wavey
1624
You might not want to listen to me, because I thought all four of his shows were great, but I’d give the next one a try at least. It has one of my favourite bits, about the British Museum.
I saw an amusing stand up bit about Hamilton on YouTube from a comedian named Katherine Ryan and notIced she had some shows on Netflix. So we watched Glitter Room last night. I believe that’s her most recent special and it was pretty funny. So I suppose I recommend it!
If we’re just recommending comedy specials now, Patton Oswald has a new one out. As of course does Hannah Gadsby, who has her own thread. And the aforementioned Middleditch & Schwartz.
You should watch the British comedy panel shows on YouTube. Stuff like 8 Out of Ten Cats Does Countdown or Taskmaster. She’s on them a lot.
Cormac
1629
Their argument appears to be that Doyle only gave Holmes emotions in the last few books and those do not fall under fair use. As Enola Holmes also has emotions, it is thus going beyond the fair use doctrine?
Sounds rather tenuous to me, but I am not a lawyer…
Public domain rather than fair use, surely. Fair use is about allowable use of copyrighted material. There is no copyright on stuff in the public domain.
Some of his stories are still under copyright, and that seems to be the theory of their case: that elements of these stories come from the copyrighted ones.
It sounds like a major stretch, but I guess they’re trying to wring out a last few dollars before the rest of the stories enter the public domain in two years.
Copyright laws are out of controls. Doyle’s been dead for 90 years.
Cormac
1633
Yes, sorry I used the wrong phrase there. I meant public domain.
Also here’s a quote from a deadline article about the case:
In a 19-page complaint filed Wednesday in New Mexico federal court (read it here), the estate claims the “copyright infringement arises from defendants unauthorized copying of original creative expression by [Conan Doyle] in copyrighted Sherlock Holmes stories.”
Yes, from the sound of it the argument is that they’re infringing on the few works of his not to be in the public domain, despite the fact that it’s an original story.
Things take 95 years to go into public domain, so now it’s 1924 and earlier.
I can see them changing the law. In 2024 Mickey Mouse is scheduled to go into the public domain. Disney is probably going to fight that.
I read a tinfoil hat theory somewhere that Disney’s new Animation Studios logo that plays before its movies - the one with Steamboat Willie - was created just so they can claim that Mickey Mouse is now a trademark (or something like that) and keep control of the IP for longer.
That’s not a tinfoil hat theory, that’s sound IP management. Copyrights expire. Trademarks, if the product continues to be marketed using the trademarked image or trademarked name, do not. See, e.g. Coke. So if you want to maintain some control over an IP for a period of time longer than copyrights last, you want a trademark.
In recent year Disney has done stuff like make that Steamboat Willie clip a studio trademark, make a new series of Mickey Mouse cartoons (called just plain “Mickey Mouse” and not something fancier) and issued a whole bunch of Mickey, Minnie, Donald etc. merchandise, with trademarks slapped on all of it.
So in the future there will be nothing preventing non-Disney companies from selling copies of the movie Steamboat Willie (looks it up … actually Plane Crazy was the first Micky Mouse cartoon, to be technical) when the copyright expires. But! No one will be able to sell copies of Steamboat Willie under the name “Mickey Mouse” because that’s a trademarked name. Likewise they won’t be able to use that image of Mickey steering the ship, because it’s trademarked. Etc.
This, incidentally, is why Marvel and DC will periodically put out limited series for obscure characters, characters so obscure that you’ll say “Why is ______ getting a limited series? Who actually wants this?” By trading under the name, they can maintain the trademark on the character. Then 30 years from now if by chance Obscure Man is suddenly up for his own movie, they’ll still have the rights. (And if you think this is implausible, just think of how comics fans thought of Aquaman and Ant-man 30 years ago.)
Edit: actual lawyer-type on the issue here.
Disney are also heavily responsible for the insane length of current copyright law, so the idea that they’ll try to get it extended further is not so much plausible as predictable.
This is fascinating, thank you for the explanation! I didn’t realize it was so commonplace, but it makes total sense.
Maybe, but there’s good reason to think they might fail this time…
The rise of the Internet has totally changed the political landscape on copyright issues. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is much larger than it was in 1998. Other groups, including Public Knowledge, didn’t even exist 20 years ago. Internet companies—especially Google—have become powerful opponents of expanding copyright protections.
The defeat of SOPA was so complete that it has essentially ended efforts by copyright interests to expand copyright protection via legislation. Prior to SOPA, Congress would regularly pass bills ratcheting up copyright protections (like the 2008 PRO-IP Act, which beefed up anti-piracy efforts). Since 2012, copyright has been a legislative stalemate, with neither side passing significant legislation.
I hope so. I just have concerns because, for example, there were copyright provisions in…uh. I forget the name, but that big trade deal that Trump tanked shortly after taking office, and that got a lot of internet freedom folks outraged, but it didn’t seem to stop it from going ahead. And we not only lost net neutrality but still haven’t gotten it back, which certainly affects more people than the vague prospect of the public domain expanding for the first time in pretty much the entire history of the internet-qua-internet.
On a different topic:
Err, Missy is half black and half Jewish, ethnically (as I understand it). Slate is welcome to do what she wants, of course, and I appreciate the intent, but I hope no one was pressuring the Jewish actress to step aside in favor of a black actress on this one. That would be… troubling. Regardless, I really liked the voice work for this character and hope they can find someone who isn’t too jarring for the transition.
Ugh. I really liked Missy’s voice. This sucks.
