# US Senator proposes dropping film/moving picture copyright to 56 years for mega corps.



## FAST6191 (May 20, 2022)

Source, albeit via huffpost so eh.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/josh-hawley-jumps-anti-disney-205543262.html
Bill for those that want to read it
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/4178/text?q={"search":["copyright","copyright"]}&r=1&s=1
"S.4178 - Copyright Clause Restoration Act of 2022"
As far as posting here I am a bit late to the party but might as well go it and it is has not been rejected yet.

It is in some ways being framed under the general anti Disney sentiment that is happening right now (you might have seen them lose their special status in Florida a few weeks back) and it is probably more of a feel good protest thing than something likely to land in law but I will try to note copyright reform attempts where I see them as they are so few and far between, and most times we see copyright discussed it is either in DMCA exceptions lists or the US pressuring other countries to get in line with them (could make for some interesting futures there too).

Anyway around here for a while now I have done the public domain day threads each year
https://gbatemp.net/threads/new-in-the-public-domain-for-2022.605453/
https://gbatemp.net/threads/new-in-the-public-domain-for-2021.580143/
https://gbatemp.net/threads/so-a-bu...ew-days-ago-2019-copyright-expiration.528124/ (not sure where I was in 2020)

For those unfamiliar then copyright is historically supposed to have had a limit but the last two times Mickey Mouse got close to being out of copyright (see Steamboat Willie) then Disney went all lobbying mad and got it extended. The clock did restart the other year (see the 2019 thread) with said Steamboat Willie due to go in 2024 but we have been getting some nice stuff in the meantime (those threads have more and links to more still). Disney and others have been probed on their intentions to attempt to get another extension but general word seems to be that they are not going for it in previous years, though how much that word is worth is very much up for debate (especially with huge back catalogues able to be leveraged on streaming if that is the future).
My usual primer on such things is


Anyway it is not a general law and instead only applies to things where the company "(i) has a market capitalization of more than $150,000,000,000 and (ii) (I) is classified under North American Industry Classification System code 5121 or 71; or (II) engages in substantial activities for which a code described in subclause (I) could be assigned.
https://www.naics.com/naics-code-description/?code=71 https://www.naics.com/naics-code-description/?code=5121 5121 is Motion Picture and Video Industries and 71 - Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation which does not necessarily include software.
That is also 150 billion for a market cap which is only a handful -- Fox (though not sure what they have right now after the Disney thing the other year) for instance is sitting now at 17.14 billion, Warner Bros is 42.12, Universal Pictures is Comcast which would just about squeak over at 179.20 billion at time of writing but I don't know if they would subdivide down (I presume that is what II aims for), Paramount is 18.493). To that end the shots fired against Disney ($187.86 billion) narrative is pretty solid, and indeed the article linked at the start notes it as a likely workaround to individual targets (which is legally dubious). Maybe all this inflation will do some good after all though and some other things get into that range.

Dropping it to 56 years would be quite the step up, unlikely to do much for computer games (Pong is 1972 where 2022-56 is 1966, though first is an interesting question even if you don't count mechanical games) in the immediate term as they probably don't count under those codes (also EA only has a market cap of 36.56 billion, Epic 28.9, Ubisoft 6.17) or the II part but the board game fans among us (Monopoly is 1935, Risk is 1957, Stratego is 1946, Cluedo/Clue is 1940s, Barrel of Monkeys is 1965, Scrabble is 1938...) might see something depending upon what goes (though Mattel is 8.19 billion market cap).
As far as Disney themselves then that would be a fair few films (Jungle Book is 1967 though so you would have to wait a little bit), do also note Disney owns various labels and historically did as well and has acquired many companies over the years so the simple naive wiki list might not be the whole story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walt_Disney_Pictures_films
Still selection of the more noted classic works Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937, Pinnocchio is 1940, Fantasia 1940, Dumbo 1941, Bambi 1942 (though I will note the original German language book went public domain this year in the US, and has been for several more in the EU), Song of the South 1946, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad 1949 (animated versions of The Wind in the Willows and The story of Sleepy Hollow, though both are based on older books still), Cinderella 1950, Treasure Island 1950, Alice in Wonderland 1951, Robin Hood 1952 (though this is the live action version, 1973 was the animated one), Peter Pan 1953, Lady and the Tramp 1955, Old Yeller 1957, Sleeping Beauty 1959, Swiss Family Robinson 1960, 101 Dalmatians 1961, The Parent Trap 1961, The Incredible Journey 1963, The Sword in the Stone 1963, Marry Poppins 1964, That Darn Cat! 1965, Jungle Book 1967 as noted earlier but the book was 1894 hence various other versions over the years, 1968 for The Love Bug (first outing of Herbie), 1970 Aristocats, 1971 Bedknobs and Broomsticks and then we are in the dark times for classic Disney as The Rescuers would be 1977 before we get something that is not a sequel to previous things on this list. Would also note another public domain entry this year of Winnie the Pooh ( https://explosm.net/comics/winnie ) saw some Disney efforts in 1966 in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. Accordingly shoving all that into the public domain over the next few years would be huge. Not sure what would go as far as aspects of it (this public domain day also saw the restarting of music recordings copyright lapsing but on a different year).


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## Veho (May 20, 2022)

Are the midterms coming, by any chance?


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## lokomelo (May 20, 2022)

The thing is too dense, full of jargons, and as I don't speak English 100% it is quite hard to me to figure out many things, but for what I got, a new bill is set to put in public domain productions from 1966 onward, right? It is good them, but I didn't got that anti-disney gay thing, what is happening? (I know what is happening is already posted, but I could not understand, so for fools like me, what is happening?)


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## FAST6191 (May 20, 2022)

The bill or my post?

The bill in simple terms. If passed any film/moving picture company with a market cap (investment term, means share price multiplied by number of shares) of over 150 billion USD which is basically Disney and maybe Universal Pictures if their parent company Comcast is counted (Comcast are also a big ISP, cable TV provider and a bunch of other things so I don't know what goes) will have any copyright on moving pictures reduced to 56 years. 56 is the 28 of the original copyright plus the earlier additional 28 and other perks you can get for registering a work.
This is quite a lot shorter than current copyright lengths (see the video) which this year saw films/paintings/books from 1926 be put into the public domain, and musical recordings from 1923 in the US where this bill would have Disney stuff (and everything else they control) from the late 60s be counted and new stuff come in every year from then on. That would be huge in the world of public domain content for while there are maybe 5 people that remember the 1920s in the world right now and 50 more film students that care then on the other hand most are familiar with content from the 40s through 60s and in some cases it is considered some of the best content out there, defining works in the modern western canon and not to mention the first proper films were still within living memory of the 1920s ( https://historycooperative.org/first-movie-ever-made/ ) where they had pretty much figured it out by then (it will not be until next year that the public domain has a film that has the radical notion of having voice over at the same time as pictures on screen whereas it was standard for the 1960s.

"anti disney gay thing"
It is a fairly loaded political topic right now, one I tried to avoid a bit as the copyright aspect is more interesting to me, and we will probably get someone going all reeeeee whatever goes but I will try.
The US state funded education system is a bit of a mess but depending upon how you want to look it has been that way for over a century (I have a fun book here covering what they perceived as failings then and a lot of it rings true today). There are also a bunch of activist teachers (they are certainly not there for the pay) and those looking to get lesson plans/curriculums at present (you might have seen some of the stuff regarding "critical race theory" last year and earlier this year). Some seek to get things in, others seek to counter it via various means, others seek to get other things in, others seek to counter that and it all gets very petty. One of those counters appeared to come from Florida (4th highest GDP in the nation, major holiday spot and generally fairly big player after California, Texas and New York) in HB1557 which some politicians and media dubbed "don't say gay".
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/BillText/er/PDF if you want to read the bill, https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out...das-dont-say-gay-bill-actually-says-rcna19929 is a reasonable overview but there are probably better ones out there.

Disney however publicly indeed vowed to get the above repealed https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/28/disney-vows-to-help-repeal-dont-say-gay-law.html , and further to that had their "gay agenda" as others dubbed it shown for the world to see which does not necessarily sit well with a significant chunk of their market

To that end along with the hangover from coronavirus (their theme parks, which have been shut down quite a bit and saw massive drops in attendance as well as losing their special status in Florida, their streaming service Disney+ is not doing as well as some would like*, a lot of their films and TV have not had good reviews it means their stock price (which executives get bonuses for, people writing loans want to see growth in and investors want to see going up) has been falling. A lot of politicians have also jumped into the ring and tried to do things that Disney would not like, this seemingly being one of them.

*Disney make an awful lot of money from cable TV, however as nobody under 50 has cable TV any more (see cord cutting) then yeah they are going to be hit hard. Video because why not

Worse than that as noted above then the stuff that would be immediately available on youtube if copyright went also forms something of a big pull for their streaming service.

As Veho noted we are coming up to mid term elections right now in the US (while the president is every 4 years then other things happen in the middle of that, hence mid term, and can make it hard for the president to do things if he does not also have the support of the US Senate) so every politician is doing stunts of various forms to either prepare them to go further in the presidential race in a few years or get re-elected to the US senate. This is arguably one of those moves in that it is unlikely to pass but as copyright is a thing we note around here (not like copyright lawyers would not tear apart emulation given the chance, they clearly hate hacking, hate mod chips/modding, hate "backups", hate imports...) I thought I should give an overview.


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## JonhathonBaxster (May 20, 2022)

I think Disney has become too big. Why do we have laws about monopolies yet they aren't enforced? As for the copyright limit it shouldn't be extended yet again. Extending it to begin with was utter bullshit.


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## Kurt91 (May 20, 2022)

What I don't get about copyright is that it seems like there's such a simple solution to make absolutely everybody happy that nobody seems to acknowledge.

Instead of eternally making extensions to copyright, why not make it a set time limit (such as 20 years, maybe 50 at absolute most, which is still less than what's being proposed right now). Instead of measuring it from creation, measure it from last official use.

So, using 20 years as an example, let's say a new Mickey Mouse cartoon is released. That extends the copyright for Mickey Mouse to a new set of 20 years. However, Steamboat Willie specifically can fall into public domain if they don't make a new official release of the specific film. Once the specific cartoon is in public domain, people can find it and watch it freely, but that doesn't mean that they can make "official" for-profit new Mickey Mouse cartoons, since Mickey specifically is still under copyright.

A system like this would be fine for companies since they can just continue releasing products par-for-the-course and not have to worry about copyright expiring for relevant properties. People who are concerned about preserving media would be happy with it because after 20 years, that's long enough to know that it's no longer going to have anything done with it if there are no new releases, and short enough that it's not difficult to make a preservation copy. (For instance, do you really think they'd go 20 years without a new release of something like Ghostbusters? Meanwhile, I don't think they're going to continue making new releases of something like Labyrinth so it's eternally available in the most modern media format)

This would also be convenient for something like video game preservation. Yeah, there's probably always going to be re-releases of something like Super Mario World, so that ought to be safe. But I don't think I've ever seen re-releases and ports of stuff like Batman for the NES or GUTS for the Super NES.


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## CoolMe (May 20, 2022)

JonhathonBaxster said:


> As for the copyright limit it shouldn't be extended yet again.


That's probably what'll end up happening..


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## lokomelo (May 20, 2022)

FAST6191 said:


> The bill or my post?
> 
> The bill in simple terms. If passed any film/moving picture company with a market cap (investment term, means share price multiplied by number of shares) of over 150 billion USD which is basically Disney and maybe Universal Pictures if their parent company Comcast is counted (Comcast are also a big ISP, cable TV provider and a bunch of other things so I don't know what goes) will have any copyright on moving pictures reduced to 56 years. 56 is the 28 of the original copyright plus the earlier additional 28 and other perks you can get for registering a work.
> This is quite a lot shorter than current copyright lengths (see the video) which this year saw films/paintings/books from 1926 be put into the public domain, and musical recordings from 1923 in the US where this bill would have Disney stuff (and everything else they control) from the late 60s be counted and new stuff come in every year from then on. That would be huge in the world of public domain content for while there are maybe 5 people that remember the 1920s in the world right now and 50 more film students that care then on the other hand most are familiar with content from the 40s through 60s and in some cases it is considered some of the best content out there, defining works in the modern western canon and not to mention the first proper films were still within living memory of the 1920s ( https://historycooperative.org/first-movie-ever-made/ ) where they had pretty much figured it out by then (it will not be until next year that the public domain has a film that has the radical notion of having voice over at the same time as pictures on screen whereas it was standard for the 1960s.
> ...



Now I got o much clearer picture. Basically Disney is losing their lobby power then. If this thing gets approved, It'll be awesome tbh. We will get a chance to see NES games go public on our lifetime for example.


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## KingVamp (May 20, 2022)

Confused why there is a cap at all, let alone such a high one. Well, actually, can see one for protecting small companies, but that cap doesn't directly do that. Does that mean everyone else has a longer copyright?


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## lokomelo (May 20, 2022)

KingVamp said:


> Confused why there is a cap at all, let alone such a high one. Well, actually, can see one for protecting small companies, but that cap doesn't directly do that. Does that mean everyone else has a longer copyright?


There is the question of IPs registered abroad, US tax collector (or whatever is called) do not have the books to evaluate them. The cap also can be exploited by using a dummy company:

1. Company A may lend 149,999,999,999 or less us dollars to Company B.

2. B offers to buy company's A IPs for the total value lended.

3. Company A rent the IPs from B

4. B pays the debt payments with the rent money, resulting in zero net cash flow for either side.

5. Company B is the owner, so their IPs ate not due to expire, because total patrimonial value of B is less than 150 billion.

Obviously in reality would be not so obvious, but big corps can do this kind os planing easily.


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## MikaDubbz (May 20, 2022)

Good luck.  Disney has become so big that they can and will sway how these types of propositions are handled.  I would love to see Mickey enter the public domain, but honestly, I don't see that happening anytime soon.


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## FAST6191 (May 21, 2022)

I am surprised people expect another extension/stopping of the clock. There is a year or more to go (and almost another election cycle -- don't know if this is within the power of executive decision) before Steamboat Willie enters public domain "naturally" and I would have expected a ramp up and hearts and minds campaign before now for that one. They could be going for a hard and heavy approach but most figure with the likes of the EFF and creative commons and all other interested and well organised parties (which was not the case for the 90s sonny bono act) running around that chances of another extension are slim to none.
The closest I have seen to anything thus far is the Trans Pacific Pivot back in 2015 or so tried to angle for life plus 90 (as opposed to life plus 70 and about the same/maybe slightly less for works for hire for corporations).


lokomelo said:


> There is the question of IPs registered abroad, US tax collector (or whatever is called) do not have the books to evaluate them. The cap also can be exploited by using a dummy company:
> 
> 1. Company A may lend 149,999,999,999 or less us dollars to Company B.
> 
> ...


There are various takes on this already, both in general (see Hollywood accounting)

More general business does it too and it will be a complicated network of subsidiaries and rights being sold around the place. The trouble however is you have to pay taxes on the money coming back into the US; if you have ever seen the "we need a tax holiday" thing for businesses with money outside the US then this is that. They want you to believe they would be double taxed on iphones or whatever they sold in Germany and now can't bring the money back to the US without it being double taxed but the reality is they made an awful lot of money making things on the cheap in Asia and that is what they want to in house. There used to be a really nice video on this for medicines but they took it down.

Equally copyright is a national thing for the most part. To that end you would either lose the copyright within the US or the business power within the US and both would be undesirable for such companies, though I am sure they would run the numbers and see how close to the line they get.


KingVamp said:


> Confused why there is a cap at all, let alone such a high one. Well, actually, can see one for protecting small companies, but that cap doesn't directly do that. Does that mean everyone else has a longer copyright?


The Yahoo article (repost from huffington post) does note that you can't target individuals with laws specifically as that is variously unconstitutional. This gives them the tissue thin veneer of it not being that -- I mean while the monopolies and mergers body in the US is in a coma then this stops mega cap corporations from owning all our culture .



Kurt91 said:


> What I don't get about copyright is that it seems like there's such a simple solution to make absolutely everybody happy that nobody seems to acknowledge.
> 
> Instead of eternally making extensions to copyright, why not make it a set time limit (such as 20 years, maybe 50 at absolute most, which is still less than what's being proposed right now). Instead of measuring it from creation, measure it from last official use.
> 
> ...



I would not be happy with that (I actually like public domain and "but that doesn't mean that they can make "official" for-profit new Mickey Mouse cartoons, since Mickey specifically is still under copyright." runs contrary to that, not to mention on "so that ought to be safe" then have you seen them edit and censor things to fit silly modern sensibilities? Or indeed speed them up and insert adverts into the shows themselves? https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/zookeeper-ad-inserted-2007-how-208466/#! for but one example) and you can do token releases easily enough (several films do the bare minimum to be considered for the Oscars already, and streaming services are seeing all sorts of things enjoy resurgences so bundling rights to things for streaming service package would count as something).

Also that is nominally what the copyright registration thing was supposed to do -- 28 years for basically everything but registering your copyright with the relevant authorities (a somewhat rare thing in general in copyright law around the world) both gives you another 28 and the ability to sue for more money (without it in the US you basically get damages where with it is where the fun numbers you see for settlements gets reached).


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## Viri (May 21, 2022)

Disney helped ruin our copyright system. I hope they get fucked over, and lose their "special privileges" in Florida. I look forward to the day when their precious Steamboat Willie becomes public domain.

Confuses the fuck out of me, seeing people "simp" for Disney of all companies. I couldn't stand them for nearly 2 decades.


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## Dr_Faustus (May 24, 2022)

Kurt91 said:


> What I don't get about copyright is that it seems like there's such a simple solution to make absolutely everybody happy that nobody seems to acknowledge.
> 
> Instead of eternally making extensions to copyright, why not make it a set time limit (such as 20 years, maybe 50 at absolute most, which is still less than what's being proposed right now). Instead of measuring it from creation, measure it from last official use.
> 
> ...


The thing is, most corporate entities do not give a flying goddamn about preservation or specifics of what is/is not considered public domain. They want permanent ownership out of everything that has been created from them and want perpetuity until the end of time (and beyond if possible to them). They don't want anything less but for people to continue paying for their IP's and will go out of their way to ensure they can do so with the best means to rig the system in their favor. It does not matter if they decide to not touch something for 20-30 years, if someone else uses it and they cannot profit off of it they will come after your arse sure enough.

The preservationist community at large knows that their efforts come at a cost of being borderline to straight up being piracy. It sucks, it really fucking does, but again companies do not care for the reason behind it if they are losing out money on something and/or it could be something that can change the image of an IP. 

Also while I know @FAST6191 already posted a knowledge hub video earlier on Disney, this one from him goes and explores the benefits and faults of a significantly shorter copyright period. Its an interesting watch, and the unfortunate truth that ultimately regardless of public domain or not if a company has enough money they can still bend the law in their favor over your arse, simply because you don't have the money to take them to court and fight it. 





FAST6191 said:


> I am surprised people expect another extension/stopping of the clock. There is a year or more to go (and almost another election cycle -- don't know if this is within the power of executive decision) before Steamboat Willie enters public domain "naturally" and I would have expected a ramp up and hearts and minds campaign before now for that one. They could be going for a hard and heavy approach but most figure with the likes of the EFF and creative commons and all other interested and well organised parties (which was not the case for the 90s sonny bono act) running around that chances of another extension are slim to none.
> The closest I have seen to anything thus far is the Trans Pacific Pivot back in 2015 or so tried to angle for life plus 90 (as opposed to life plus 70 and about the same/maybe slightly less for works for hire for corporations).



 If there is enough money and lobbying done, anything is possible. That said however its pretty evident that the heads of Disney have been trying to invest majorly in buying out other properties for a decade and a half now with the intent that even if they do lose Mickey it will still not harm their empire in the slightest since the foundation is now built on shit like Marvel, Star Wars, Fox Media and so on (maybe even EA soon as well). They don't need Mickey anymore to be successful, but they would still probably fight for it because of it being the mascot of the very company itself.


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## sombrerosonic (May 24, 2022)

Imagine how disney would feel about this... pissed very pissed


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## Creamu (Jun 11, 2022)

Hello and thank you for reporting on this subject,

I think that public domain works are awesome. To have a cataloge of old works you can use for creative projects is nice.

What is the best site to get an overview/database of the works in the public domain?

I think that the copyrights laws we have are crippling the cultural discourse.

I am also concerned about  the social engineering of these evil goblins that took over Walt Disneys legacy. What a brutalistic shame...


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## LoggerMan (Jul 11, 2022)

A lot of us will be dead in 56 years time. And those of us who are still alive probably won't care about Marvel movies or whatever we are into at the moment.


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## Creamu (Jul 11, 2022)

LoggerMan said:


> A lot of us will be dead in 56 years time. And those of us who are still alive probably won't care about Marvel movies or whatever we are into at the moment.


I'd find suprising if anyone will care about marvel movies (for personal consumption) in 10 years from now.


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## yuyuyup (Jul 11, 2022)

Using legislation to punish free speech (companies have free speech protection in the USA) is cool but I'd rather the laws change legitimately, the way it SHOULD be done, through legally bribing politicians.  Neither way is optimal, but at least one way isn't putting the boot on the necks of 1st-amendment speech protection (constitution)


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## Subtle Demise (Jul 11, 2022)

This is a step in the right direction. Let's lower video games to 40 years while we're at it.



lokomelo said:


> There is the question of IPs registered abroad, US tax collector (or whatever is called) do not have the books to evaluate them. The cap also can be exploited by using a dummy company:
> 
> 1. Company A may lend 149,999,999,999 or less us dollars to Company B.
> 
> ...


I believe that would fall under structuring (iirc) and is already illegal as well.


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