Via LGM, Brad Plumer
The vast majority of films produced after 1923 have no continuing commercial value. They’re just sitting in vaults gathering dust. There’s obviously no need to extend their copyrights; if no one’s currently making any money off these films, they might as well enter the public domain. But thanks to the CTEA, they can’t. (A more sensible copyright law would have extended copyrights only for those owners who actually wanted to extend them; but that’s not the law Congress passed—all copyrights are affected.)
Now, these days, it’s cheap and easy to restore old films with digital technology—it can cost as little as $100 to digitize an hour of 8 mm film. Many of these films could, in theory, be easily restored, and released, or put in an archive, for people to watch. But thanks to the CTEA, it’s not cheap and easy. Anyone who wanted to restore one of these films would have to track down the owners of the copyright—no small task—and then hire a lawyer, lest they commit a felony. That’s way too much effort and expense just to restore some arcane old movie that only a few people might enjoy. So no one does it.
And the worst part is that by the time the copyright for a lot of these obscure films expires, in 2019 and beyond, the film for these movies—which were produced on nitrate-based stock—will have completely dissolved. They’ll just be canisters filled with dust. An entire generation of movies really will have vanished, never to be watched again. I guess it’s hardly the most important problem on the face of the earth, but culturally, it’s a tragedy, and a rather striking example of the insanity of copyright law.
It’s a bit horrible to contemplate. Of all the cultural artifacts that have been lost to the vicissitudes of history, to lose these because of fucking Mickey Mouse is shameful.
10 Responses to “Canisters Filled With Dust”
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From Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution:
Apparently the United States Congress and Supreme Court do not recognize that perpetual extention renders the “limited times” meaningless. Fuckers.
I know. It’s obscene. An entire birthright lost.
This is the situation for which “copyleft” and “abandonware” developed. We, or more accurately the people with physical access to these films, can break the law or we can live with the stupidity forever. Maybe that shouldn’t have to be the choice, but in reality the law is always slow to catch up. If these are just warehouses, would anyone notice were the security guard to “store” some funky looking digitizing equipment in them so that film can be discretely copied. There are ways around this nonsense, like “checking the film quality,” and the digital information can still be held for 2019.
In one of Robert Stone’s novels, a character tells an audience during a lecture that there is a saying in America: “Mickey Mouse will see you die.”
I think that was supposed to be a joke, but it’s rapidly becoming less funny.
Canisters Filled With Dust at Pandagon…
It’s a bit horrible to contemplate. Of all the cultural artifacts that have been lost to the vicissitudes of history, to lose these because of fucking Mickey Mouse is shameful….
The way to do it? Just fucking do it. It will take that kind of disobedience to a bullshit law to keep our history from being destroyed. I’d like to see an anti-establishment billionaire — Mark Cuban? — take it on.
Apparently the United States Congress and Supreme Court do not recognize that perpetual extention renders the “limited times� meaningless.
The Eldred case rested on a slender distinction: at what point does continued extension become de facto perpetual copyright. At some point, it will become about perpetual copyright, and that will be defeated. At some point, Mickey Mouse (or rather, the early films) will become public domain, just as the stories Disney used for its films did so. And if it doesn’t happen soon in the US, there will be countries that create a market for themselves as oases of public domain.
So, who wants to bet that the Canadians will fall to pressure to “harmonize” their copyright terms with the EU (life+70) or Australia (life+70), because if they stay with life+50, Winnie the Pooh will enter the Public domain on January 1, 2007?
Funny thing was, when it was convenient for them, Disney argued that Pooh was in the public domain.
I wish we had Public Domain Day here. The Canadians are so lucky. Next PD Day, the works of H. L. Mencken, A. A. Milne, Bertholt Brecht, Jackson Pollock and Alfred Kinsey will all fall into the public domain in Canada. And the following year, John von Neumann, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Jean Sibelius. It’s like a second Christmas for the Canadian people. Just another reason to migrate north…
Wasn’t it Sonny Bono’s wife who suggested that they extend copyright to forever minus a day, so that it would still be ‘limited’? Or is that one of those legends? So hard to tell with these things.
Oneiros Dreaming:
It is, alas, no legend. A Google search will pick up the quote, which in its entirety reads:
It was, indeed, Sonny Bono’s third wife who said that, as she succeeded him in Congress, and with her above words, setting the gold standard for Missing The Point.
what I wouldn’t give for my personal hegemonic supreme court.
good for feminism and all, but I’ve long said one of my projects would be dropping hints that I would overturn any of the Disney driven changes to copyright law as unconstitutional, and just wait for an appeal.
do they seriously make ANY money off Mickey Mouse? are they producing new cartoons so feverously that anyone making bootleg MM cartoons would dilute the brand?
hell, people make parodies aplenty as it is. that hasn’t hurt them.