Breaking News! Bill Willingham's Fables are now in the Public Domain

 The one thing I didn't think I'd do on this blog is cover breaking news. Bill Willingham, the writer and comics artist, has placed his creations in the Fables comic line in the public domain. The reason? Well, the publisher of the line, DC Comics hasn't been playing fair with Willingham in regard to their contractual obligations, and failed to pressure Willingham into giving up his creative control of the Fables intellectual property. 

Willingham has released a public statement explaining his decision, which can be read in full at These Foolish Games

Fables Press Release

Subject: Fables Enters the Public Domain

15 September 2023

By Bill Willingham

For Immediate Release

The Lede

As of now, 15 September 2023, the comic book property called Fables, including all related Fables spin-offs and characters, is now in the public domain. What was once wholly owned by Bill Willingham is now owned by everyone, for all time. It’s done, and as most experts will tell you, once done it cannot be undone. Take-backs are neither contemplated nor possible.
[...]
When I first signed my creator-owned publishing contract with DC Comics, the company was run by honest men and women of integrity, who (for the most part) interpreted the details of that agreement fairly and above-board. When problems inevitably came up we worked it out, like reasonable men and women. Since then, over the span of twenty years or so, those people have left or been fired, to be replaced by a revolving door of strangers, of no measurable integrity, who now choose to interpret every facet of our contract in ways that only benefit DC Comics and its owner companies. At one time the Fables properties were in good hands, and now, by virtue of attrition and employee replacement, the Fables properties have fallen into bad hands.

Since I can’t afford to sue DC, to force them to live up to the letter and the spirit of our long-time agreements; since even winning such a suit would take ridiculous amounts of money out of my pocket and years out of my life (I’m 67 years old, and don’t have the years to spare), I’ve decided to take a different approach, and fight them in a different arena, inspired by the principles of asymmetric warfare. The one thing in our contract the DC lawyers can’t contest, or reinterpret to their own benefit, is that I am the sole owner of the intellectual property. I can sell it or give it away to whomever I want.

            I chose to give it away to everyone. If I couldn’t prevent Fables from falling into bad hands, at least this is a way I can arrange that it also falls into many good hands. Since I truly believe there are still more good people in the world than bad ones, I count it as a form of victory.

This isn't a unique issue, it's extremely common, there are many well known cases but to pick just a few, recently Disney has been embroiled in an ongoing dispute over failure to pay royalties prompting Alan Dean Foster to pen an open letter to Disney airing the issue publicly. "Some of you doubtless are by now aware of my complaint that Disney has failed to pay royalties on books owned by companies they have purchased: Twentieth Century Fox (the first three ALIEN novelizations) and Lucasfilm (the novelization of STAR WARS and SPLINTER OF THE MIND'S EYE). With reluctance, this ongoing imbroglio has been made public in order to generate a response. Turns out I'm not the only author being similarly shafted. SFWA is involved and details of the disagreement went viral within twenty-four hours. You can read the details in many places, on numerous sites. For those who are interested, here is my letter of complaint to Disney:" According to Foster's personal site updates, the `imbroglio` was settled on the 1st of May 2021.

And while the lawsuit punishing the Internet Archive for its digital lending policies was eating up headlines and exposing several authors for less than ethical views on libraries, Stephen King and other authors were engaged in another lawsuit against their own publishers Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, who were attempting to merge. The reason for so many authors lining up to support the United States Attorney General was because they feared this merger would further strengthen the publisher's power at the expense of the authors.

I fully sympathize with Willingham and applaud his decision, as a method of resistance to corporate control, is brilliant. It is also not without precedent, last November the mathematician and musician Tom Lehrer publicly renounced his copyright on all of his songs:

I, Tom Lehrer, individually and as trustee of the Tom Lehrer Trust 2007, hereby grant the following permissions:All copyrights to lyrics or music written or composed by me have been permanently and irrevocably relinquished, and therefore such songs are now in the public domain. All of my songs that have never been copyrighted, having been available for free for so long, are now also in the public domain. In other words, I have abandoned, surrendered and disclaimed all right, title and interest in and to my work and have injected any and all copyrights into the public domain.The permission granted includes all lyrics which I have written to music by others, although the music to such parodies, if copyrighted by their composers, are of course not included without permission of their copyright owners. The translated songs on this website may be found on YouTube in their original languages.Performing and recording rights to all of my songs are included in this permission. Translation rights are also included.In particular, permission is hereby granted to anyone to set any of these lyrics to their own music, or to set any of this music to their own lyrics, and to publish or perform their parodies or distortions of these songs without payment or fear of legal action.Some recording, movie, and television rights to songs written by me are merely licensed non-exclusively by me to recording, movie, or TV companies. All such rights are now released herewith and therefore do not require any permission from me or from Maelstrom Music, which is merely me in another hat, nor from the recording, movie, or TV companies involved.In short, I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs.So help yourselves, and don’t send me any money.

The disclaimer statement of Lehrer's official music page. 

 Though, as far as I am aware, Lehrer's decision was not motivated by corporate overreach. 

Of course, it is no surprise that I view the actions of Willingham and Lehrer favourably, in particular with Willingham's statement I found myself nodding vigorously while reading the section marked philosophy 

Philosophy: In the past decade or so, my thoughts on how to reform the trademark and copyright laws in this country (and others, I suppose) have undergone something of a radical transformation. The current laws are a mishmash of unethical backroom deals to keep trademarks and copyrights in the hands of large corporations, who can largely afford to buy the outcomes they want.

In my template for radical reform of those laws I would like it if any IP is owned by its original creator for up to twenty years from the point of first publication, and then goes into the public domain for any and all to use. However, at any time before that twenty year span bleeds out, you the IP owner can sell it to another person or corporate entity, who can have exclusive use of it for up to a maximum of ten years. That’s it. Then it cannot be resold. It goes into the public domain. So then, at the most, any intellectual property can be kept for exclusive use for up to about thirty years, and no longer, without exception.

I am a believer in the abolition of property intellectual and physical, however I am not a dreamer. I know for that to prove feasible we'll have to build a new society where exploitation and scarcity are also abolished, and that this will take time and effort. So for the interim, I think Willingham's proposal would be a rational compromise while we work towards the new dawn. It would also protect artists from corporate hitmen that alarm so many. I felt compelled to send Willingham my support as I'm sure he'll be under a Mammoth's weight of pressure from DC Comics and its owners to recant. Here is the text of my e-mail.

 Hello

I've just read your press release concerning your decision to give Fables to the public domain. I congratulate you on your decision and the clever way you've overcome the predatory ways of the DC representatives. I'm am archivist of social history and have fallen foul of the copyright system on many occasions while trying to share rare articles that have come into my possession so I share your frustrations.

I also found your copyright reform proposal to be a rational one in keeping with the spirit of Victor Hugo and the other original copyright advocates who wanted to check the power of business interests over art. I'm of the opinion that at some point in time the scales shifted and now most intellectual property agreements are designed to empower a corporation at the expense of the author, illustrator, musician and so on.

I am part of several groups that have been advocating for international copyright reform and your stance has met with approval and I hope will galvanise others in the future to take similar steps.

I look forward to your future endeavours and wish you luck in your fight to get what is owed to you by DC.

Warmest regards

I'll be watching this story very, very closely.

Kurosawa and the Public Domain

 

This week I crossed another film off my to watch list, Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon. My Blu-ray was the release by the British Film Institute (BFI) and I cannot fault the production, the image was sharp and the sound clean. My thoughts on the film itself? Well, there are a thousand other places for that, the film isn't public domain, so this isn't the place for another one. The film opened with a little info title stating that the work was reproduced with the full consent of the copyright holders which surprised me a bit, Rashomon was released in 1950, and a court ruling in Japan concerning compliance with international standards on copyright law stated that all Japanese films and possibly all films worldwide released in 1952 or before are in the public domain. 

If, like me, you're curious, sadly Godzilla was released in 1954. I checked that premiere date the second I learnt about that fact. I have no evidence, but I doubt the cut-off date being set before the release of Godzilla was a coincidence, in addition to being a cultural icon and symbol of Japan's media industry Toho the studio behind the big lizard is extremely powerful, connected and super aggressive about protecting its commodities. 

But 1950 comes before 1952, so shouldn't that make Rashomon public domain as well? Sadly not, there's another caveat to be taken into account. In 2006 the Japanese courts passed judgement on making pre-53 films public domain as a way of simplifying the transition to the Berne convention life+70 years approach in regard to releases during the old copyright system, in particular there was controversy surrounding a law passed in 1971 that set protection at 50 years after release, whereas today the term is 70 years after release for cinematic works. However, this did not end the matter once and for all. 

In 2007 due to a lawsuit involving Toho (what a surprise) over non-Toho approved releases of Akira Kurosawa's early movies made for the studio the Japanese courts ruled that for works published up to 1971 the previous legal code on copyright applies which set protection for a work at 38 years after the death of the director. Akira Kurosawa died in 1999 so take that into account and his early works won't be public domain in Japan until 2037. This whole thing is frankly ridiculous, a law that was change in 1971 which itself was changed in the 2000s is still somehow legally binding. 

So, what does this mean? Well, another win for big studio companies and a massive headache for everyone else who wants to make use of Japanese cinema and still remain on the good side of the law. The only positive of the ruling is that it ruled that the director alone is the original copyright holder of pre-1971 films, so we don't have to waste time looking up score and writing credits. I've come up with a rough formula to help determine public domain work regarding Japanese cinema (not legal advice)

1. 1985 was 38 years ago, so find a director who died then or before that date
2. Once established looked through their catalogue of work and make two lists, one for pre-1971 works and the other for pre-1953 works
3. Obtain legal representation anyway, as Japanese copyright law is heavy-handed and actively hostile to concepts such as fair use and derivative work, as Shinobu Yoshida found out after receiving a 2-year prison sentence (suspended for five years) and a million yen fine for let's play videos and anime episode recaps.

Copyright is a confusing slog of arbitrary decisions by powerful entities to promote and enrich other powerful entities. Someday I'll write about the Soviet Union's copyright history, at present I'm still trying to work out the timeline.

Death of the Author

 

When the topic of copyright term lengths come up or Friday nights as I call them, certain ideas and expressions start to repeat. One common one is the idea that terms should last for the life of the author and no longer. After all, a corpse can't cash royalty checks, and as I've discussed earlier, inheritance can be a protracted and vicious thing. So, why not let the decision of the Allmighty be a chance for wiping the slate clean?

A popular response is alarm at the hypothetical prospect of some big corporation knocking off some rising star to cut them out of the negotiations and save themselves the chore of humouring the artists concerns over the franchising of their intellectual property. I've heard variations of this for years, last night Neil Gaiman had a variation that posits the murder of J. K. Rowling in 2001. I used to think these were jokes and responded appropriately, polite and light laughter before moving onto some other topic. Furthermore, I've since learnt that this is a genuine fear that some people have and take very seriously and use it to motivate their positions on this subject.

I'm sorry, but I am confident in declaring that that will not happen if such a system were adopted. Given my obvious hostility to private capital, don't misunderstand me, my views do not rely on amoral cost and profit driven entities suddenly developing moral scruples or fear of punishment by a legal system that already privileges them. No, the reason why no corporation will off someone in this scenario because that would completely destroy the framework of Intellectual Property. In this scenario, the corporation arranging the murder doesn't get the artist rights, the rights cease to exist. The benefit would be no upfront fee, negotiation period and revenue splitting agreement, the cost would be no new IP from the artist and everyone else on the planet has the same opportunity you have and can crowd out the market with competition.

IP can be hard to think about, since it's fundamentally an abstraction. An author's story isn't the book on your shelf, that's the medium in which the story is communicated to the audience. I find it helpful to think about it like this, oil is a physical commodity, it's a resource that is created naturally through a process that takes millions of years. Say a large deposit of oil is discovered under a stretch of land, and that land is owned by someone. An oil company wishes to purchase access to that oil and the exclusive right to use it commercially, the owner will not sell, or won't sell for a price the company is willing to pay. Inheritance has been abolished, so once the landowner is dead the land becomes free for anyone. The oil company arranges an "accident" and in the process they have saved themselves the fee, but cost themselves exclusive access to that oil, other companies can tap into the field and drain it and sell their oil in direct competition with the company with the hitman on the payroll. It's possible that this company will still turn a profit off the oil they managed to tap and sell on the market, but the lack of exclusivity has prevented them from a higher yield of profit. In the UK we call this behaviour cutting your nose off to spite your face, it means actions that remove an irritant but cause far more damage.

You may be thinking this is a strange way of explaining the process if you're familiar with the frequent campaigns of murder and forced evictions that oil and gas companies carry out in parts of the world such as the Nigerian delta, but that's a consequence of property, not its absence. These horrific campaigns are happening with the direct knowledge and support of the authorities, who on paper should be intervening to stop them. And they are not removing populations to make the land and its valuable resources free for anyone to exploit them, they're seizing that land for themselves. After the removal of the local inhabitants and their resistance and witnesses, the land is legally given to the company to exploit. Property rights have done nothing to protect these people, on the contrary it has heavily incentivized human rights abuses and assaults on them. If property were to be abolished, these communities would be far safer because there would be nothing to gain from funding a war of extermination in remote areas. Property is theft, it also in many cases murder.

It would be the same thing in the creative economy. Yes the company doesn't have to cut Rowling or King or whoever royalty checks, but now every other company and independent can churn out rival product. What makes IP so lucrative as a commodity that high sums are exchanged is the right to exclusive profit.

When J.K. Rowling signed with Bloomsbury to publish Harry Potter that property was off limits to every other publisher and when Warner Brothers to make the movies, no one else can unless the deal is ended, and they secure Rowling's agreement. If anything, I can see contract killings as more likely to happen under the current system of copyright, where terms last decades after death and contracts can be drawn up transferring exclusive rights to remuneration and commercial activities until the rights expire. Alan Alexander Milne died in 1956, yet for decades since that time Disney had exclusive rights to Whinnie-the-Pooh as a commercial asset until last year when that character entered the public domain in the United States. Death is not an obstacle to corporate profiteering, and contracts and Wills can be challenged by entities that can afford the best legal representation. Multiple creators have lost the rights to their creations while still alive and able to pursue resistance, see Jerry Siegal and Joe Schuster, the creators of Superman. 

So, no, there is no danger to the lives of creators if the term of copyright were to be set to life. But hey, if you're still convinced then let's shift the debate to a fixed term of copyright regardless of the living condition of its creators, that would erase even the remotest chance of this happening.

About an e-mail

 Yesterday I received a surprising e-mail, it was about copyright which wasn't surprising half my inbox is taken up with that. The odd thing was that the e-mail wasn't accusatory, it was asking for my help. I won't share the e-mail because I think it's bad practice to publicize private correspondence but I'll summarize its contents here.

1. The sender represented an established educational institution
2. That institution is located in Germany
3. They were having trouble contacting the rights owners of a film they wished to use.
4. Said film was L'Atalante by Jean Vigo (a personal favourite)
5. Did I know who the rights holders were or if the rights had expired?

That's the gist of the conversation. If you're wondering why I'd get randomly contacted about L'Atalante, it's because my channel has uploaded a cut of the film with English subtitles, and it's done pretty well if you'll permit the light bragging. The curious thing though is that they found my e-mail address through my Esperanto translation blog. Still in the dark on how that happened. Anyway, I immediately understood the confusion, the reason this person couldn't find the rights holders to negotiate for usage is because they do not exist. 

L'Atalante was written and directed by Jean Vigo and the music was composed by Maurice Chaubert. Jean Vigo passed away shortly before the film was released in 1934 from tuberculosis, and Maurice Chaubert died in combat in 1940 defending France from the German invasion. These facts are tragic, they were both very talented people, and it gets even sadder when you factor in that Vigo and his wife lived in poverty as none of his four films were financially successful in his lifetime. I remember reading an account of Vigo's work that described a situation so bleak that he was forced to sell his camera to raise funds for him and his wife.

This tragedy does mean that all of Vigo's four movies, Apropos de Nice, Zero for Conduct, Jean Taris, Swimming Champion, and L'Atalante are in the public domain in his home country of France and in mine. They also fell into the public domain in the United States of America, since their financial failures in France killed any chance they had of being distributed and thus registered in the United States. I conveyed this information to my new correspondent, so problem solved, right? Well, there is a problem, or more accurately a potential problem. The correspondent and the institute are German, the reason why that matters is that German law has done something very strange in regard to copyright law, well it's done many strange things on that front, I've been meaning to write something up about Germany's situation for a while, so consider the rest of this blogpost a sneak peek. 

The German state, like most European nations, is a signatory to the Berne Convention, and has a term of 70 years after death of the principal authors. So, under that record, L'Atalante should be good to use there as well. However, anyone who uploads public domain material online can tell you getting angry letters or content blocks by companies with GMBH in their letterheads is a frequent occurrence. Why? Well to be blunt copyfraud, at best these companies have licensed a German language version of a foreign film or just made one without authorization and then used that as a pretext to lobby and bully international entities and individuals to remove their "competition".  

The reason for why Germany is so notorious for this behaviour is because there are many loopholes in Germany IP legislation that creates just enough ambiguity for a cottage industry of copyfraud abuses to thrive. This legal grey area isn't helped by the way German law handles international property. If you read German copyright law, you'll notice some very strange and vague passages about international treaties forming the basis of protection in law.

In all other cases, foreign nationals or enterprises whose principal place of business is
not located within the territory to which this Act applies enjoy protection under international treaties. Section 121 (4) sentence 2 and sections 122 and 123 apply accordingly.

 What this passage and the other references are saying is that intellectual property not created by German citizens in Germany is to be handled by nation to nation treaties. To explain further why this is an incredibly dangerous standing, most nations give precedence to their own copyright system for domestic works and apply concepts of country of origin and of shorter term to foreign works, in short if the laws of your country say book X is public domain it is public domain, and if the laws of the country of origin of book X say it is public domain, but your country does not, then it becomes public domain in your nation as well. It's a bit tricky, but all you have to do is consult your own nation's copyright standards and those of the original country. 

What Germany has done here is forced its citizens to become experts on international relations between the German republic and every other nation it has relations with. If the German republic has signed a treaty with another nation that covers intellectual property, and you wish to make use of an IP from that country, you better contact a lawyer to read through the provisions for you. There are treaties between the United States and Germany and German's have been legally censured for using material that should be public domain in Germany but is still under copyright in the US, and many German companies use their business relations with American ones as excuses to try and enforce their contracts globally. 

I have no idea if there is a similar treaty between Germany and France. Annoyingly, German copyright legislation doesn't specify or list which treaties have an impact and are enforced, it just says international treaties can be applied and left it up to the courts. So, I informed the representative of this possibility and recommended that they consult their legal department for advice. 

And that was pretty much it. One thing I'd take away from this experience is don't worry too much if you find IP law extremely confusing, apparently the people in charge of important cultural institutions who have access to legal departments also can't make sense of it.

Public Pride

 

It's Pride Month, so I'll take the opportunity to talk about a project I've been working on for a while, a Queer cinema playlist. There's still work to be done, but fret not, unlike the corporate media the playlist and the films on it won't be privated on the 1st of July, to hibernate until next year. No, I'll be adding to the list of projects I chip away at in my spare time all year round.

Contrary to popular belief, there is a lot of material in the public domain that subverts and even rips apart conventional attitudes regarding gender, sexuality and identity. The terminology was different back then, Homophiles, Uranians, and so on, but the intent and content is there. It can be difficult to find the material in the wild, though. This is for a number of reasons that for the sake of brevity I'll quickly list them.

1. Censorship: Many of these films and shorts were the victims of conservative authorities and reactionary movements. These meant that some important early works were cut up or physically seized and partially or completely destroyed. Infamously the German movie Different from the Others (Anders als die Andern) a very early movie about homosexuality made with the explicit intent of appealing for tolerance from the audience was nearly destroyed by the Nazi party, though it survives in an incomplete form.
2. Terminology: Times change and so does language, this can be a problem for an archivist as lots of content that should be included gets missed since none of the contemporary information uses any of the easy to locate keywords in a search. I've seen multiple 1910s-20s American films that depict a gay or at least non-conformist male character, where the only giveaway before you watch it is the usage of the word sissy. And did you know that in the USA in the 19th and early 20th century the preferred term for homosexual was homophilia? It largely died out amongst queer folk after WWII, but you'll still come across the odd usage into the 1970s. 
3. Lack of Interest: By which I mean lack of interest from the big, established archives and reference works. I know some people think it's rather odd that there are so many specialised archives, collection of "Black American Lesbian filmmakers" and lists of "Gay Russian Composers" and sure in a perfect world where everyone is equal the information in them would be included in the main archives. But, that's the point of things like Pride, isn't it. We don't live in a world where everyone is valued equally. The reason for these fragmented archives and collections is that you simply couldn't find any information in the larger archives because the people and subjects they cover weren't considered important enough to preserve and document. 
4. Discrimination: In addition to legal issues, we have to take into account societal opinion. Being queer in much of the world has been illegal for many years, and even in whens and wheres, that didn't have strong legal instruments against self-expression and behaviour that wasn't proper, society has its own courts and sanctions. So, this meant that works celebrating or just exploring these taboo topics were often done in a manner that provided as much privacy as possible for the creators. Pseudonyms, no registration information and limited production of works and public viewings. Think about the circulation of banned books in a dictatorship, these works still exist, and some few can access them, but until the regime collapses they're going to be scarce commodities, and sadly some regimes can live for quite a long time.
5. Copyright: At least how copyright works now. I discussed some of the ways that copyright law can cause issues for the sharing of and engagement with certain works in my essay on pornographic works. Well, the headaches of Intellectual Property as a concept is the reason this blog exists, but I think the issues with pornography are relevant here. Not that I'm equating pornography with being Trans or Gay, it's just that similar problems arise. In my country, anonymous works are protected for 70 years after release, so if you find some material that for one reason or another was released with no identifiers like a post card with two male models kissing as an example, you aren't supposed to do anything with it until you're sure 70 years have passed. Which has a lot of issues, but for the purposes of this blog a major headache is that works that have been discovered in an archive or private collection then there's a question mark over whether it is legal to take actions to make it more accessible like digitisation of photographs and film reel. Usually this will eventually be worked out after a lengthy process of legal consultation, but that is a slow process and the archive or museum has to be invested in the material to bother. That isn't a unique problem for queer studies either, lots of very interesting and important stuff is in this gray area, it's just one where the institutional biases can exacerbate the issue.

Still, there is some good news, things are slowly improving in an uneven fashion. Institutional programs are starting to care about minorities and are starting to sift through their massive collections. In 2018 I attended a screening of Queer films made in the United Kingdom organised by the BFI (British Film Institute) and shown in libraries across the country. If you've been to a BFI screening in a library, town hall or community centre then you'll know that isn't a mass audience, but it is a step on the road. Atleast they know they have material and are willing to show them to the public, or at least the public who bother to read coming soon boards in municipal service buildings. 

More, and more, relics are being discovered and slowly filtering to the masses. One of the reasons for the delay in making a public playlist was that I had assumed there would be several large master list of fictional films at least, which I could work through and check copyright status, but that didn't pan out. I did find many lists, but they're of the top 10 best style, not very useful for what I'm doing. It's a bit like films that are public domain in the United Kingdom, where I ended up making my own. I don't think I'm capable of doing something like that for this, at least not yet, but there are some fragments of information that I can track some work down, and I'm going to keep plugging a way at it. I think the list will grow and make it easier for others to find some of these works and take what they need from them.

List of Looney Tunes Cartoons in the Public Domain

 

That the public domain contains a lot of animation and cartoons is fairly well known, animation lags behind film by only a few years after all. And sadly its been a cut throat business from the beginning with many companies going bust despite a lot of effort and short term success. But, what's surprising is that even the big surviving giants of the industry including Disney and Warner Bros have some of their output in the public domain even before the year of publication takes effect.

I know from discussions and chats that many are surprised of Warner Bros, especially when its confirmed that the list of available content includes the crown jewels of that companies animated empire Looney Tunes. How could this be when Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and all the rest continue to be marketed heavily and Warner Bros and whoever owns them at present are infamous for their well-funded and vicious legal teams?

Well, some of their output like the Private Snafu cartoons were made by order of the United States Government so fall into the public domain that way. But for the rest and the proper Looney Tunes cartoons the answer is fairly simple. Greed. The Warner Bros company was named after the Warner brothers Albert, Jack, Harry and Sam who founded the studio that became the lynch pin of its corporate holdings. Jack is the only one that's relevant to the story. In 1955 the Warner brothers decided to sell Warner Bros, but at the last moment Jack Warner bought the company back from himself and the rest of the family. Essentially Warner Brothers was now Warner Brother, with the rest of his family shown the door, Jack Warner was in control.

Jack Warner liked making money, but by all accounts viewed animation with contempt. Instead of funding and supporting the transition from theatrical shorts to the emerging TV market Jack sold most of his studio's animation back catalogue. Over the next few years the Looney Tunes and Warner Bros other animated output kept changing hands, who owned what and the rights to do with them was very confusing. In the confusion the 28 year term of copyright for many of the older cartoons went up for renewal, and passed by. So a quick payment in 1955 ended up costing Warner quite a lot in relicensing in the future. Unfortunately this doesn't apply to all of the Looney Tunes back catalogue, Warner Bros eventually realised their error and brought the catalogue back under control long enough to keep everything from expiring.

What follows is the fullest list of Warner Bros animation that entered the public domain in the 20th century.

Looney Tunes DVD and Video Guide

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Looney Tunes in the Public Domain  The following is a complete listing of every single Warner Bros. cartoon in the public domain. These titles fell into the public domain after years of copyright neglect. They are most commonly found on video cassettes, DVDs, and on local television channels.

Information courtesy of Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain, 1894-1939, Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain, 1940-1949, and Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain, 1950-1959 all by Walter E. Hurst.

----------------------------------------

90 Day Wondering [government film]
Ain't Nature Grand!
Ali Baba Bound
All This and Rabbit Stew
Any Bonds Today? [propaganda film]
Bars and Stripes Forever
Battling Bosko
Big Man From the North, The
Big-Hearted Bosko
Booby Traps [Pvt. Snafu]
Boom Boom
Booze Hangs High, The
Bosko and Bruno
Bosko and Honey [unreleased]
Bosko at the Beach
Bosko at the Zoo
Bosko Shipwrecked!
Bosko the Doughboy
Bosko the Lumberjack
Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid [pilot]
Bosko's Dog Race
Bosko's Fox Hunt
Bosko's Holiday
Bosko's Party
Bosko's Soda Fountain
Bosko's Store
Box Car Blues
Case of the Missing Hare
Censored [Pvt. Snafu]
Chow Hound, The [Pvt. Snafu]
Coming! Snafu! [Pvt. Snafu]
Confusions of a Nutzy Spy
Congo Jazz
Corny Concerto, A
Coy Decoy, A
Crosby, Columbo, and Vallee
Crowing Pains
Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur
Daffy Duckaroo, The
Daffy's Southern Exposure
Daffy–The Commando episode
Day at the Zoo, A
Ding Dog Daddy
Dover Boys At Pimento University (Or The Rivals At Roquefort Hall), The
Drafty, Isn't It? [government film]
Ducktators, The
Dumb Patrol [1931]
Early Worm Gets the Bird, The
Eatin' On The Cuff (Or, The Moth Who Came To Dinner)
Falling Hare
Farm Frolics
Fifth Column Mouse
Fighting Tools [Pvt. Snafu]
Fin N' Catty
Foney Fables
Fox Pop
Freddy the Freshman
Fresh Hare
Gas [Pvt. Snafu]
Get Rich Quick Porky
Going Home [Pvt. Snafu]
Gold Rush Daze
Goldbrick, The [Pvt. Snafu]
Good Egg, The [Mr. Hook]
Goopy Geer
Gopher Goofy
Great Big Bunch of You, A
Gripes [Pvt. Snafu]
Hamateur Night
Haunted Mouse, The
Have You Got Any Castles?
Henpecked Duck, The
Hitch in Time, A [government film]
Hittin' the Trail For Hallelujah Land
Hobby Horse-Laffs
Hold Anything
Hollywood Capers
Hollywood Steps Out
Home Front, The [Pvt. Snafu]
Hop and Go
Hot Spot [Pvt. Snafu]
I Love a Parade
I Wanna Be a Sailor
I Wish I Had Wings
Impatient Patient, The
In the Aleutians [Pvt. Snafu]
Infantry Blues, The [Pvt. Snafu]
Inki and the Minah Bird
It's Got Me Again!
It's Murder She Says [Pvt. Snafu]
Joe Glow the Firefly
Jungle Jitters
Lady, Play Your Mandolin!
Lecture On Camouflage, A [Pvt. Snafu]
Meet John Doughboy
Moonlight For Two
No Buddy Atoll [Pvt. Snafu]
Notes to You
Nutty News
One More Time
Operation: Snafu [Pvt. Snafu]
Outpost [Pvt. Snafu]
Pagan Moon
Pay Day [Pvt. Snafu]
Pigs in a Polka
Point Rationing of Foods [government film]
Porky Pig's Feat
Porky's Ant
Porky's Bear Facts
Porky's Cafe
Porky's Garden
Porky's Midnight Matinee
Porky's Pastry Pirates
Porky's Pooch
Porky's Preview
Porky's Prize Pony
Porky's Railroad
Prest-O Change-O
Private Snafu Vs. Malaria Mike [Pvt. Snafu]
Puss N' Booty
Queen Was in the Parlor, The
Red-Headed Baby
Return of Mr. Hook, The [Mr. Hook]
Robin Hood Makes Good
Robinson Crusoe Jr.
Rookie Revue
Rumors [Pvt. Snafu]
Saps in Chaps
Scrap Happy Daffy
Secrets of the Caribbean [Pvt. Snafu]
Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives, The
Sheepish Wolf, The
Sinkin' in the Bathtub
Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!
Snafuperman [Pvt. Snafu]
So Much for So Little [government film]
Spies [Pvt. Snafu]
Sports Chumpions
Tale of Two Kitties, A
Target: Snafu [Pvt. Snafu]
Three Brothers, The [Pvt. Snafu]
Three's a Crowd
Timid Toreador, The
To Duck.... Or Not To Duck
Tokio Jokio
Tokyo Woes [Mr. Hook]
Tree's Knees, The
Ups 'N Downs
Wabbit Who Came to Supper, The
Wackiki Wabbit
Wacky Blackout
Wacky Wabbit, The
We, The Animals – Squeak!
Westward Whoa
Who's Who in the Zoo
Yankee Doodle Daffy
Yodeling Yokels
You Don't Know What You're Doin'!
You're Too Careless With Your Kisses

Sourced from Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain by Walter E. Hurst. Archive link

The Curious case of pornography

 

Quick note: This post will discuss pornographic material and even name some of them, but it will not contain any example as such. I think this makes the article safe for work, but you know you're own workplaces and what is and isn't acceptable material far better than I possibly could so use your own judgement.

Erotic art and entertainment, or porn as its known on the street and the web has created some curious wrinkles for copyright and the concept of intellectual property. Pornographic works were for a long time considered illegal and still are in some jurisdictions. And while over the course of the 20th century there has been a trend of decriminalisation and legalisation of pornography, though some kinds are still criminalised and remain taboo. And even in parts of the world that have had a relaxed attitude to erotic work it still carries stigma. I was listening to a podcast hosted by two friends who have worked for years in film and television in the crew departments, the subject of pornographic films came up and one of the hosts related an anecdote of how some of his workmates have earned extra money working for porn production companies. Even today in liberal California working on porn movies is considered damaging to career and reputation so the practice of pseudonyms is still very common even for camera and stage work.

This is a bit of a problem for the concept of copyright and the public domain. In most of the world the ownership of a work and for how long is attached to an individual or a small group of individuals, which if you don't know who they really are presents an issue for how you can approach the owners for permission or to check copyright is still enforced. With the example of film makers in California in the present day its not so bad, a simple e-mail to the companies registered contact information should clear up any questions, unless of course the contact information is no longer valid. But for older works, before the rise of the digital economy and back when large parts of the industry faced legal sanction and total social ostracisation that becomes much harder. It wasn't uncommon for the people who worked on pornographic material to have used a shell identity as protection.

For life+ nations this means its almost impossible to say for certain on much pornographic material from the past. Of course the problem of the anonymous creator goes b.eyond pornography, I'm merely focussing on it here as thanks to historical circumstances this problem is endemic to that industry. Its a bit of a sticky situation if you forgive the pun. Though there are some pornographic material on the internet archive and wikimediacommons that is, as far as anyone can tell in the public domain. Yes I have seen some of it, and no I will not be linking any, what would the advertisers say? Some countries have made provisions for anonymously published works, though the criteria for these and the protections afforded vary wildly from country to country. In the United Kingdom an anonymous work that remains anonymous is protected for 70 years.

Works of unknown authorship are where the identity of the author(s) is unknown, or where it cannot be identified by reasonable enquiry. A work where the author was once known, cannot be later regarded as a work of unknown authorship. 70 years from the end of the year in which it was made. If during that period the work is made available to the public (publication, exhibition, etc.), 70 years from the end of the year in which it was first made available.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/copyright-notice-duration-of-copyright-term/copyright-notice-duration-of-copyright-term

And in the United States we're still in the period of 95 years from publication so any pornographic material released over there made before 1928 will also be in the public domain. In addition, the United States has another interesting facet in regards to pornography. In the United States for much of its history until the 1980s works had to be registered to enjoy copyright protection. Exactly what steps were needed for registering differed a bit depending on the specific legislation but it did require filling out information on who the owners were. This at a time when porn was illegal or at least absolutely toxic to reputation and career. So, most pornographers just didn't bother registering. So the majority of pornographic and erotic content made before the 1980s in the United States has no registration and therefore no IP protection. 

There have been some notable legal cases regarding this. Debbie Does Dallas was a very popular and well known pornographic movie, so popular in fact the creators managed to secure an exclusive deal on the new video market. But, an exclusive deal on a film without a copyright notice isn't a sound business strategy. Many people ignored that agreement, the distributors placed retroactive copyright notices on their video releases and the creators of the film sort legal action to combat the unauthorised versions. It failed because the film wasn't copyrighted. This was an important case as it helped establish that its the original release of the work that overrides all others. There were several more attempts by film and TV producers to retroactively copyright lapsed or unregistered content via home video and ultimately it came to nothing. Well not nothing, it did encourage re-releases, extended cuts and bonus footage releases since you could make a stronger but by no means guaranteed case for copyright protection on substantially altered material.

Debbie Does Dallas didn't end its legal trials there though. Because the film heavily featured the Dallas Cowboys and its Cheerleader squad and its logo and imagery the owners of the trademark for the Dallas Cowboys took umbrage at an unauthorised film of that calibre so also pursued legal action against the film. So, the first of the Debbie Does Dallas series is in the public domain as is the character of Debbie herself, but its usage could fall under trademark disputes. 

Overall it remains a contentious issue for intellectual property discussion. Remaining legal quandaries, moral opposition and the culture of secrecy mean it will continue to cause friction. There are two potential ways of resolving this, reform to the copyright system to encourage public ownership or ending the moral climate of embarrassment and reputational damage associated with the vice industry so we can have some clarity on its production.

Youtube's copyright system - some suggestions

 A lot of virtual ink has been spilled on social media about Youtube's ways of juggling the competing demands of running a viable content platform and intellectual property (IP) protection. From users, influencers and companies no one is happy with Youtube's copyright system. Well, not quite, Youtube is very happy with how its copyright system works. Currently its safe harbour strategy and off loading of all the work onto the claimants and the targets of their claims works really well for the company. On the one hand, by taking as little direct action as possible the company can profit off piracy until the IP holders get off their haunches and take action themselves, and on the other it gets to put distance between it and the massive amount of copyfraud(1) that takes place on the site.

So far, despite some creaks the system has been working very well, the only real issue is when a big channel that has an equally large social media presence gets caught up in the cross fire and starts to cause a commotion. For years its been a joke that the best way to get Youtube to address a problem you have is to complain about it on twitter. The sad part? It isn't a joke, I've tried to get my issues resolved using the few official channels Youtube has and usually I can't even get a direct answer to establish what I've done wrong in the first place.

Unfortunately we won't see systemic change from Youtube, what few major changes like disabling adverts and comments on content intended for children came from legislation passed above the company. I've used Youtube since the early days and I've seen many changes over those years. I remember when Youtube had a private messaging feature and a video reply feature. And while many of those changes have been detrimental -a big one for me was removing community captions so speakers of other languages could add translations of content they enjoyed to help it connect with a wider audience as an example -there have been a few that were useful, and one or two that relate to Youtube's copyright system.

A brief example:

1.  Soundtracks are the bane of any Youtubers existence, ignoring Copyfraud it turns out there are only so many combinations of chords and beats out there, and hundreds if not thousands of versions of the same song with different creators and IP statuses. I cannot count the times I've upload something only to be hit with a claim by the label for a song that was released fifty or sixty years after my upload was released. And even for content I created totally from scratch. So, one of the positive changes is the option to remove the audio in question, which damages the overall upload but is better than losing the whole thing. If you've ever watched a video where the soundtrack suddenly cuts off or its noticeably distorted for a bit before coming back that is probably what happen.
2.  Another improvement in regards to sounds, Youtube now has a sound library of songs that can be used to replace claimed material. Now, there's a lot of room for improvement which I'll be getting to later but this is at least partially useful.
3.  Adding an appeal function between disputes and counter notification is a good step, it allows you more room to explain your case if it was rejected the first time.
   

And that's about it. So, in the interest of making things a little better, I've come up with a few things that Youtube can do to improve the situation without jeopardising its position, if anything they would cement it by making the system be between claimants and defendants more viable.

1. Add an option to the disputes for when someone files a claim for content on a video that does not in fact use that content. To explain a bit, when you get copyright claim or block or strike you no longer just get an e-mail informing you that ____ has made a claim against your video, it tells the content being claimed, audio or video, and it shows which part of the video is causing the problem, which could be the whole upload or a few seconds. And it tells you who made the claim (more on this later) and for what they're claiming the content originated from. i.e. Sony has claimed 00:52-01:23 of an upload claiming it belongs to a film they own released in 1983, as a random example. And then you can look at the claim and weigh up its merits and choose how to respond, cut, ignore or dispute. If you dispute you can't just open up a text box and explain your reasoning, you have to first select from some options, (see image above for an example) the issue here is that by making a selection it locks you into a specific argument. Choosing unwisely can cause you a lot of trouble. `You may think what's the problem since you run a public domain channel?` Well aside from intentional copyfraud an issue I run into on a semi-regular basis is content is claimed on a public domain video, but the claim is based on material that is not in the public domain. When that happens you're hamstrung, because arguing that your upload is public domain even with all the proof in the world is all well and good, but the claimant's don't really care about that they care about protecting and profiting off of there IP, so its a roll of the dice whether they'll bother to read your dispute if they know they own the rights to what they're claiming, in my experience they do not bother to look at the upload to check at best they skim what you wrote and decide how much trouble its worth to keep up the struggle. Adding an option to explain that the claim was made in error wouldn't change anything from Youtube's point of view its still up to the claimant to weigh up the merits, but it would mean that since the basis of the dispute has changed at least some IP claimants and copyfraudsters might give the argument more weight and be deterred.
2. Make it so that claimants have to explain what exactly is being used. Currently you do not have an easy way of verifying if you have used or misused someone else's content. Most copyright claims are automatic and done via the claimant uploading their content to Youtube's content ID checker tool. And it already highlights which part of the timeline of a video its supposedly found a violation but that is it. Its up to you to check, which can prove impossible if you can't find what they're basing their claim on. This is especially true of music claims, usually you'll get a song name and an artist (but that's not guaranteed) and claimant's corporate name who is the usually the label but could be third party representing them. This makes tracking it down difficult and sometimes impossible. For music their are two important factors composition, its date of creation and creator and the specific recording its date of creation and creator. The old English anthem Jerusalem by William Blake is public domain, I could sing it and record it and then I have copyright on that specific recording. But, if I used Youtube's content checker it would not only flag up copies of my version, it would flag up many others which either belong to the uploader, were licensed, were used for criticism, or a public domain version. If I flagged your upload you would have to stumble upon my recording and figure out it is the version the claim is based on and then decide if I strong case or not. And that's when the claim is based on a song and not a melody claim(2), good luck figuring out if that has any basis. Usually I have to copy all of the information I can get from the claim, read through the credits on the upload to see if there's a match, if not I have to throw that information into a search engine and hope I can find something, and sometimes what I find still denies me important information. But its already in the content ID system, so Youtube absolutely could enable you to review and compare the claims within the copyright dispute panel. This would change nothing for Youtube since its the claimant who submits the media and uses it to pursue its claims.
3. Make claimants explain why they feel their material is being violated. Currently the dispute process is entirely one sided, the defendant has to argue their case against a void that is the claimant. Which strikes me as fundamentally wrong, it assumes guilt and forces the targetted to argue innocence without specifically knowing what the issue is. The claimant has to have proof that they're the owner of the content being used or at least represent those that do, so they should no difficulty or objection to providing some proof. This would seriously weaken the rampant copyfraud that plagues Youtube.
   
4. Make it clear which jurisdiction Youtube uses. Copyright is a messy and confusing thing, especially since there are more systems of copyright than there are nations under the sun. If you refer back to the image at the top, you will see an option for fair use, this would indicate that Youtube uses the copyright framework of the United States of America. It would help if this was made explicit and if Youtube could clarify its position regarding works of a non-US origin, does it still count their copyright or does it not? An alternative solution would be requiring copyright claimants to declare what legal basis (i.e. which territory or territories that claim is based on) so you can have some information to go on. Currently I have to deal with copyright owners, well alleged copyright owners in one nation or another blocking content worldwide which in the UK simply can't be done if its public domain in the UK, it does not matter what claim is being made elsewhere.
5. Add an option to obtain a license to use content, this would ease some of the tensions over IP from both sides with both legitimate and illegitimate claims of piracy. While IP defenders talk at length about morality and the sacrosanctity of the creator 99% of the time they're after money, a bit of something is better than all of nothing and it would mean that users who rely on Youtube for income will have some more security even if they have to cut in an occasional false actor on work that should be free for them to use for whatever reason. This one is already very slowly being done with audio in the United States, currently Youtube is piloting a deal with some record labels to split revenue with the uploader and the label. Expanding this process while not particularly ideal, it offends me on moral grounds if I'm honest would at least ensure greater access to material and a reduction in fighting over the same material over and over.
   
6. Make it public when an entity is confirmed to be a serial abuser of the copyright claims system. Copyfraud is technically illegal under many nation's copyright statutes including in the United States. However, I am not aware of any nation having a mechanism for punishment. Making it public when someone is caught abusing the system could be a deterrent against repeat offenders, and is already being done anyway informally using the complaining on social media.
   

 

______________________________________________________________

1: Copyfraud, put simply its were someone deliberately makes a false claim of ownership of work that is either public domain, an orphan work or belonging to someone else.

2: Melody claims are exactly the same as a standard audio claim, however instead of a specific version you can at least check against that version if you can find its information. For melodies you have little chance without the specific track in question being made available so you can check.

Countdown to Mickey Mouse entering the public domain

 

Mickey Mouse becomes Free

 

On the 1st of January 2024 after decades of intensive lobbying Mickey Mouse will enter the public domain. His first appearance the 1928 animated short Steamboat Willy will lose its copyright protection in its country of origin the United States of America and thus every other territory like the United Kingdom that has the rule of shorter term and country of origin. 

 

Still from Mickey Mouse and the Mad Doctor

 Of course several Disney products have already entered the public domain because registrations weren't renewed and for works contracted to the United States government during WWII. And this includes some works that feature the Disney Empire corporation's mascot and superstar Michael `Mickey` Mouse. If you come across a collection of comic strips called "Uncensored Mouse" that is a collection of Mickey Mouse comic strips that are in the public domain. The importance here is that when a character's first appearance enters the public domain it frees up that character for re-use in many creative ways, whereas previously we were limited to the handful of works that were in the public domain. 

Though its important to keep in mind that Disney will retain copyright on many later works documenting the Mouse and his adventures, we'll have trademarks to deal with, but this is still a big deal.

On Inheritance

 Its a new year, and already I can see a few entries on my updated FAQ. Intellectual Property as a concept stands on very shaky ground. In order to stigmatise the sharing and copying of IP corporations and government trading boards spent a lot of time and money comparing violators to pirates and petty thieves, ignoring the obvious question of what exactly is stolen from copying?

Overall its an ideological battlefield that can be only kept going through constant resource expenditure. Essentially keep the arguments in the public consciousness and eventually people will grow accustomed and accept them. One of the few areas were IP protections has had some success is the argument of inheritance. There are many copyright systems in use across the world, the only thing they have in common is that they all have terms of exclusivity that outlive their creator. Now this flies in the face of the majority of the "Moral" argument for IP which centres on creative types who are passionate individuals and not faceless entities. The implication being that the copyright system is actually for the protection of these noble struggling artists. But if that were the case we can ask why do most copyright legislation models allow corporate entities to buy up these rights? And why is it nearly always a corporate body pursuing protection and adressment of suspect IP violations? And why have copyright after the death of the creator(s)? What possible use could that be to a corpse?

The answer to these questions is usually to ignore all of them apart from the last one about post mortis rights. There the answer is for their heirs. The argument goes that life+ gives protection for the descendants of the author. Now, I'm in a minority who thinks inheritance of property and the power and privileges that come with them do more harm than good, but you don't have to be a committed socialist to realise there are some problems with accepting this at face value.

To be blunt, copyright legislation and inheritance legislation are not the same thing, and when an IP passes onto another generation the credit goes to that country's inheritance customs and laws, not its copyright statutes. Copyright law doesn't say anything about who should get IP after the death of the principle creator(s) that is determined by contracts and courts. The only area where copyright legislation does overlap with inheritance it is a detriment and not a boost. You may have heard of the concept of Orphan Work, and Orphan Work is a IP whose creator has expired, but, there is no clear inheritor, neither familial nor commercial. This means that works that are Orphaned legally can not be touched at all and must wait out the term before it can enter the public domain for use and reuse. This has meant that a large body of work is condemned to rot for decades and its a major cause for the growth of lost media.

If you're a creator and you wish for your descendants to profit from your labour than you are within your legal rights. However, your copyright will not help with that, you will need to consult a lawyer and draw up a Will. For example, Arthur Conan Doyle drew up a Will that mentions how his estate was to be divided up and disposed off after his passing. He does discuss his IP in that document.

His MSS. to his wife, directing that the executors should "deal as they think best with copyrights, plays, cinema rights, or unpublished MSS.," and directing that the income from them should be regarded as income from his residuary estate.

[Italics in original]

This is relevant because the heirs to Conan Doyle are quite infamous for their predatory business practices using their ownership of the Sherlock Holmes IP in the United States of America. Which they've lost this January. While many have decried their actions very few have criticised or challenged their "Moral right" to behave in such a horrible way. Because many assume that it was Conan Doyle's wishes that his beloved creations would remain with his family. But if you read his will he regarded IP as simple business matter to be handled along with his savings and personal properties. Its the actions of the Executor that meant his family maintained control over the IP for so long not Doyle's personal wishes.

But even with a Will its still not guaranteed, Wills are contested quite regularly and if a strong enough case can be brought up. For example are you familiar with the Millennium series of books? Well Stig Larsson the author of the first three, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest. Well, Larsson died in 2004 and he had a Will. In it he declared his desire that the proceeds from his IP his royalties should go to a small Trotskyist party in Sweden, which is a bit unusual but it was his Will. However since the Will hadn't been witnessed it was declared invalid by the courts, and they instead awarded his estate to his father and brother, the court also ruled that Larsson's long-term partner was ineligible for funds because they had not married. What this means is Larsson's copyright and stated wishes were secondary to the laws of his country which have entrenched customs and requirements. No one disputes Larsson's copyright nor what his wishes were, he just didn't conform to the requirements of the Swedish legal system who overruled him.  

Stig Larsson isn't the only example of this nor even a particularly rare one, he's just the example that comes to my mind every time I see someone praise copyright for the benefits of inheritance. Again the corporations that defend copyright after the deaths of directors and authors aren't doing it to be kind and charitable, they're doing it because they own that IP and not the grieving family.