> This only applies to the original works, and not to the subsequent adaptations and merchandise, which allows for Disney's incarnation of Winnie the Pooh to still be held under trademark by Disney.
There is an alternative animated version of Winnie the Pooh made in Russia in 1969 by the director Fyodor Khitruk. Pooh is more lively than the Disney version - and has a very different character design to Disney (or Shepherd's original illustrations). To be fair to Disney, their Pooh design is closer to the spirit of Sherpherd's illustrations (but can't match the charm of Sherpherd's illustrations).
"When Khitruk visited the Disney Studios, Wolfgang Reitherman, the author of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day that won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, told him that he liked the Soviet version better than his own." [1]
To give a sense of Russian “Vinny Pu”, he was a pleasure to watch for kids and adults alike. There was a running commentary on everything that was happening around him. The fourth wall was occasionally broken.
The closest equivalent to current television’s programming is the Australian show Bluey.
Because it's the one all kids know from books and TV. I wouldn't even know where to look for a book with the original illustrations (I mean, if I spent some time searching hard I guess I could, but that's not the point).
May I recommend the audiobook version with Stephen Fry as Pooh, and an ensemble of other very talented actors? It's on Audible but your local library may have it on CD. I've heard it dozens of times by now and look forward to hearing it again sometime.
Something similar happened with Sherlock Holmes, where IIRC the first two volumes of stories fell out of copyright, but the third volume was still copyrighted and using elements introduced there was forbidden.
This is a terrible conceptual mistake on the part of copyright law.
Yes, last year—erm, I mean in 2020—the Doyle estate sued Netflix for creating a movie in which Holmes shows emotion… they claimed:
“Among other copied elements, the Springer novels [on which Netflix’s film is based] make extensive infringing use of Conan Doyle’s transformation of Holmes from cold and critical to warm, respectful, and kind in his relationships.” [1]
This is essentially the entire substance of the lawsuit: that creating a new sister character that Holmes felt affection for infringed on their copyright of a single passage in one of the later Doyle stories where Holmes expressed concern for Watson who had gotten shot.
"When Conan Doyle came back to Holmes in the Copyrighted Stories between 1923 and 1927, it was no longer enough that the Holmes character was the most brilliant rational and analytical mind. Holmes needed to be human. The character needed to develop human connection and empathy."
This seems surprising given:
"I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends, and especially, my dear Watson, to you."
- The Final Problem (1894)
"“My dear Watson,” said the well-remembered voice, “I owe you a thousand apologies. I had no idea that you would be so affected.”
- The Empty House (1903)
“Upon my word, Watson!” said Holmes at last with an unsteady voice, “I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable experiment even for one’s self, and doubly so for a friend. I am really very sorry.”“You know,” I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen so much of Holmes’s heart before, “that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you.”
- The Devil's Foot (1910)
I think the biggest mistake is the assumption that if others were allowed to use your creation in their works, you would suffer in some way, that it would be taking money and/or fame from the original artist. I think it couldn't be further from the truth.
For instance, look at Dmitri Glukhovsky and his Metro books - be basically allowed anyone to write any books placed within the same universe, still using the "Metro" logo and characters. Dozens of other books appeared, telling the tales of other metro systems elsewhere in the world and how they've dealt with the apocalypse - but the point is, all those other books have only increased the popularity of the original, and expanded it.
The other good example, weirdly, was always Star Wars books - especially pre-Disney star wars was very lenient with what stories could be told, and unless it was just straight up smut it would be allowed - as a result, star wars fans had hundreds(thousands?) Of books telling stories with their favourite characters and new ones but taking place in the universe they loved. Yes Lucas took a cut, but in general you could just write a book about Han Solo and it would be fine.
That's how copyright should work. Why not let other people tell stories with Pooh and the rest?
Here is the but: imagine someone were to publish a story set in your universe where suddenly the nazis took over and everyone liked it.
This is an extreme point, but it's one reason not to allow everyone to use your trademark without prior asking. Because maybe you're not okay with that AND suddenly your a bit famous works are in the same pot with something you wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole aaaand your sales go down.
Today's outrage culture could cancel you, even if you did nothing wrong.
In a better universe I am all with you and I personally would feel honored and flattered if other people would use my created worlds for their works
I think that's throwing the baby out with the bathwater - what could happen should stop us? I mean, sure, but I somehow don't think this is a real problem.
Going back to my example - among those thousands of star wars books, there are some which are incredibly bad nowadays, sexist, racist, or just pure trash that came and went. I suspect its impact on the actual Star Wars the franchise was zero.
>>Today's outrage culture could cancel you, even if you did nothing wrong.
Maybe, but I don't want to live in a world where worrying about it restricts my choices. If someone wrote a book where the Pooh is now a dictator running a fascist hundred mile forest, and it somehow sold a million copies......then I'm going to laugh at the idiots calling for the original to be cancelled. They shouldn't be given any authority over this, outrage on twitter is cheap.
"what could happen should stop us" this is the base assumption for a lot of laws and compliance bullshit. So apparently, yes.
Also, you don't want to live in such a culture. That is fine. You may create something beautiful and then "donate" it to the public domain.
The choice is yours entirely.
Again, as a consumer I totally understand where you're coming from. As a producer I would think differently (that's simply empathy though, I am not a successful producer)
Whatever valid arguments might exist to restrict speech through copyright, sales going down is not one of them. Otherwise you could lawfully prohibit negative reviews.
Sales going down by someone using your original world/characters in a way that is then deemed unpopular is definitely restricted/not possible in a world with enforceable Copyright.
And that was my point, not sales going down on their own.
Negative reviews have nothing to do with someone else being able to take e.g. James Bond and making him a homosexual or taking Conan the Barbarian and making him a woman or a sidekick etc.
Drastic or even small changes can always be unpopular and affect the whole franchise. If said franchise is no longer under your control alone, this is an argument pro copyright from the viewpoint of a creator.
The point is that sales don’t factor into it in the first place. An infringing work could increase sales, and the copyright holder would still have just the same rights. Think of anime fansubs—which effectively brought Japanese anime to mainstream popularity in the west, yet are still heavily cracked down upon by license holders, and always have been.
Yes, it could. That is why you, as the copyright holder, have the final say in the matter and may take the risk or not.
Think about e.g. Warcraft. It was supposed to be a Warhammer game. The license was "revoked", so they spun up their own story/world and created a successful franchise.
The thing is, I totally am opposed to copyright and patents, yet I can see where they are coming from and I can see reasons for them.
How is that the original concept of copyright? That article begins by saying this:
> Prior to the statute's enactment in 1710, copying restrictions were authorized by the Licensing of the Press Act 1662. These restrictions were enforced by the Stationers' Company, a guild of printers given the exclusive power to print—and the responsibility to censor—literary works.
the original concept of copyright was to throw a bone to middle/upper class printers so that the proliferation of printing presses could be arbitrarily limited as the ability for anyone to print anything threatened the crone, the state and the upper class by printing revolutionary ideas.
"Licensing of the Press" allowed to control who could print, by lawful threat of violence, and that enabled censorship of ideas. Copyright sweetened that deal to those who owned printing presses: enforcement of scarcity enabled a business model where good content could be kept expensive and money is funneled to the publisher who owns the exclusive right to make copies. For this they agreed to do censorship.
The argument that copyright is a right of the content creators, who were mostly dependent on patrons, and that those creators could only be paid fairly by the publishers if their product was exclusive, was peddled back then and swayed some of the intelligentsia to support the concept, but this was not the core ideal. At the beginning copyright was about entrenching a small circle of collaborators, who got the right to copy, and violently removing the means of production of those printing revolutionary thoughts.
OT: does anyone here still have the ebook of Winnie the Pooh that Apple included for free in your library when you set up iBooks on an iPad?
They included it from the launch of iBooks (now called Apple Books) in April 2010 until sometime in mid-2011. In mid-2011 it became a paid book for new iBooks users but remained in the libraries of existing users.
I noticed a couple years or so ago that it was no longer in my library. I don't know when it disappeared because I only rarely use iBooks, but everything else I remember getting in that first year is still there.
Checking my account for ebooks on the account that are not on my Mac, I don't see it, so it isn't the case that I somehow just happened to delete it from my Mac. Nor is it on the list of hidden books.
I'd have expected that if Apple had deleted it from existing libraries when they lost the rights to give away free copies that would have made the news but I've found no mention of that. In fact, all I found was just the opposite--apparently there were people who didn't want it in their library and were having trouble figuring out how to get rid of it! [1].
I’ve still got my copy… interestingly enough though, it appears as several volumes now, of which only the first is free. The others are $9.99. IIRC it used to only be one book.
When Peter Pan entered the public domain, there was a plethora of new books reimagining the Peter Pan story. I look forward to see what will be coming out around these new books entering the public domain.
Board games too. There's several board games that are Cthulhu or Alice and Wonderland themed, for example, because those are in the public domain and no license fees are needed. I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing several Winnie The Pooh themed games as well in a year or two.
Coming out this year alone are two Alice in Wonderland themed games: Paint the Roses and Wonderland's War. Another old favorite is a simple card game called Parade.
> Proof that copyright and patents stifle innovation?
Proof that forever-copyrights stifle innovation.
It's a balance. No money and people who need to eat have to dig ditches instead of creating. A hundred years of monopoly when fourteen would have been enough and you're constraining third parties more than you're providing incentive to the original author.
I do think the original 14 years is a trifle short. Maybe 14 years, with a cheap 14 year extension, and then one more very expensive 14 year extension. Then you can get long-lived film franchises, etc, while works that are commercially irrelevant enter the PD relatively soon.
> No money and people who need to eat have to dig ditches instead of creating.
Which is why no creative works exist from before the invention of copyright laws. Walk into any library, concert hall, art museum or theater and you won’t find any works from before copyright.
Look at fairy tales, Robin Hood stories or Aesop's fables. Not every adaptation is good, but every now and then, you end up with a classic.
What's annoying is how often companies like Disney take a public domain work, make an interesting derivative and then turn around and lobby to make it impossible for their derivatives to enter the public domain. They did, after all, benefit from the same public domain...
The furries can and do write Winnie the Pooh stories today. Nobody will stop them because those stories didn't have any sizable income potential to begin with. They live on furry web sites that don't catch the attention of IP lawyers.
What public domain enables is for-profit adaptations of Winnie the Pooh.
The big question: what happens when Mickey Mouse enters public domain in 2024?
Will people be able to make Mickey cartoons independent of and without the blessing of Disney? Will they be able to sell merchandise? Market themselves using the Mouse? Incorporate the character in their logos?
Does this only apply to the "Steamboat Willie" version of Mickey? Can one use artistic license to get closer to modern Mickey without running afoul of modern copyright?
Pooh is one thing, but Mickey going public domain will be monumental.
Trademark and copyright are separate. So it's legit to stand outside of Disneyland selling Blu-rays of Steamboat Willie, but there are still limitations on how you can use the character
Some level of remixing/reediting the movie is probably OK, but I'm not sure where the line gets drawn
They have to balance the willingness of people to accept copyright as fair with the few benefits extending copyright even further would have. At this point the few bits of intellectual property that will become public domain are so few and mainly of historic interest, that a protracted lobbying attempt (which could fail) would do more harm to their brand than just defending trademarks and existing copyrighted works.
I think the generally held view of the major content owners is that the current (absurdly protracted) limits are good enough.
Sucking a statistic out of thin air, I'd be amazed if you can get 1% of people to even be aware of copyright terms, much less feel politically motivated to spend political capital fighting Disney.
It's the easiest lobbying in the world to extend copyright terms. There are waaay more important one-issue topics on the table than to worry about mickey mouse.
If Disney wants to extend it, they will. And if they do there might be 15 seconds of bad press, then the next big story will come along...
The cost to create will be essentially zero, but the cost to create something that does not already infringe copyright is going to be astronomical since it’s inversely proportional.
Imagine if Disney could push a button and create 100 billion characters. You’d probably be infringing the moment you draw your first concept. “20000 of our works have that exact same ‘distinctive’ hairstyle. Cease and desist.”
This would be a great argument except they’ve already done it.
Did people push back when it was expanded past the creator’s death?
Or when it was 20 years past? Or when it was pushed worldwide?
We’re now at 70 years after the creator’s death, and there’s just far too much money being made. They come up with terms like “modern copyright” and use words like “protection” and “investment”, but at the end of the day it’s big companies using whatever leverage they can in order to stay big.
The last time copyright was extended was in 1998. Copyright was considered a boring topic then, so no one but a few librarians cared about a copyright extension. The political landscape has changed since then. Organizations such as the EFF and even Google would present strong resistance to another extension of copyright.
I can’t find it now, but I think you’ve missed something important: 1998 may have been the last extension in the US, but they’ve successfully steamrolled that extension in to other countries in the past decade.
If someone knows what I’m talking about, please cite. I do not have enough memory shreds for a good Google search. I think it was a “mild” coercion to “bring other countries up to date”, talking about how artists were essentially being robbed in countries where the copyright had not fallen in line with this 50-70 years past the creator’s death.
AFAIK Disney still has a trademark on Mickey Mouse, which will last as long as Disney successfully continues to enforce it; losing the ability to control the reproduction of Steamboat Willie doesn't lose them that trademark. (IANAL)
So, there are some really weird cases that lead to very interesting lawsuits. Sherlock Holmes was involved in one: A derivative was made based on early books becoming public domain, and the estate sued them because they felt aspects of his character shown in the derivative work wasn't actually added until a later book which was not yet in the public domain.
Which is to say, if you happen to put a red shirt on your Pooh rip-off, it's very likely Disney can, and will, sue you. This alone means that if you want to adapt Pooh (or Steamboat Willie), you probably need to go a very different direction than Disney has, such that the character is not likely to be recognizable as the same.
The Sherlock Holmes case is the one I was reminded of as well. With such high impact fictional characters it took years, spread over a range of published works, to establish the quintessence and backstory people know them by now (not that Mickey Mouse has many redeeming qualities beyond being instantly recognizable).
That said, I'm looking forward to a potential noir detective reimagining of Pooh. I hope they don't do the zombie thing though; that feels overdone by now.
Less than you think: I can’t remember the report, but Disney said the Pooh franchise had four times as much revenue as Mickey Mouse at least in recent years.
As with many articles on IP they are conflating copyright and trademark.
The stories and illustrations will be copyright free, but the names of the characters (certainly the titular character) are covered by trademarks.
I'm no IP expert, so I don't know the repercussions of putting out a book titled Winnie The Pooh containing the public domain stories. Certainly you'd be in the clear if it was titled Fat, Honey-Loving Bear Stories.
>You will definitely be able to re-print and re-use the original text, the original name and possibly the original illustrations illustrations.
that's nice for anyone who wants to publish books I guess, or for downloaders of Project Gutenberg material, but I don't think that is really what people care for who argue about copyright being too long etc.
I guess what people really want is something that is anyway covered by fair use but people are afraid to do because big corporate lawyers. But I guess if the characters are trademarked you still have to worry about big corporate lawyers.
Anyway, Pooh is only copyright free in US, still under copyright in UK - unsure if copyright free in EU, assume not.
> This doesn't make much sense. If the stories enter public domain, they enter in their entirety.
In the USA all character names and book titles are public domain anyway - but these can still be protected under trademark (The name being public domain doesn't mean that anyone can create derivative works though - these are still protected).
For instance, the name "Mickey Mouse" is in the public domain (i.e. someone can say it without it being licensed) while stories about Mickey Mouse are still under copyright, and you cannot use 'Mickey Mouse' in your own advertising or to sell a product as it is still a trademark.
As another example, I can create the character "Dude The Donkey", own the trademark "Dude The Donkey" and also write a story about Dude The Donkey that I put into the public domain (e.g. CC0), however the fact I have written a story and put it into the public domain doesn't mean that someone else is allowed to sell "Dude The Donkey" branded merchandise - as I have a trademark on that.
Disney has options even if copyright legislation doesn’t change. For over a decade now, Disney has used clips of Steamboat Willie in their logo. Even after Willie’s copyright indisputably expires in 2024, they may attempt to litigate under trademark law.
That kind of thing doesn’t always work though. For example, Lego has repeatedly attempted to trademark their brick shape in various venues after the patents expired. Their many resulting lawsuits against Mega Bloks have (to my knowledge) been generally unsuccessful, because the functional elements of an interlocking brick design turn out not to be trademarkable.
> Trademarks (usually) don't have such a broad application as "this name X is forbidden for use everywhere forever and ever".
Unlike copyrights or patents, trademark rights last for as long as they are used continuously to identify a source of goods or services. So, not quite forever and ever, but as long as they are used continuously by the same source.
You're right that it will be fine to use the names of the characters as long as you don't create a likelihood of confusion with a senior user of the same or similar trademark.
> Certainly you'd be in the clear if it was titled Fat, Honey-Loving Bear Stories.
If you're publishing the original book, you'll be able to use the original title because you'll be using the name not as a trademark, but as a descriptive term for the book.
For derivative works, you will probably want to make up your own name that you can use as a unique trademark to identify your derivative. (See, e.g., the recent Sherlock Holmes derivative works: Sherlock, Elementary, Enola Holmes.)
> If you’re publishing the original book, you’ll be able to use the original title because you’ll be using the name not as a trademark, but as a descriptive term for the book.
You seem to be arguing that it would be descriptive fair use, but the probability of confusion prong of the descriptive fair use test seems likely to be problematic, especially in an active franchise with newer works under the trademark that are actually exclusive to the trademark owner by copyright as well.
Personally, I put the responsibility for this on Disney: they have been lobbying for copyright extensions consistently, and do big pushes when Mickey is close to becoming public domain.
This conversation's hard to follow, esp w/ all the IANAL disclaimers...are there any lawyers who could maybe lay it straight for me.. if I wanted to create my own darker version of winnie the pooh...say in the same world as The Walking Dead...
If I use my own artwork, I can or cannot use all the character names and attributes? Like Tigger is a Tiger that bounces.... or Rabbit is...a Rabbit... Pooh's a bear....etc..
You would be able to use only those elements whose copyright had expired, meaning only what’s in the original book. (See, for example, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.)
You wouldn’t be able to use Tigger, because that character was introduced in The House on Pooh Corner, whose copyright doesn’t expire until 2024.
And earlier, the Pooh Perplex from 1963. It's a series of satirical interpretations of Winnie the Pooh from various perspectives -- Freudian, Marxist, etc.
It will be interesting to see if there is an increase in Pooh memes about Xi. I mean, to be clear, there are already so many it's hard to envision an increase, but somehow I believe the Internet can do it.
Also, if calling Xi a cartoon character upsets you I suggest NOT doing Internet.
Oh bother.