Re: Some Thoughts on Copyright Term

On Tue, 10 Nov 1998, Dan L. Burk <burkdanl[_at_]shu.edu> wrote:
>
> On 11/09/98, Moritz Roettinger <moritz.roettinger[_at_]dg23.cec.be> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Lance Purple <lpurple[_at_]netcom.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > The arts are NOT a zero-sum game, and when entities like Disney
> > > have profitted so immensely from the public domain, they have
> > > an obligation to give materials BACK to the public domain.
> >
> > What does Disney have they should give "back" (?) to public domain?
>
> Their own creative contributions, so that the next Walt Disney will
> have material from which to work.

But these are Disney's contributions and have nothing to do with the underlying pre-existent work.

> > The stories are still in public domain.
>
> This completely misses the points of the previous comment that 1) those
> stories only got into the public domain in the first place because they
> weren't subjected to perpetual copyright, and 2) that Disney apparently
> wants the benefit of others' contributions to the public domain without
> ever contributing anything to it themselves.

First, Grimm's fairy tales were just collected by them and not written by them. They are well known stories for ages and have never been protected by copyright. Second, Disney uses them, but, of course, creates something new - the pictures, the movie, the music etc. Thus there are very substantial contributions from Disney and exactly theses contributions are protected by copyright. The pre-existing story continues to be in the public domain, and Disney can in no way acquire rights in the story itself.

Moritz Roettinger
<moritz.roettinger[_at_]dg23.cec.be> Received on Wed Nov 11 1998 - 11:30:29 GMT