• HiddenLayer5
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    1 year ago

    Here’s the thing: copyright term includes the life of the author plus a fixed period. So the works you and I nobodies produce will eventually become public domain after we die. HOWEVER, and this is just my underatanding of the laws and I’m definitely not a lawyer, not big name IPs because they are not registered under the human author, but a corporation that is both a person under the law and effectively immortal. So even if it’s two thousand years after George Lucas dies, Star Wars will still be copyrighted as long as Disney exists, and even if Disney dies, part of the process of corporate “death” is liquidation where they sell their IPs to the next asshole corporation.

    Am I wrong? Please correct me if I am.

    • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
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      1 year ago

      Afaik you are not correct. Copyrights for a corporation also have an expiration date.

      Except – The expiration date can be extended by just continuing to use the IP – Ever wondered why movies get remakes/reimaginings every 30 years or so? We meme about them being “Out of ideas”, but really it’s so they can hold down their copyright.

      • P03 Locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Except – The expiration date can be extended by just continuing to use the IP – Ever wondered why movies get remakes/reimaginings every 30 years or so? We meme about them being “Out of ideas”, but really it’s so they can hold down their copyright.

        No, that’s just wrong. At one point, early Marvel contracts had clauses that allowed the movie producer to keep the contract going if they continued to put out movies. When Marvel got big (post-Iron Man), they had been trying to claw back those contracts. That’s why Fox kept putting out an X-Man movie every few years, and Sony kept putting out Spiderman.

        But, that has nothing to do with copyrights, and all of the remakes are just shit that Hollywood does for memberberries.