have evaded the copyright strike algorithms. If you want to look at old stuff, or perhaps independently make a documentary, then having the footage available is really useful. It is sometimes hard enough to find footage which exists, let alone whether or not the current rights holders are going to strike your video off for copyright infringement.
When the agitators for extending the period of copyright in legislation were busy poisoning a future so that it could never be, in their rationally selfish pursuit of profit they left behind a wake of unintended consequences. Copyright legislation as it applies to fast moving technology like computer software is a personal bane of mine. If you are trying to resurrect an old device, then software which sits behind a copyright wall can render what you need both impossible and useless because the publishers in addition to not supporting the software anymore also don't want you to have access to its use. That might very well suit them but it is beyond annoying if you can not get inside files to extract what you need to.
I am grateful that one particular computer game that I like, not only became abandonware due to the company going bankrupt but that the developers released the source code as open source. I am running a 17 year old computer game in 4K and with a myriad of customisable updates, thanks to a community of enthusiasts. Admittedly this is a pretty unique set of circumstances but it demonstrates in principle why the expiration of copyright on a particular piece of intellectual property is just as important as the need for the original creator to be adequately compensated for their work in the first place.
Don't get me wrong. I do not wish to suggest that copyright of itself is a bad thing. People who work and create things should be adequately compensated for a thing; especially if they make a living that lots of people like. However, the invention of copyright which was originally itself designed to stimulate the advancement of creativity, actually stifles it. In general, I think that if you haven't been able to monetise a thing in three decades, then you have blown your chances. You should have moved on in all seriousness and let someone else have a go at it.
The lightning rod for my annoyance in this instance and the reason why I am addressing this though, is because someone asked me what I thought of Star Wars Episode I. It's objectively terrible and its existence was aided and abetted by stupid copyright legislation.
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