On 6/20/00 4:08 PM, Doug Meerschaert ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote
>So Snow White, Pinnochio, and Alice in Wonderland were all written in 1938?
The Disney versions were based on prior works, that were in the public
domain. If Copyright law at the time Disney did their early movies was
like it is now, those works may well have still be under copyright
protection, and the Disney works may well never have existed -- virtually
all Disney animated films are versions of works in the public domain.
>WOW, this has gotten off topic... say, how many more years until OD&D is
>public domain?
Since Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson are still alive, at least 70 years (the
copyright office still says 70 years, not 75 or 90) after both of them
are dead. That gives you some idea of just how eternal copyright is :)
>Say some poor author writes a BRILLIANT play... but since he's not a lawyer,
>it's stolen from him and we are deprived of more of this genius's work.
That can happen just as easily now as it could have then -- the original
term of protection was 28 years *from date of publication or registration
*, more than enough time to benefit from it yourself. The death+70 term
provides no protection from having a company take your copyright from
you, as is standard for game publishing :)
>You'd sidestepping the point. I bet there were blacks in the civil rights
>movement who just wanted to smash things--does this mean that we shouldn't
>have passed the Civil Rights laws?
What exactly does that have to do with excessive terms of copyright that
exist only to benefit corporations founded on the wealth generated by a
dead person's work?
>(And *YES*, I consider Copyright on par with Civil Rights!)
Why?
--
Russ Taylor (http://www.cmc.net/~rtaylor/)
CMC Tech Support Manager
"Wait! We can't stop here! This is BAT COUNTRY!" -- Raoul Duke
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