I’m speaking of creative works in particular. I’m generally in favor of the media entering the public domain when the artist dies, but when something enters the public decay, shit gets weird. Having Spongebob as IP keeps him on rails for who he is as a character. Change that, Spongebob as a character is changed by the public that could make the original unrecognizable. What’s the line when a derivative work becomes it’s own IP? What do you think?
Before copyright, storytellers sharing and reusing characters, settings, and plots was the norm. It’s the way humans evolved to tell stories, over tens or hundreds of thousands of years. We instinctively want to hear stories about characters we know, and to see new twists on familiar tales (aka “shit getting weird”). It’s why franchises, fan fiction, and adaptations are so popular.
And copyrights were never intended to protect the work of artists—they were first introduced after the invention of the printing press to censor subversive works being written for a newly-literate public, and quickly evolved into a means of creating monopolies for commercial printers. Writers were eventually given a stake in order to create a new rationale for copyright laws after they were suspended due to public backlash—but that was a minimal concession by the real commercial beneficiaries, not the main purpose.
Copyright’s purpose is to improve the public domain. If it doesn’t do that, then its harmful and should be reduced or abolished.
To keep copyrighted content relevant at the point it enters the public domain, copyright should be shortened to 20 years for creative works (films, music, paintings, Spongebob).
Consider the current public domain, which contains things like fairy tales. People remix and retell fairy tales all the time, and it makes for good stories.
The original term of US copyright, assuming nickelodeon was studious about filing to renew copyrights, would have the Spongebob copyright expiring in three years.
Never forget what was stolen from us.
I am all for a period of time, I do not think it should be at the death of the artist but a set time from creation date. Say 10-15 years, gives the artist time to make their money, while not locking the creativity behind money.
I think we should use the same length as a utility patent, 20 years in the US.
Upon death of the HUMAN artist, and with no transferability.
Maybe we should have another system for canonical ownership, where the character enters public domain, but there’s still an idea of legally canon. So after expiry, anything SpongeBob related that wasn’t made by Nickelodeon couldn’t be considered legally canon. Cartoon Network could make a new SpongeBob series, but that would be legally fanfic if it wasn’t transformative enough. Then you could still profit by selling the legal ownership of the canon, but everyone else could express their creativity freely.
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