I feel like it should be the life time of the creator of the work provided that person is still getting a significant percentage of the royalties. Otherwise something like 20 years.
That way companies might be less likely to force artists to sign away all rights to their work. So like "hey this kid could live another 50 years, so lets make sure he gets his percentage so we can keep control longer."
How would that work for anything produced by a company? If you're a continuing run of stories, and a random artist dies, copyright on parts of your product suddenly evaporate? Getting a job as an artist would be like making an insurance claim: with a risk assessment. Good luck getting work as you get older or sick.
Could companies not also say "hey, this kid could live another 50 years, let's kill them soon so their work will be in the public domain and we can profit from it"? Or would companies not want the work in the public domain?
I dunno what the patent duration is, but copyright should probably just be 50 years max IMO. If you can't make bank in that time without changing the idea up (and thus getting 50 years on the new version) you don't deserve it.
Originally I think it was closer to 20 years. Frankly I think 25 years is plenty. A quarter century is enough time to reward the creator of an IP and it respects the fact that all IP is built on top of the public domain so it's return is a natural part of the cycle.
I agree with copyright in a sense that people should have a chance to profit from their ideas before it gets stolen, but you are right that it is way too long of a term. It stymies creativity when people can milk the same idea for many decades.
I would think for creative license like an idea for a cartoon or comic, 10-20 years is more than enough. Then they should try and make new characters or start competing with others trying to improve the character.
The Disney artwork would be copyright and probably some of the story that is unique to Disney's adaptation, but the characters themselves are fair game.
The stories are, but not the characters as drawn by Disney, it's like classic music, you can use the Music commercially (given that you Perform I), but you can't use a performance from someone else.
Same with classic stories, you can make your own snow white story, but you can't use snow white as performed by Disney (yet)
Yeah, they had shifted for a Trademark strategy a few years before it happened. It was pretty clear they weren't interested in making it happen again, or had finally got pushback from the folks they donated to about it, or something. And if Disney decided to drop it, I don't think WB, with less than half the cash, will decide to try it.
It won’t change anything. Old stories and characters are boring. Studios do it from time to time but like Robinhood movies aren’t great investments and since they don’t own the IP don’t lead to anything else.
Community made content is just for fun, so who cares if people make repetitive fan films, art, games.