Taking Back Harry Potter

With JK Rowling's new film, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore and the coming of Hogwarts Legacy, its time to take a look at the Harry Potter franchise and ask the question: should she even own this at all?
Video by Ada Černoša and Verity Ritchie
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Fanfiction

[@notbenh]

! never forget Christopher Bbombacie !

[@ladygrey4113]

@@tinnagigja3723 I have a feeling I don’t want to know

[@SingPandaProductions]

Tried google got nothing

[@beautania]

@@SingPandaProductions Christopher Bombacie is mentioned in this video! He's a 5-year-old who attended the daycare center ordered by Disney to remove their Mickey Mouse & Friends wall mural due to 'breach of copyright'. At 8:34 Verity cites an article that quoted Christopher as saying "If they took them off the wall, I'd be sad", then kindly includes an artists rendition of sad Christopher so that we as the audience can really grasp the deep sorrow felt within his little heart. #neverforgetbombacie

[@melvinmcdelvin641]

This is one of the most entertaining KZbin videos I ever saw. This person is a very great teacher. I saw one other video of hers, I think also on Harry Potter, and it was also very very smart. Thank-you so much.

[@tatarataratata5878]

i just adore how fanfiction writers take a "fine, i'll do it myself" approach to whatever they like and often obliterate canon like it's a wet paper towel😂😂

[@Hadeshy]

Litteraly me everytime I start a warrior cat fanfiction. "HUH! Seriously?! There was so much potential in this arc and still... F*ck I'm gonna start a new fanfiction do to it myself. AGAIN"

[@professormoriarty7540]

"Reality can be whatver I want" *writes gay smut

[@rociohernandez3077]

Not to discredit fanfic writers seeing how I also write fanfic, but it's far easier to notice the flaws in someone else's already completed work and fix it than it is to create a new world/cast/saga from the begining. Obviously it still takes a lot of work to write fanfiction and plenty of authors end up creating massive stories with deep lore and compelling characters but seeing the full picture helps a lot in realizing what needs improvement and how, especially when you have a whole community to have long and deep conversations about it. I guess that's also why I'm so frustrated that all fanfics I've seen become books with movie adaptations are those with generic plots and unlikable "relatable" characters when there's so much variety and charm out there.

[@Hadeshy]

@@rociohernandez3077 I mean, nobody said otherwise. I write fanfiction to relax myself from writing my book. I know the difference xD

[@finpin2622]

I literally saw someone write a fanfic called something along the lines of "The REAL Season Three" after a polarizing season came out and literally rewrote it from scratch, in script format.

[@merri-toddwebster2473]

People laugh at me when I tell them that my father told me Disney was evil when I was a child, and that he was right, but their practice of developing of copyrighted properties from traditional, public-domain sources and lobbying for extended copyright is exactly what he was talking about. And my dad was born in 1924, so he was around for a large chunk of Disney history. Further, if the same IP laws had surrounded music that have surrounded writing, at least 50% of Western art music would never have been written. Every "variations on a theme" that borrowed its melody from an existing work would have been impossible. Brahms could never have published variations on a theme by Haydn, nor Vaughan Williams given us his Tallis fantasia. Notions of intellectual property founded on capitalism and the myth of the tortured artistic genius, creating in splendid isolation, have choked creativity.

[@misskate8828]

Literally, Hip-Hop could never have existed if the same laws applied to music.

[@tomsenior7405]

I believe you. I'm on your side. Walt Disney was an unpleasant character. For starters he was a blatant anti-Semite. Anti-Unionist. Pro-Red Scare. Our local Hospice won out against a Disney Corporation Copyright Claim. The Peter Pan Characters are not under the sole remit of Disney, they are in the Public Domain. To sue a Hospice in such a way is vulgar. The actual Murals of Peter Pan et al had barely any similarity to Disney's material. Disney Corporation is even worse than Walt himself. Your Father sounds like a decent, honest fellow. You must be rightly proud of him. I know I am.

[@MissMoontree]

The movie Snow White from them is also older than my grandmother, yet the company is making money by suing people that use that image. Utterly ridiculous. Their version of Rapunzel is almost a ripp off from the Barbie version too; -They did not need to pick a pink and purple dress -They both don't banish Rapunzel -They both don't blind the prince -They both made Rapunzel a princess by birth, rather than marriage -She's a missing princess that got stolen and is later reunited with her parents -They erased the reason for her name -For some reason they both love painting a lot As much as it is a nice movie, you should not sue people if most of your deviation from an ancient fairytale comes from a different movie of the same era.

[@gggthsb]

@@MissMoontree Well Disney doesn't own the copyright to the stories (not that they didn't try...) since they hardly ever made something original and used old fairy tales and legends that had been around in some form or another for hundreds of years. They do own the copyright to their original characer designs though, so unfortunately them suing someone for using those designs is legal, even though it shouldn't be. You are completely right about the similarities of their movies and other movies out there, but either the copyright law deemed them as 'not similar enough' or the companies owning the other movies didn't wanna risk suing Disney, knowing they stand literally no chance. The other part to this, even if they steal designs (ad they did that a lot, latest example I know of it a Tiki figurine that was made by someone else and Disney sells it as official merch without even mentioning the artist) they are so big, that even if you are right, you won't be able to win against them because they will just dryout your bank account. Wasn't even Mickey Mouse a stolen design as well? Mans couldn't even come up with his precious mouse himself....

[@sammienope9272]

@@tomsenior7405 I got chills when I saw that it was Peter Pan that you won against Disney with. There is something so childishly beautiful about a group of people standing up to a BIG corporation with Peter Pan as it's frame of reference and inciting incident. Absolutely love that.

[@voidify3]

“Hermione becomes the minister for magic and still doesn’t free the house elves” Holy shit how did I miss the fact that this is a plot hole until you pointed it out??? Rowling remember the motivations of her own characters impossible challenge. (And they cast her as black in the play too, which adds a whole other dimension to the bizarreness)

[@croissant2882]

Its not a plot hole because the book clearly states that the elves absolutely LOVE being slaves, Dobbie was just weird, without slavery they could become alcoholics! and Hermione had to learn that activism is good only if she "listens" to them and they clearly said that slavery is A Okay Not to mention its wizards culture! Like when Weasleys happily decorated decapitated heads of house elves that were on the wall of sirius's home with christmas hats! See Hermione didn't had to change anything, everything is good :)))))))))) /jjjjjjjj this is a joke, fuck Rowling and her racist ass

[@voidify3]

@@croissant2882 careful you almost needed a /j there to distinguish from the shit that Rowling apologists actually tweet. I see you also watched the Shaun video tho, good video that one was

[@sirbalmond]

@@croissant2882 had to read this three times before i understood you weren´t being serious :´)

[@croissant2882]

@@sirbalmond yeah, terrifying times we live in. Imma just add that /j XD

[@voidify3]

@@croissant2882 oh your comment has disappeared

[@johanna7254]

I had no clue about how involved Disney has been in changing copyright laws. Wow. Great video as always!

[@kasia2750]

It outrageous for me, since this company made a bank using public domain characters and stories, especially if we talking about Disney's Princesses (which are mostly really Grimm brothers's and Andersen's princesses). This is really great example how capitalism work - companies don't have any problem to use public resources, but to put something back? How could you dare ask them to do so?

[@SteveJubs]

+

[@Sam_on_YouTube]

In law school, we learned that the duration of a copyright is however long its been since Steamboat Willy came out.

[@someone-go8ee]

Adam Ruins Everything has a good video on it. Id reccommend watching it if u wanna a bit more info on it

[@lollove9974]

I agree with this message

[@aross5035]

my hometown used to have a harry potter weekend every year, but this old woman who ran it was getting so much shit from warner brothers she had to slowly make it less and less harry potter related and eventually stopped it (maybe for good)

[@christineherrmann205]

Ithaca, NY had one too. It was wonderful. Thanks, WB.

[@Mel-mu1hk]

@@christineherrmann205 omg not an ithaca mention! I used to live there and the Harry Potter weekend was always so fun 😭

[@TheKarret]

@@catherinerobilliard7662 True, but she also should be paying attention to what the corporations are doing in her name - she's just as responsible for that mess as WB.

[@hyperfujis]

staunton va? i was in staunton for the "harry potter weekend" (dont remember what the real name is) and it was really cool seeing all those fans come together and the town basically turned into real life hogsmeade. but, it was also super crowded and hot outside, and it was impossible to navigate the town that weekend lol

[@aross5035]

@@hyperfujis no

[@miacorvere2594]

As a writer I always felt like the most important part of copyright is to protect my work from being taken by a multi million dollar corporation to make them money while I don't see a cent. Like, fans should just be allowed to make whatever content they like, but if my publisher wants to keep printing my books after 15 years, they better pay me. So I feel like writers should have the right to say no to for profit use of their work for as long as they live. But I really agree with the rest of your video

[@miacorvere2594]

@@LadyVandMrT No, really, people should absolutely be able to make gross porn takes of whatever they want in their free time

[@c.w.8200]

@@miacorvere2594 Whatever that original take you're answering to was, I completely agree, I vividly remember the insane amount of Harry and Draco ship fanfiction and there's something so compelling about it, I think it's really something the millennials needed, a boy wizard couple falling madly in love and figuring out their sexuality and we created it ourselves because we had to I guess 😁

[@GrapeCheckerBoard]

At least it’s not Hermione and Snape fanfiction 😖. I’ll never understand how that was popular.

[@crapshoot]

Webcomic creator here; I honestly can't see how a huge corporation would be able to make money off of a non-copyrighted work, because anyone else can just undercut them. It's not like the publisher now owns your books now that you don't; anyone else can print them too. But maybe that's just my inexperienced with the printed medium speaking (whereas digital goods I can say for certain others won't be able to profit off of any more than you can)

[@miacorvere2594]

@@crapshoot Yeah sure, anyone else can print them too. That's the situation with, for example, Shakespear's works. But big publishers print fancy editions of Shakespear's works and make money with that. It doesn't matter that you can also read all of Shakepear's works on Project Gutenberg, people will still buy the fancy editions. Now, imagine Shakespear being still alive. He'd have to watch big publishers making money with fancy editions of his work while he gets zero money for all of it. That sucks. Imagine someone would take your webcomic and print it and sell it and you get nothing. Maybe someone else would get rich with your comic, because they have more money they can invest into adds and stuff. They wouldn't even be obligated to link to your website. People maybe wouldn't even know that the printed comic book they own and love was originally a webcomic and that all the anniversary editions and limited edition harcovers they buy of it would make you no money. All of those situations are prevent by copyright

[@stormystohelit6256]

My bias going into this comment: I'm an author, but like, with a micro fandom. My problem with short-term copyright (say, 2/5 years) is that I think it would become predatory in a different way. Like, corporations would look out for any mildly popular thing, sit until the copyright expires, and then do any adaptation they were considering - and never have to pay a cent in licensing fees. I also think the current system we have is utterly broken and needs reform, but I don't know what the best answer is. For my part, I plan on dumping all my content into the public domain/CC0 licence/etc before I die or as part of my will.

[@masha8770]

Maybe laws should differentiate more between people and corporations. As in corporation's copyright should be judged differently from a single person's (this is in regard to the bs disney pulls). Granted that doesn't solve the fact that Rowling owns the copyright as a singular person, so even something like 25-30 year copyright seems reasonable enough in my opinion. As mentioned, the first HP book would be (nearly) public domain with a length like that. Or something like after a "hard" copyright phase of 20-25 years it enters into a facsimile of the creative commons (*some* rights reserved) so the public has access but some things still require the author's license perhaps.

[@onbearfeet]

As an aspiring author aspiring to micro fandom, I tend to agree. I'm building my fictional universe to be as modular as possible so other writers (especially the marginalized ones I most want to help out) can create their own works in it and build their own followings. I plan to hang on to my own copyrights as long as I need them to support myself or any minor children (for medical reasons, I'm concerned I might die before they grow up), but if I randomly hit it big (or failing that, when I die at a more reasonable age), it'll be into the public domain for all of it sooner than later. I'm also planning a pretty permissive set of policies on fanworks, mostly boiling down to "label it as fan work, don't compete directly with the precise stuff I'm doing, and don't use my work to hurt or exploit people," and then only go after people bootlegging my actual books or forming a hate group named after my villains or whatever. I don't think a term of 2 to 5 years is fair, considering how many "overnight" successes take decades, but I'll listen to arguments for 25 to 30.

[@nittygritty7034]

I hear this. Less than 50-100years. But more than 2-5

[@DavidvanDeijk]

If they take something wildly popular and print 5 years after, your next book is gonna do even better. Maybe that same publisher will even pay you to write it for them. Most people want their money going to the artist, and you know that even big authors, most of the money of sales doesnt go to them. Most people also want the new book or movie and not the one that was popular 5 years ago. And after 5 years you are still or again able to sell your book yourself, even when you sold it to a publisher.

[@LunaWitcher]

The channel Uniquenameosaurus made a video called "Creators SHOULDN'T Own Their Creations" and I think it would be good research for you if you want to explore what a system reform could be like.

[@danielmalinen6337]

Due to the case that Disney now owns Marvel and they are strictly protecting it, there has been a debate in the Nordic countries about who owns the Norse gods. Nordic people in particular have been of the opinion that Disney owns only Marvel’s versions of the gods and not the entire Norse mythology while Disney has held that their copyright and trademarks also applies to character names such as Loki and Thor (Disney tredemarked their names) and now they tries to prevent the neopagans from using those deities. Therefore it’s hard to believe this conversation will end soon because Disney doesn’t want to give up and they also statement that Norse mythology is a "dead and vanished religion" (regardless of Ásatrú, Vanatrú, Heathenry and many other germanic neopagan groups that keep it alive). So the fight must go on so that this doesn't become a world of endless sues. But if Disney succeeds and wins, then they will become a much worse and more vicious destroyer of folk religions than what Christianity has been.

[@ILiekFishes]

I don't think Disney is going to violently crusade to jerusalem, but sure, maybe they'll place top 5.

[@tj-co9go]

It is absurd if Disney can trademark pantheons of Gods. You shouldn't be able to copyright Thor anymore than Venus, Jahwe or Allah. It is totally different with fictional characters without an origin in mythology and tradition, of course.

[@KyrieFortune]

I hope Disney goes against ICELAND, the country where worship of the Norse gods is the faster growing religion. Would love to try and claim "it's a dead religion" to the face of a country where said religion is more alive than ever

[@Autistic_Sandw1ch.official]

I fucking hate Disney this is ridiculous

[@c.d.dailey8013]

Oh no! I am a Pagan. I just did my initiation ceremony last week. That makes me die a little inside. That plus the Day of Dead incident is definitely a case of copyright taken too far. It isn't fair. It is obvious when a Disney movie adapts a story from another source. This video showed a lot of examples in rapidfire. It is obvious that the the original story should remain in public domain while only the Disney version gets copyright. Characters like Thor and Loki are way different in the Marvel version than in the original version. The main reason is that deities and superheros are two entirely different things. They are apples and oranges. Oh no! Disney better not touch the original Greek pantheon, just because it made a movie about Hercules. Don't touch that with a ten foot pole. The Hercules movie is a bit more accurate. Hercules still seems like an actual demigod instead of a superhero. He also remains in ancient Greece the entire time. There is no going to modern America or modern Europe. Still the Hercules movie is really inaccurate compared to the source material. This goes way beyond the usual Disney tendency to sugarcoat old stories. It seems more like some strange fanfiction of Hercules as opposed to an actual adaptation of Hercules. I knew that some Neopagans revive Norse traditions. These are people like the heathens and Asatru. I don't know if any Neopagans work with Greek traditions or Roman traditions. Given how these are so influential to western culture, there may be people like that. They don't deserve to be victims of excessive and draconian copyright. Maybe I can use this as a comparison. There are plenty of movies and shows that adapt Bible stories. I personally enjoy the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. That doesn't mean the Bible should get copyrighted too. If that did happen, Christians would be outraged. They might be able to protest enough to make that copyright stop.

[@maxx6622]

I remember when I was young my dad had a conspiracy that jk Rowling made a deal with the devil to write the books and she can't write anything good again. 🤣 He would say "just watch she's just going to try to keep adding details to keep people interested"

[@bailujen8052]

Selling soul to the devil is unbiblical because your soul isn’t really yours and you can’t sell something you don’t own

[@BigHenFor]

@@bailujen8052 The Devil isn't even biblical. The Bible we have is largely the result of the translators from the Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic sources often getting it wrong, or restating the original text to reflect their biases and belief. One famous example is Satan. There is no Satan in the Hebrew. The correct name is the Shahitan, who was God's Inquisitor, or D.A., who role was to test the faithful. But the Gentile translators decided differently. So... There's a lot that is unbiblical that's in the Bible. But, the commenter's Dad was making an insightful joke, but instead of the Devil, Rowling's just sold herself to a few faceless media corporations, which are probably as close to the Antichrist we might get. Lol.

[@stekra3159]

​@@BigHenForReber when we copied Lucifers name of the morning star

[@rooty]

I can't believe there was a time I genuinely believed she'd let sleeping dogs lie after the seventh book and go on to write a whole new series from scratch lol. I would have killed to read JK's take on a sci fi series. She can shove it up her arse now.

[@szymonlechdzieciol]

@@BigHenFor there is quite clearly Devil in the New Testament.

[@hannahlarge5738]

i love that you referenced Dr Who at the start of this, the copyrights on that show are particularly interesting to me. My grandparents and parents paid their TV licences to have that show made, i got my first TV in my own home after three years without one (and the monthy debit that goes with it) to watch Eccleston's DrWho , and yet all that history is now hidden behind a paywall. There are so many old BBC shows that are so much a part of british culture, that were paid for with the license fee, and yet they are unavailable to license payers.

[@sacrificiallamb4568]

To be fair, the BBC can't even use all the characters in Doctor Who without paying somebody. However, to be unfair, you are wrong and the licence fee is good and paying for access to old BBC things along with it supports the BBC more, which is good due to The Very Bad Thing. On the other hand, I don't pay for Britbox too. (I apologise, the too was assumed.)

[@hannahlarge5738]

@@sacrificiallamb4568 i'm a bi woman who married a bi man, i'm used to people making assumptions about me ;P

[@sacrificiallamb4568]

Well, that sounds horrible and I am now being compulsed to reply with sorry. In other news, Legend of The Sea Devils now has a trailer.

[@VicvicW]

@@sacrificiallamb4568 The everlasting problems with Terry Nation's Estate, eh? It's bitten them in the arse one or two times. My favourite was the serial the Dominators. They were looking for a new robot thing to replace the Daleks, and so Haisman and Lincoln designed the Quarks. There was a massive stuff up over who had the rights. Haisman and Lincoln believed they did, and so had started to manufacture toys and such. The BBC got mad because they thought they did. Turns out, Haisman and Lincoln did have the rights, and decided they would never work for the Beeb again.

[@VicvicW]

The Beeb is trying to transition away from the license fee funding, because the government is trying to take away the funding, this is why Britbox has been founded. I will say, it is a very convenient service.

[@ciarancooper394]

This was so clean and well-executed. And gave a lot of context to a subject not a lot of people understand. As a fan creator myself, thanks for understanding and valuing our contributions

[@katetw]

Sherlock Holmes is an interesting case study as it came out of copyright in 2000…. Also there’s no copyright in the fashion industry which people say makes it more innovative. Lots of food for thought.

[@crazydragy4233]

I think there's still trademark which too manages to get funky...

[@Roswordsman]

certain stories are still not public domain-- see the Doyle foundation trying to sue the Enola Holmes filmmakers because Sherlock Holmes was "too nice" in it and apparently Holmes is only nice in the stories that were still not public domain at the time.

[@MissMoontree]

Tbh, fashion designers should be better protected. There is so much young talent that sees their creation getting stolen by superfast fashion like SHEIN.

[@chestersnap]

Huh. That explains why there was suddenly an explosion of Sherlock Holmes adaptations

[@gisela_oliveira]

@@MissMoontree there isa thing such fashion law, regarding crative property. Is defenetly a groing field now, since we have more and more small independant designers an fast fashion (also high fashoion) brands trying to steel from them.

[@YonatanZunger]

So the catch you didn't mention is the copyright ratchet - ie the Berne Convention. It essentially locks all the signatory countries into adopting the maximum copyright duration of any of them, and it was a key part of Disney's infinite Mickey strategy. Any change won't just require an end to new copyright laws in the US; it would require the US (and other countries) to actively withdraw from that treaty. Which, I should say, would be an excellent idea.

[@theothertonydutch]

Many artists go through a disney phase, where at some point they will pervert disney characters or that style in a somewhat ironic way.Junkyard LA basically makes a living doing that. Me and a bunch of classmates have done it too. Even the Dolan comics are kind of that.

[@SuperSmashDolls]

The ratchet is an excuse, not a rule. There are precisely four countries that rely on it: the US, France, Germany (the reason why life+70 happened), and Japan. They were the dealmaker countries. If you can get simultaneous anticopyright movements going in all of them (we came close with the Pirate Party in the 2000s), every other country would look the other way if we rolled back, say, DMCA 1201. Even if the bare text of Berne and WTO were violated, that would at best mean some horse trades. No country in the third-world is going to say "actually, I'd rather stay with the neocolonialist copyright laws that inherently disadvantage my people because you wouldn't give me concessions on sorghum tariffs".

[@heatherlawver9899]

I was watching this to learn more about the state of copyright opinion in Harry Potter fandom today while crocheting a project. Suddenly a mailbox pops up and I think, "Why does that mailbox look so familliar? ...OH! That's my mailbox! HEY WAIT! That's ME!!" Hahaha. Thanks for a good giggle, that was hilarious. And thanks for continuing this very, very important discussion. Everything you're talking about is everything Alastair and I hoped to build after PotterWar. But sadly my health went downhill, we sadly lost Alastair, and our big plans never happened. Larry Lessig kept things going with Creative Commons, which is awesome, but it still hasn't come as far as we wanted. You're absolutely right. If any fandom is powerful enough to win this fight, it's Harry Potter fans. We've won before, we can do it again. Whether it's trans rights, copyright, or anything else. :) Thanks so much!

[@gogoatomicrobot559]

My only concern about a copyright shorter than the life span of the creator is that smaller creators will often make most of their income off their backlist, and by reducing it creators will lose a source of income in later life. The majority of authors are making less than average wage from their books as it is, I wouldn't want to deprive them of it.

[@dashelyc]

Yes but now Micky moose finally enters the public domain in 2024 it is too long.

[@jaguarette1]

if the copyright was soi extremely short big corporation would just wait to make the film and not pay anything to the author.

[@Myla-zl4jv]

Wouldn't the author still make the same amount of money throughout their life though? I could be mistaken, but i thought copyright laws didn't have anything to do with allowing the owner to make money from an IP, so much as forbid anyone but the copyright owner from making money from it

[@zcustard]

Disney cashed in on poo bear copyright ending and then immediately lobbied for longer copyrights to protect their own work. I think an author should be paid for their work for at least their lifetime. Or the average lifetime of a to prevent corporate material would go on forever.

[@sparkls4492]

​@Myla-zl4jv Sorta. But if copyright was super short. A company wouldn't have to pay an author for making merchandise or adaptations, cause they'd just have to wait a few years for the copyright to go away. It would give authors far less opportunities to branch out.

[@DavidMacDowellBlue]

I am a writer and my works are under copyright. I get a tiny trickle of income from them, and given my financial situation that trickle is important. Kindly remember the vast majority of writers and artists are not raking in the kind of profits J.K.Rowling and Walt Disney do. I think my lifetime is frankly fair. Ending it with my lifetime or just a few years after seems like a good idea.

[@hotjanuary]

When I picture these laws, I put the common person who wasn’t as lucky as Stephen King or JKR into the artist’s role. I think 30-ish years after death is fair. Imagine yourself dying in your 50s and leaving a widow. Your art hasn’t made much income. For whatever circumstances, your widow wasn’t making enough to support basic expenses on their sole salary, let alone be able to retire (and health costs go up with old age). This money would go to help support your widow, and children if you had any. Maybe the money could help your children’s student debt. I picture these kind of scenarios. The value of the work isn’t always apparent during the artist’s lifetime, and the artist’s family deserve to be supported. Unlike other professions, like doctors, lawyers, engineers, programmers, the value of art can’t be estimated. You can’t know how many people would have found value in your art. Everyone who has ever had to support a family can understand why these protections after death are important. The difference between the wealthy and the poor is that the poor incur debt when trying to carve the path of success (cheap things break faster and require constant replacing, student debt, etc…) It would be really pitiful if the artist’s work gained success after death and the family remained poor.

[@crazydragy4233]

I wonder what you'd think of Uniquenameosaurus' work, especially campaigning and reasoning for no copyright. It's really interesting IMO.

[@pramada9431]

Maybe copyright law could be made based on amount of income made and time since release? Maybe the time span is extended for people who haven't been able to make a large amount of money. But if someone is able to make a certain amount of money under a certain amount of time they aren't able to extend it as much anymore. They can still create the same thing and make money obviously but they just loose copyright

[@Bandajify]

@@pramada9431 Interesting idea but seems like a minefield for income and tax fraud

[@pramada9431]

@@Bandajify I mean I came up with it on the spot. I didn't really think of all the possibilities. It's just an idea. It could be made better

[@LyraLyraPantsOnFyra]

The thing that I learned from the cursed child in retrospect is that Cedric Diggory much like JK Rowling was a nice friendly person that people would have remembered fondly who turns into a fascist when mildly inconvenienced. Now in retrospect however Cedric's efforts to help people (much like JK Rowling 's) were less useful that other people's efforts (just take a bath with your egg trans folks, mull it over in the hot water). Actually fuck that, at least Cedric let Harry into the fucking bathroom.

[@jasonbolding3481]

A coed bathroom at that . And where a cis girl routinely spies on naked boys

[@hinasakukimi]

they did cedric so dirty tbh lmao

[@cherusiderea1330]

"at least Cedric let Harry into the fucking bathroom" I'm dead XD

[@zanite8650]

The more I learn about The Cursed Child, the more I'm glad my involvement with HP ended with The Death Hallows films.

[@arahman56]

@@hinasakukimi No wonder he fucked off and became The Batman.

[@vlad5042]

havent finished the vid yet but ive seen so much harry potter content recently bc of the Discourse, and ive never been a huge harry potter fan but as a kid i did read all the books and watch all the movies, and i can't help but notice how much of the stuff people love about it is pretty much completely divorced from the canon. i remember taking the pottermore house quiz as a kid and getting slytherin and wondering why i was in the magical racism club, apparently slytherins are supposed to be like, cunning and ambitious? when like i dont think u could plausibly use those descriptors for any of the slytherin characters in the actual book, sure the book tells you a couple times that that's what slytherin is about but as far as actually showing, every slytherin in the canon that i can remember is mostly dumb or cowardly or snobbish or incompetent or a petty bully, most likely all of the above, linked together by their shared love of fantasy racism. i definitely did not feel like self identifying as a slytherin reading those books.

[@prxssia]

Quinn Curio (I believe the name is?) has a pretty good video about Slytherin which basically says the same kind of thing and explores what the House looks like if you’d be interested

[@T0xXx1k]

Slytherin is is where every evil wizard ever came from. Or like every 1 that ever went to Hogwarts at least was in Slytherin house. I have so much house Slytherin stuff it's absurd. I always like the bad guys. I had a 300zx (it 1 of the og trsbsformers an auto bot) I made mine a decepticon cuz it felt more fun. So That's why cuz ppl like me like the villians better. Even when I was little I like maleficent more than sleeping beauty. But even Disney saw the $ in that Lindsey Ellis had a video on Disney villians and such very interesting & very much what in talking about. 🧡🦇

[@Melissa-zh3zl]

I think it’s another canon vs fanon thing. Canon Slytherin is where all the magical racists hang out and be racist. Fanon Slytherin is about being ambitious, cunning, and unconventional. People proudly proclaiming themselves Slytherin aren’t associating with the actual Harry Potter IP at all, but with fan works and expansions, even though WB and JKR are the ones profiting off of those fanon Slytherins buying house ties and scarves and other merch

[@CHLOCHLOLP]

@@Melissa-zh3zl i know a few people who rep slytherin and have never read a piece of fan fiction.

[@GeneralBolas]

@@Melissa-zh3zl This isn't a matter of fanon vs. canon. Rowling did a show vs. tell thing with the Slytherins. The books *talk* a lot about Slytherins being "ambitious" and "cunning". But we never really see that. The closest we get to that is Slughorn, and he wasn't even all *that* ambitious. What we *see* of Slytherins that they're cowardly and/or racist. Those are the defining traits of the Slytherins we see. Snape doesn't turn against the Death Eaters because he stopped being racist; he did it because he was hoping to protect one specific Muggle. Slughorn, presented as the least bad of the Slytherins, was willing to make House Elves drink from his alcohol just in case it was *poisoned.* No Slytherins are presented as particularly smart or capable. The closest we get to actual intelligence from a Slytherin is that Draco managed to realize Harry was spying on him in the Half-Blood Prince. Even Voldemort is too hung up on his own neuroses (like having to make his Horcruxes out of important objects) to be considered "cunning". Again, the closest we get to him is when Nagini was disguised as Bagshot and nearly captured Harry. It seems clear from the literal words on the page that Rowling kind of meant for Slytherin to have some redeeming qualities. The fans are just trying to undo Rowling's inability to implement "show, don't tell" properly.

[@konstantin8417]

This was above and beyond just another Harry Potter essay. Your points about the law of intellectual property are relevant, interesting and concise. Your delivery was engaging and easy to follow, yet challenging. This might be your best work yet.

[@ProfMcGonaGil]

I second all the things!

[@DarkChibiShadowYT]

As an indie game dev, the idea that my copyright could run out after even just *5* years is horrifying because it's been shown time and time again that indie stuff /sometimes takes a second/ to catch on with folks. Like, certain games and smaller projects sometimes only need one good translation or some other thing to finally, really, take off-- and knowing, oh boy, I could just miss my window by chance to make anything back from that is like... SO ROUGH. I want my copyright to at least last until I'm dead, thanks, LOL once I'm fridged u can do whatever u like cuz bucko ill be dead i wont have a say

[@milodoesntknow2090]

personally i think you cant just make it so all creators of all types and sizes have the same copyright. so many arts are so different itd be stupid to put them all in one box, and theres a big difference between an indie creator a big company. there needs to be categories imo - idk how wed sort those categories though

[@AlixL96]

@@milodoesntknow2090 I think part of the solution would be to separate the copyrights to an original work from the rights to derivative works. We could allow creators to continue to hold the exclusive rights to make and sell whatever work of art they make, while also saying that after a decade or so, anyone is free to publish a self-proclaimed sequel, remake, or adaptation.

[@chickadeestevenson5440]

I actually snorted at the idea that "copyright good because it makes more creativity"... hell fucking nope. The Lovecraft Mythos being essentially actual modern myth is proof that Creative Commons is the best way to go. He freely shared his work and encouraged others to use it and build on it. And by that Lovecraft's work, and the work of everyone he worked with became myth. Myth we still add to. Long copyrights kill creativity.

[@roising.3221]

I think it must have some truth, no? Like if you can profit from your work you will have an incentive to make on it, and more time to create more work instead of having another job. It's just about finding a balance.

[@chickadeestevenson5440]

@@roising.3221 Just have a liveable UBI, then people can stop working on soul-crushing jobs and create full time

[@dodixaverius9176]

I think they thought it would incentives individuals to create more works. In truth, just look at Rowling for example. How much more books does she create after HP that is still related to the universe?

[@sffb8295]

That's why it felt so engaging and free when you make a story based around his Mythos. Writers could do whatever they wanted with it and it was heavily encouraged to take your own spin of his creatures and cosmology. Like for example: I didn't want Nyarlathotep to be the embodiment of "evil" that he is portrayed as in the stories? I can just whip up a different perspective that makes him less black and white and more rooted with nuance. Don't like the fact that the Innsmouthers are allegory to racial mixing? Easy; instead just make Innsmouth a community in which otherness is accepted and the scary fish people are actually just tired of outsiders judging them through a racist evangelical and colonialist lens because it's the only perspective they've ever known. (This also makes me wish there were more inclusive and diverse Lovecraft video games out there that isn't about a grisly war vet private eye investigator. His Mythos is ripe for queer and POC narratives, especially when exploring postcolonial theory and dismantling Lovecraft's bleeding racism in his original works. But that's the beauty of why it's a good idea to write Mythos stories; Lovecraft's works are just one way of seeing things, but we can make more, and ones that are completely divorced from his bigotry while maintaining what makes his stories profound and thought provoking)

[@ivanlagayacrus1891]

@@roising.3221 you are allowed to make profit and still allow your work to be used by anyone, especially in the day and age of plausible self publishing

[@mischieffoal8689]

I'm three mintues in and I'm already so happy to be watching this. Also the line "rooms that are bigger on the inside is basically a British tradition at this point" killed me so thank you

[@tokyoseri]

I am (despite being an artist and depending on my art as income source) against current copyright law. There is no good reason to allow author to limit and dictate further creative use of their work - even if we take into account their financial rights. Make it obligatory to pay royalties if used and let ppl create, share and profit ffs. There was however (IDK why I remember those useless knowledge snippets bit here goes) kinda/maybe good reason for extending protection after author’s death. Problem was - art got way more valuable after author died and there would be no more “new” paintings or poems. Very often - any fame came after their death. Their families had no way to profit - even if artist’s work became popular. So the law was created to let help them. Often left in debt, with no income source after failed career of (usually) husband and father. However good intentions back then don’t apply now. Copyright is a mess - outlawing people’s creativity if it dares to take inspiration from creation less than min 100 years old is … just ridiculous.

[@theothertonydutch]

I basically have chronic fatigue so I can't produce enough work to support myself, so I decided that any art I make will be distributed freely or in a trade with something material that isn't money.

[@Pale_Empress]

Also, those who got enough money and exploit other ppl's art to enrich themselves even more, don't need to care about copyright laws anyway 😐 (imo 👀 not stating that my statement is factually right. Just that it feels that way)

[@tokyoseri]

@@Pale_Empress you do have a point. What power do I have if multimillion company from distant part of the world steals my work? Do I sue them? With what money? Current copyright protects mostly the crazy wealthy not the small-time artists. I do care and worry about small artists being exploited without any law protecting them but at the same time - it’s not working like that right now.

[@rebeccan7276]

@@tokyoseri the inability to defend myself against people stealing my work and profiting is a factor in why I don't share most of my work anymore. when cartoon studio can rip off a fan character with no consequence, record labels and fashion brands can steal designs right and left... what is copyright law even protecting? it seems to be soley the purview of moneyed interests, not artists or working creators. I know I don't have the time, money, energy or means to go up against WB or Disney or even Travis Scott if he wants to slap my art on his next album.

[@lelonfurr1200]

having written software for profit i couldn't disagree more it is MY CREATION and i deserve to say how it can be used and by who

[@magpie_monster]

"telling people to ignore the new trailer and throw out the old books is like telling people to ignore superman" finally someone put it into words. I'm not an active HP fan anymore, but they were foundational to my childhood. I can't just cut that out of me! edit: there's capital D discussions happening in the comments now so I wanna clarify some things: When I say I cannot rip HP out of me, I mean on an emotional level. I will always love HP in the way I will always love my childhood pets, long passed. It's simply too built into my psyche. I enjoy fandom discussions, art, and writing, and likely always will. I have OCs I like to put in Hogwarts AUs because the houses and their colours are pleasing to the brain. I don't, however, spend money on HP content. For God's sake, I am 25. (I am not going to watch Owl House!) I haven't read a HP book in literally over a decade. Rowling's descent into bigotry is upsetting but, emotionally, as someone who stopped caring about her in 2015, I feel the distant annoyance of realizing an aunt twice removed got outted as racist. If I was 13 and still madly in love with the universe, I'd be inconsolable. As it is, I genuinely do not give a shit. lol. My only issue with "let go of HP" is the ppl who insist you need to denounce the entire series and sear it from your brain, cut it out like a tumour, when thats just not realistic. Calling someone who still has HP merch in their house "unsafe" is delusional. Will we also connectively sear Disney content from our minds, now that they've been exposed (for, like, the tenth time lol) as an anti-queer corporation? Am I, as a Gay:tm:, supposed to denounce my own mother as dangerous to be around because she loves Frozen and won't burn it? That being said, I do think its unethical to claim to support trans rights and buy the HP game. If Rowling were a bigot on twitter, I don't think people would care outside of being understandably sad, but she's become a massive TERF voice and is causing real, tangible harm. The conflict has become too great. And THAT being said: just pirate the game if you wanna play it. I don't think I'll play it at all, I have other games and work and school, but that's my position. Pirate the game. I also worry there's way too much emphasis being placed on Rowling as an individual. It's not just that Rowling is a bigoted POS with a loud voice.....it's that her country is leaning heavily into systemic transphobia and she's just one vocal supporter of it. Rowling is allowed to thrive not just because she's rich and white and influencial, but because the government and media of the UK is increasingly anti-trans. Yes, Rowling needs to be pushed out and silenced, but it's not just a matter of.......you know, stopping HP sales and suddenly transphobia won't be a problem anymore. thats my two cents. stop recommending children's shows to me. lol

[@xenophiliuslovegood6914]

@@CJCroen1393 Dude. People's fan experiences can get deeply personal. Maybe don't act like your experience is universal? I'm deeply grateful that society is progressing so that critical views of HP are gaining more traction, and I think it's loads more helpful to share and source those criticisms than to make jabs at people who are processing a betrayal (at least, I know it felt like betrayal when JKR started terfing on Twitter).

[@alicebunnymera]

@@xenophiliuslovegood6914 HP was a huge part of my childhood, I spent a holiday in france mostly inside reading because the new book was out at the time. I still managed to cut it the hell out, especially because I am a trans woman living in the UK where she is doing the most harm. Just go read literally anything else. Go watch Owl House, its a great story and has actual queer representation in it. Its not even about the copyright or giving her money, its about the influence she gains each time one of these HP products come out and people flock to it. It tells the companies liscencing Harry Potter that no matter how vile her transphobia gets its still more profitable to be associated with her and keep selling Harry Potter stuff. It makes her think that people agree with her dreadful views but are just afraid to speak up about it. The more Harry Potter stays relevant and by extention she remains relevent the more that lawmakers listen to the bigoted crap she spews and use it to justify laws that seek to literally wipe us out.

[@xenophiliuslovegood6914]

@@alicebunnymera Thank you for your response! This comment strikes me as more helpful because you're unpacking how fandom gives JKR power of influence. To bolster your point, JKR has explicitly stated that she views those who are still her fans as people who silently agree with her views.

[@yourlocalchaosgoddess]

@@xenophiliuslovegood6914 I'm honestly of the opinion that if I ever want to consume Harry Potter, I'll just pirate that shit, not put my money towards supporting Rowling but still enjoying her works as you need to be able to separate art from the artist

[@rubenhumbertoroquesalas2273]

@@alicebunnymera Well, I live in a third world country. Whatever I do is less than insignificant for JK or the laws she supports. I've been a member of a Harry Potter club for 6 years now and I'm not gonna ditch that just because the author turns out to be a shitty person.

[@lyndonwesthaven6623]

I think a happy medium between two years, and life+50 years would probably be just lifespan. I'm a bit leery of discussing copyright through the lens of the creative 1%, because many people spend their entire career making, but have only one or two works achieve even moderate financial success. It would be a shame to see no benefits from a late-arriving surge of popularity for someone who's barely making rent, which is a fair number of authors and musicians.

[@jackcullen5085]

Verily School for Bitchcraft and Bi-zardry

[@Grounded_Gravity]

I'd enroll! 😆

[@someonesomeone25]

Excellent.

[@alejandrocervantes3624]

11:08 SHE ACTUALLY WAS!!! after backlash that they were cuting her out, they included cutaway interview segments that featured her, sitting in front of a black background on her own, and a big "recorded in 2019" on the corner of the screen 💀💀💀

[@Rainrotten]

God I remember that

[@kaktthelotuseater4624]

I don't really agree with the abolishment of copyright or making it really short. I think it would be better to just change what is considered protected under copyright. I think it should only apply to the original work and the distribution of that work. It would be the best of both worlds. People can legally make derivatives and authors can still have control of the original work.

[@supremeplatypus7192]

Honestly that would be perfect, no reason to let somebody else sell literally just your book, but then somebody else can also use all of the characters and worlds etc

[@SomeoneBeginingWithI]

I think the difficulty with that would be defining how different does it have to be to count as derivative, and what is so similar to the original that it's basically a copy. For example I've seen big facebook pages posting clips of independent musicians playing their instruments, with just the words "this is awesome" a the top of the video. No mention of the musician's name or any kind of credit, so if people find a new musician from that clip it would be very difficult to find them elsewhere and maybe support them financially if they wanted to. That's allowed under the current law that protects "commentary" on the work. Apparently they think just saying you like something counts as commentary and allows you to re-post somebody's work without credit, but to me that doesn't seem fair. These are big facebook pages that make money from ads, not individual people talking to their friends, but the posts end up being shared by individual people.

[@fredranzalot4849]

At some point things should pass to the public though. It's a public good that nobody owns the classics.

[@virrig6923]

@@SomeoneBeginingWithI making it a legal requirement to always credit the(/a) creative source when sharing/reworking something sounds like a good start to me. like being able to report an anonymous repost for stealing content if it's not obviously their original work (or maybe that already exists...)

[@Marshmallow95506]

Yes, but after death of creator I think the works should be public

[@NadiraJamal]

I’m a copyright and trademark owner, and also a very VERY small-time creator. (Reached the B-list in a niche industry before I burned out and retired.). For me, a very short copyright term would have been tough, since it took me a long time to build any degree of reach, and a lot of my sales happened slowly by word of mouth. I don’t know if I would have spent the months of work and production costs to make my dance improvisation instructional videos if I only had two years of protection. That would have incentivized me to make whatever i could make and sell the fastest, not what I thought would bring long-term value to my audience. The flip side is that there were a lot of things I would have loved to make but couldn’t afford to because music licensing is expensive and difficult. (In my genre, the dance follows the music, and most of the easily-available “soundtrack music” tracks aren’t appropriate.) So personally, I think 20-25 years strikes the right balance. It gives smaller or early-career creators time to profit from their work, but still lets you draw on your childhood influences for creative remixing.

[@vitoc8454]

"That would have incentivized me to make whatever i could make and sell the fastest, not what I thought would bring long-term value to my audience." It's been argued that this is what the KZbin Algorithm did to the site's content

[@mattbaigent2434]

I'm an independent creator/writer using my own money and time to fund my personal projects. I've been working on a trilogy of books for like 8 years, with more to go. The idea that my work would then no longer be mine after two years is dreadful - considering if it is ever going to gain a following / reach an audience, it will be a slow-built cult one, from word of mouth. If it was public domain within two years, what's to stop a big company such as Disney stealing it wholesale and re-selling it as their own? Cutting me out entirely. All my work and effort down the drain... We might not like what Rowling says and her personal beliefs, but she did create the Wizarding World and without her we wouldn't have even had the stories to fall in love with in the first place. It is a collaborative effort and art form past her when it became films & merch, but you do need the original catalysts to make that happen. Just my 2 cents!

[@kakis3637]

agree, no copyright would not make it better. Yes, maybe more works would get popular, but it would only be because big companies could take those works for free and wouldn't have to credit and pay the author.

[@Roswordsman]

I remember when I was younger knee deep into Sherlock Holmes (now I'm eyeball deep. it's a good thing), wondering why people couldn't just publish stuff about Harry potter and other fandoms the same way. We have millions of Holmes books out there but people get sued for Potter websites? And then I learned about copyright and Disney further. It's all a mess (even the Sherlock Holmes community in the last 10 or so years had to fight for public domain) Thanks for making an easy to digest video on the subject, and a nice rallying cry for the potter community to try to make change. It would be very nice if we could all make change happen in this area specifically. :)

[@shannon3315]

I particularly appreciated the part about how companies now count on fandoms for free labor. I was in the Wynonna Earp fandom starting at season one, and beginning as early as the second season, things started to get weird. SyFy has been pretty stingy about putting their shows on streaming services, with the exception of sending them to Netflix after a new season begins; they want you to either get a cable subscription or pay them per episode, instead of sending episodes to Hulu as they’re broadcast. That, of course, means that they’re still very dependent on traditional network ad revenue that plays during the show, so fans latched onto the notion of “we should support the sponsors” and started tweeting appreciation to like, Dove deodorant or Nissan automobiles or whoever else was sponsoring the episodes. Some even created their own amateur commercials for these sponsors. They tweeted to other fans to be sure to buy these products, which is a hard sell even the networks don’t do (I’ve yet to see the network that scolded a fandom that if only they bought more Tide, they’d still have their beloved show). It was the free labor of fandom taken to a whole new level, one of a responsibility to engage in capitalism if you don’t want to lose your beloved show, and it creeped me out.

[@IncredibleMD]

The only reason the show got made in the first place was capitalism.

[@briansmith303]

The call to responsible capitalism to avoid cancellation is always a trap. Because the decision to continue or not continue the show will always be made outside the control of the consumers. They don't promise to continue the show if you buy. They only promise they'll cancel it if you don't - it's not an equitable, contractual transaction; it's more akin to blackmail or protection money.

[@SawtoothWaves]

im claiming your Harriet Potter character as canon now >:D

[@samanthayost1169]

A propos of nothing....just wondering if you have ever heard the name Chuck Tingle 😉

[@ChrisArborLife]

I have been trying to remember the The Secret of Platform 13 for YEARS!!!! All I remembered was what the cover looked like and a vague remembering of gateway to a fantasy land in a train station (thought it was a subway). When 2:55 hit in your video I literally started yelling in my house. Thank you so much! I can now reread this. Wow, I am still in shock

[@marmoth9786]

i'm glad to see someone else appreciate that book! it's always been one of my favorites. it's got such vivid storytelling and drama, such an enticing world and loveable characters. i may only have read it a few times but it always felt like the best filmatisation ever playing out in my head.

[@jello4835]

I'm absolutely not okay with fictional properties becoming public domain within the creator's lifetime. I think going after people selling etsy merchandise or like, ao3 fanfiction is petty but if that has to be legal to prevent other issues, so be it. Imagine writing a long running series and while your books are still coming out, other people are putting out their own versions of where they think the story should go, profiting by hijacking the story you created and confusing the public on what the actual canon is, losing track of what you actually wanted to happen in your own story. Imagine you make a low budget film that flops and leaves you broke and later becomes a cult classic, and you never get to profit off of anything because it's been too long since its creation. Not all creators are as litigious, successful, or morally reprehensible as Disney or Rowling, and shortening these rules would affect them as well. It would open the door for all kinds of theft. I just really don't think the fans have nearly that much right. You don't own the content, not legally, not logically, these are characters and places created from someone else's mind and if you want to play with them in online fanfics then fine, but if you really think you should be profiting off your work then make something original. The authors don't get rich off the labor, it's off the ideas. So make your own. I know there's a blurred line on what's truly original, but there's a difference between having wizards or powerful objects or giant spiders in your story versus using entire people and settings and events. I think fans should understand that they have zero right to someone else's art or effort or ideas, I don't care if they succeeded because you bought the product, that was your choice that you made because you stood something to gain by consuming that product. If a creator is dead, or if they choose to release the copyrights, then I have no issue with the property joining the public domain, because keeping it intact for 70 years is very clearly financial and has nothing to do with artistic ownership. Anyway, this was a really interesting video, sorry for leaving massive paragraphs. This topic just really got me thinking.

[@aliar86]

I agree with you, but I will also say copyright law is rarely is ever used to protect small artists. It almost exclusively works to benefit the big corporations

[@Alchomik7]

At last, some reasonable comment

[@j.s.elliot7121]

Thank you for an actual reasonable point of view for authors and creators who aren't independently wealthy.

[@vitoc8454]

Oh well. Might as well start worldbuilding a cyberpunk epic saga called "Tournament of High Chairs" that takes place in the futuristic country of Easteros, since we might never get to see in our lifetime, legal attempts to fix the travesty that George R.R. Martin allowed his series to be left in.

[@elanorniennandilme3292]

reading the comments again and my result is that people either don't know how art is created or just hate authors and think they should not make money with their work

[@themsuicjunkies]

I know is fucking crazy.

[@ramipotato6053]

All those fantasy influences on HP mentioned are definitely there - and I also see lots of Enid Blyton-esque influences. Boarding school tropes from Mallory Towers, groups of kids solving mysteries with Secret Seven or Famous Five type call backs, and more.

[@Raz3477x]

While I disagree with you on both your views of JK Rowling and the usefulness of extensive protections in IP law, I very much respect the nuance in the video. Not only did you make the video about something more than the politics of JK Rowling, but on top of that, you presented the IP law aspects in a nuanced way.

[@CrazyGreenFluff]

i don't know much about this topic. i just know that im a tiny artist and the idea of people using my characters and stories without my permission, and people thinking they are the original author, makes me want to cry ;-; im not profiting off of my stories so why should other people be allowed to...

[@MilouPaint]

If your not profiting yourself of your work there a great chance that copyright would not help you much because taking it to court cost money and is very time consuming. So basically there isnt much you can do, except sell your stories and or let people make donation for your work. thats what im getting from this video personnaly

[@CrazyGreenFluff]

@@MilouPaint that's horrifying, that i just have to live in fear of my work being stolen... i cant sell my stories, they're my personal things i use them to cope

[@MilouPaint]

@@CrazyGreenFluff no I completely understand, I just can't see an way to make this work unless you become a little bigger. But currently we have copyrights and many artists that arent even that tiny get thier art stolen

[@seasaltmemories]

@@MilouPaint As shitty as the deal, selling your stories and getting some compensation is better than making no money and then a large corporation comes and makes a million dollar franchise out of it without paying you a cent, like I'm all for copyright reform, but I wish proposals were centered around helping small time artists rather than essentially telling them to give up on ever making money

[@MilouPaint]

@@seasaltmemories I agree. It sucks currently but there probably a way to make it work. Like i dont even understand how, we have copyrights right now like technically anyone who makes contant could apply it but theres still so many artists that get thier art stolen, shirts copied off of thiers and they basically get away with it.

[@wtfjackaboy]

I mean, despite your fantastic and very clear explanation, I’m still no expert on copyright, so this’ll probably sound stupid, but... perhaps the length of copyright should depend on the the original creator and their situation. As in, if the author of a book is independent, and publishing their books is basically their only source of income, then I honestly have no problem with copyright lasting for their entire lives, because in that case, it’s literally their job and they need the money. Plus, if they’re independent, I’d feel bad if their idea got re-published by someone else who then also received an income from that. However, once a massive corporation takes over something, like a book or film series, then copyright should only last a decade or so, possibly even less. By that time, the company doesn’t need the permanent income, and as you said, they’re getting far more out of the public than they are just keeping something to themselves. Again though, this probably doesn’t make sense, and I apologise if I misunderstood any of your explanations. Such a good video, though, as always!

[@arandombard1197]

Why should copyright be dictated by your personal preferences of who 'deserves' the money? Using the government to inconsistently apply different standards based purely on a value judgement of who 'deserves' to have more money is just pure tyranny.

[@frozenyogurth]

@@arandombard1197 This isn't about who deserves more money but about avoiding exploitation. Currently a giant company gets free creative labour from the fandom and is exploiting that system, to the detriment of the people they exploit. An indipendent author isn't exploiting other people for their creative labour because they are much smaller. Would you shorten copyright for all parties equally, the victims of exploitation would now be the authors, rather than fandom, which isn't a good solution either. If you apply different copyright times depending on the copyrigh holder, you could minimize exploitation as much as possible. Sadly this isn't something that will just happen due to the goodness of people's hearts, so the government has to step in.

[@margarita2003]

If you like fantasy and action, read the Percy Jackson books. Rick Riordan is not a TERF and actually has real LGBTQ+ representation!

[@harrysteel864]

Riordan having a genderfluid main character and love interest in, what, 2015? Is still crazy to me

[@margarita2003]

@@harrysteel864 I know right! And a main gay ship that's actually canon in 2016. Gotta love the man.

[@supremeplatypus7192]

@@harrysteel864 Oh holy shit yeah I completely forgot about Alex, thanks for reminding me about Loki's best child

[@trinitybernhardt9944]

I have only started Magnus Chase books, but absolutely love Riordan's work. Always enjoyed them more than HP. The humor and stories just clicked with me more.

[@margarita2003]

@@trinitybernhardt9944 IKR, as much as I love HP, the PJ world just resonates so much more with me. The books are so fun to read, the worldbuilding is excellent, the plots and action are great, I love absolutely every character, and so on. I still have the Magnus Chase trilogy and the Kane chronicles trilogy left to read, but the Riordanverse is definitely my favorite fantasy saga ever.

[@ApolloandMuse]

I think I understand what you're saying, but I think it's important that while taking down corporations, we don't make things even harder for marginalized creatives. There continues to be rampant cultural appropriation and exploitation of creatives of colour. There's still the assumption among many white people that they can just take other people's cultures and work as their own and profit off of it, never mind crediting the creators, let alone paying them. The laws that exists and the court systems that exists provide us little to no protection, and it's important to simultaneously find ways for marginalized creatives to have better protection and support while coming up with ways to take down corporations. There's no point to reconfiguring the copyright laws if the people creating the works will continue to be exploited and erased.

[@phosphenevision]

Yes I also fear it can specially be harmful to creators in less wealthy countries, what prevents companies from taking their ideas and selling them in a higher budget package to richer countries that don't know the source? This already happens.

[@mschrisfrank2420]

I see your point. My thought though is that marginalized people aren’t being protected by the system as it exists, so perpetuating this system isn’t going to help them either.

[@crazydragy4233]

@@mschrisfrank2420 Exactly... Copyright doesn't solve the problem of creatives not getting compensated fairly, it literally just makes new ones...

[@luzvazquez4189]

In my country (México) community rights exist. That's probably the reason Disney couldn't trademark día de muertos. That's a step in the right direction too. I was also thinking about copyright laws that allow creators to decide norms to use their work. Basically "don't use my work if you're Disney" laws.

[@MissFotini]

The first Fantastic Beast was bloody adorable. There was no reason to make it a belaboured tie in to protracted Dumbledore shenanigans.

[@Purplenightshades]

Fanfic has never been illegal under UK copyright law, which isn’t the same as US law. UK copyright law defines what a copyrightable work is, and it doesn’t include characters, or names, only the fixed expression of them in the work. It’s a mistake to apply US legal assumptions to the whole world - though of course most host sites are located in the US so are covered by U S law.

[@StraylightWintermute]

US copyright law also only protects the fixed expression of a work, but it also extends to protecting the right to "derivative works" which is why people consider fanfic illegal. It's actually not settled law, because there's also a "fair use" exception to copyright law in the US and there's never been a case that's gone to court about fan fiction that used fair use as a defense. No one knows if fanfiction is copyright infringement!

[@westondavis1682]

@@theshadowfax239 Generally I don't believe that fanfic would run afoul of copyright if it is not monetized. However, the copyright owner could argue that certain fanfic hurts the brand or ip and that harm causes financial harm. Testing it would cost a lot of money that fanfic writers typically do not have to litigate the issue. But, in the internet age the money needed to litigate could be crowdsourced by an industrious group.

[@babblingmongoose]

@@theshadowfax239 John Milton, author of acclaimed Bible fanfiction Paradise Lost, would like a word with you.

[@andarted]

Truth is, art was created tens of thousands of years before anyone even thought about copyright. Children creating art without knowing copyright. Fans create fanfic besides knowing copyright. Humans do art. There is no further incentive needed for humans to create art. Copyright, in its current form, destroys art. It destroys culture.

[@crazydragy4233]

Exactly! And what's sad is that this sort of monopoly mindset does leech into our communities, you start to see them gatekeep or straight up hide things as if it's not the literal antithesis to culture which resulted in "their" creation.

[@kyndramb7050]

One thing: at 0:08 They put so much effort into their eyes, and didn't add any neck wrinkles. Neck wrinkles betray us more than eyes sometimes.

[@ephy9590]

the final harry potter film came out the year i graduated high school. i watched it once in theaters with my future ex boyfriend, and then i watched it when it was streamed at my college. it really is a bookend of my childhood.

[@thefirstface4575]

Same, I saw the final film with my childhood friend on one of the last occasions I ever saw her. We’re grown now!

[@ephy9590]

@@catherinerobilliard7662 Fierce.

[@thefirstface4575]

Great thoughtful content as usual. If Rowling doesn’t rethink her stance after putins comments there’s no hope for her. Imagine a dictator empathising with you 🥲

[@westondavis1682]

Srsly, Hitler breathed air and loved dogs. Breathe much? Love dogs? Must be a Hitler loving Nazi. Voices of support from anyone that has their own voice do not mean the person getting that support agree with the person giving. How easy it would be to burry anyone if that were true.

[@dw1419]

By your logic, all vegetarians and dog lovers need to rethink their stance because a certain dictator whose name started with H and ended with !tl3r agreed with them...

[@Mila-OPetr]

2 years of copyright is ridiculous It’s possible that you will not start getting any traction until at least year 5 And then why bother paying author for making a movie based on their work? Just wait 2 years

[@aj7058]

Honestly thank God for copyright. If your man hadn't stalled the industrial revolution we'd be 2 decade ahead right now. Probably at like +4 degrees.

[@ChristopherDraws]

Great video. My perspective is a little mixed: because I work in the creative industry, I'd say it's fair that an author should retain copyright during their lifetime to their creation, as published (e.g. somebody else cannot make a reprint of a JK Rowling authored Harry Potter book) - but I find the copyright over ideas or characters objectionable. In the context of literature, it seems wrong people can't write (or even sell) stories about Hermione Granger or Albus Dumbledore and Hogwarts without that being subject to a copyright strike... Then again, I think it's appropriate to protect the visual character design (either from the original book cover illustrations, or as conceived in the video games). I guess the point I agree on is it that seems bizarre when copyright becomes owned by a corporation, rather than the individual artist, author, composer etc.

[@wistfulwriter7]

Oof, hard disagree with this one on length of copyright. Because for every evil megacorporation and massively successful author, there are a million little authors who rely on selling rights in other countries or film options to survive (and these deals can often come years after a novel debuts). Also, sometimes books just hit big for whatever reason a decade after they come out "cough Station 11 cough". If it were two or even 14 years, those big companies would wait out copyright, and it would destroy the ability for authors to make a living on their work...which is already so hard. This would disproportionally effect writers from marginalized communities. And I think there is a big difference between writing a song (and having that for "only" 50 years) and writing an entire novel. Most novelists (Sanderson aside lol) wouldn't be able to produce enough to make it even remotely worth it...and the divide between those with wealth and those without and their ability to pursue writing would grow even wider.

[@angeliprimlani9389]

This for sure. The vast majority of creators are already living financially marginalized lives and copyright laws protect them from unscrupulous big corporations. The core assumption here is that all creators are Rowling or George Lucas when they are really far from average!

[@Jonquil_Studios]

Right. There would be far more giant corporations taking advantage of small creator's work than the reverse.

[@veronicabaranowski6976]

Just a reminder that Tesla died poor and he greatly affected how we live today. If Tesla had copyright, he wouldn't have died poor (and likely robbed on his deathbed). Copyright protects the creator and their family instead of throwing the creator family to the wolves because of 'creativity must go on'.

[@colorfulcheshire4181]

these copyright laws are unreal to me and if they had existed back when a certain mouse-logo'd company were making films, they'd be in violation themselves! The animated Alice in Wonderland, for example, was released only 53 yrs after the book author's passing! There's something really grating about D!sney and Rowling alike acting like they own the amalgamation of ideas/inspiration that aren't really entirely their own for such ridiculously long amounts of time and I say this as a writer aspiring to be published one day, myself

[@nikoteardrop4904]

I was in my 20s when the books dropped, never got on the wagon, but I read them with my kid between 2013 and 2014, and was just dumbfounded at how intensely hateful the author presented herself to be on the page. How any adult reader-- then or now-- could be in any way surprised that Rowling is a bigot (not just a TERF, but violently fatphobic and the kind of milquetoast racism seen among liberals) after reading any of her novels is just beyond me.

[@kashiichan]

You need to keep in mind the age range of the people who were initially engaging with the books. People did notice as they got older and started analysing things (ironically, fandom had a lot to do with that) but kids generally accept the surface value of things.

[@lilyeves892]

Ye I've definitely noticed as I've gotten older and re read the novels how fucked up they can be, it's actually quite telling comparing which scenes and plot lines have been adjusted or complelty removed for the movies

[@zanleuxs]

I don't think the content of a book necessarily reflects the character of the author, at least, not if the author is any good. If reading a book gave you insight into a persons character, then we'd have to arrest George RR martin, James Patterson, Stephen King, and pretty much every modern day writer of horror, thriller, etc.

[@ivanlagayacrus1891]

@@zanleuxs It's not just that Rowling has suspect things happen in her book, but it's how she frames them. Slave liberation is treated as a punchline to the joke of SPEW, the institution of slavery is endorsed by everyone, including the main characters which are all supposed to be incredibly morally good. You can have slavery in your book, you can even have a narrator have a neutral or positive stance on the matter if you are in their head and can reason it, you *cannot* actively endorse slavery as a neutral 3rd person narrator and expect us to just ignore it

[@Angelica-sq9lh]

Sorry for bothering ya, but would you care to mention examples of the fatphobia? I was younger when I read the novels and barely remember details

[@trinitybernhardt9944]

I find this an interesting conversation. I am a writer, who hopes to someday make a living at it. I am also a fanfic writer, so I can't imagine holding so tight to my work I would hate anyone using my characters. It is a compliment, and is a reason my favorite fandom has been so successful. There has to be a way we can make sure authors do profit from their work, while also having an opportunity for fans to embrace the work themselves. It is easy to scream at huge entities like Disney and these studios, but most writers struggle to eke out a living. I am not close enough to publishing to have looked into this much, but it is definitely an interesting topic. I would need to look at effects on smaller publications.

[@kha30s22]

For me, I would rather publish independent than by publications.

[@elanorniennandilme3292]

(Layperson here, so correct me if I'm wrong on the legal aspects) I was with you right until you said shortening copyright to just 5 years after publication would fix the system. So, under that rule, if you write a book, you got only 5 years to earn money with it, and after that you are fully dependent on the grace of readers to send money your way instead of just getting the online version that at that point definitely and legally exists, without you being able to do anything about it. Or someone else could publish the exact same book under their name. Or a big corporation could print it and put in lots of advertisement that you could never afford to sell the book instead. In fact, why would any publishing house even pay you royalties after the 5 years, if they could just keep printing the book? Sorry, but this is the same kind of logic as people saying pirating books from indie authors is the same (and just as morally sound) as pirating a disney movie. Same for music, video games, movies etc. Most artists do not get rich five seconds after putting out their work (most artists don't get rich at all. I know, shocking.) Also, on the topic of fan-created merch: There I am with you as well, in the case of big corporations. But I know lots of indie artists, writers, video game developers who have asked fans to not sell merchandise on a large scale because it directly harms their own sales, and therefore the income they need to keep making their art.

[@bumblebeegoesgaming704]

So I went to school for Media as one of my degrees, and you can thank Mickey Mouse for why its so long. Disney has continued to fight to get it lengthened everytime the Round ears start to get close to falling out of copyright. It's actually something I took a whole class on. Copyright and fair use laws and Disney truly has such a big part to play in it all. They are the big bad in so many ways. EDIT: I should watch the whole Video before commenting haha!

[@drmadjdsadjadi]

WOTC/Hasbro is learning this same lesson about fandom being integral to the brand the hard way through the D&D OGL controversy.

[@dogearflopper7011]

My spouse had a love for magic when they were a kid. They also had a lisp, so they said they "wanted to be a bitch" for Halloween. Their mom settled on letting them be a "barlock." ♡

[@thomas-florez]

While I empathise and totally agree that corporations are taking advantage of copyright laws, I strongly disagree that artists' rights to thier work should be taken away from them in their lifetime. As others in the comments have pointed out, it would allow others to sell the artists' works and not have to pay them for it. When it comes to transformative works such as fanfic, I believe that fair use is really the issue here. Patents are a completely different thing however. Withholding much needed vaccines from developing countries for example is completely despicable.

[@madds5281]

As a dnd player I am a harsh critic of current copyright law. The core of dnd gameplay is that players make the game they want. The fan’s ability to make customized art, rules, lore, characters, strategies ext. is as an essential part of play as the mechanics. This has created one of the best games I’ve ever played and the reason it has had staying power since the 80s and can weather any bad publicity. Wizards of the Coast (the creators) still make money from the game because their selling point to the market is to offer a well researched rule book from which all other changes spur. It is BECAUSE the fans are encouraged to engage with and dive deep into the building blocks of the game that the fandom understands the importance of an overarching canon to create cohesion from table to table. Tl;dr it is because the fans are given IP liberty that Wizards of the Coast ensures a loyal customer base.

[@invisible__design657]

would be super nice if you referred to the US as "the US" instead of "America" as that is not actually precise, it erases the rest of the continent, and can be confusing. I know we live in a US-centric world but,

[@invisible__design657]

@NYX what? there's more to the continent of America than the US and Canada even North America would be inaccurate as that is Canada + US + Mexico so...

[@livelaughstuck]

Appreciate both the take that even JKR couldn't erase HP from the social consciousness even if she tried, AND that the people raging about HP are keeping conversations about it going. HP has been a huge part of my life since it came out, and acting like I can toss all my affection for and thoughts about it out immediately gets incredibly frustrating. Also, very good info on copyright stuff. I'm hoping we can fight for a change to the laws

[@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV]

Most creatives are a bit nuts... :) Best not to delve too deep into the private lives of those who entertain us!

[@scion2245ify]

Idk, that’s just capitalism tho- fan fiction is all well and good until YOU author the next Harry Potter or Mickey Mouse and then someone wants to profit off of your idea without you getting anything.

[@rubywilkk]

Amazing video as usual. This is so interesting as it has never occurred to me that copyright was intended to benefit the artist, not a company. To me, copyright had always been “oh yeah Disney doesn’t want an artist drawing Mickey” but it really should have been that an artist shouldn’t have their work stolen without consent, and that was why Copyright was created. You bring up such valid and great points. Every day I become more and more socialist (somehow lol) and ur videos are definitely helping. Wonderful, well edited, well researched and well said. Thank you for bringing up a topic I didnt know I would be so interested in.

[@gwendlevs.everything9178]

Them: Authors and artists and musicians won’t create NEW works unless they can keep making money off the first work they made forever. They’re much more likely to keep working if they can have perpetual passive income from that thing they did seventy years ago. Also them: We can’t have universal basic income! If we did that no one would ever work again! They’d just lay around all day content with basic shelter and food! The economy would collapse!! People need the threat of poverty and starvation to get them to do ANYTHING!!!!!! Me: Sounds legit 🙄

[@guy-sl3kr]

Capitalists try to have a coherent worldview that isn't evil challenge (impossible)

[@j.s.elliot7121]

Most creative works don't earn that much money. It usually takes 20+ years for an author to earn anything more than a fractional income. Basing all laws off of the 1% means you would be stripping the less financially lucrative creators of their lifetime of work, and they wouldn't have enough income to do that work fulltime. Most people don't grind for decades at their craft before it becomes a full time job, with other professions.

[@guy-sl3kr]

@@j.s.elliot7121 That's all the more reason to change how the system is set up. And I don't think anyone is suggesting we go from one extreme to the other.

[@politesociety]

Something I find quite interesting is the way doujinshi works in japan. Apparently the copywrite laws over there are just as bad, but it's generally frowned upon to take legal action against people producing and selling fan made works, and there is a whole industry around it, with many notable artists and groups getting their start by effectively producing their own fanfics. Clamp is the one of the more notable animation houses that I know of, (Card Captor Sakura) who got started doing yaoi (boy on boy) doujinshi of Saint Seiya. I am also somewhat aware of doujinshi bands, who predominately perform covers of other works, usually anime intros in varying styles. It seems to be predominately epic neo classical metal, but maybe that's an indication of my interests, rather than the bulk of producers. I do feel that copywrite is generally more damaging to culture, ideas and innovation than nourishing of it, but I guess I never had a multi million dollar franchise I had to squeeze every dollar out of. edit: Also, while I'm here, and if you've read this far, you're so fucking valid.

[@2_amigos]

Yeah right, if copyright laws goes for 25 years authors can have their work used by companies and never see any cent of it and live in misery like Bill Finger (creator of Batman). Why not just promote original work inspired by Harry Potter or create your own and promote it. A lot of our pop culture comes from people who couldn't use the original work and created their own (Star Wars and He-Man being inspired by Flash Gordon's Universe after they could not get the rights to adapt it) and even J.K who mostly got her work in Neil Gaiman's book of magic. JK Rowling can own Harry Potter but not the ideas that made it good, Voldemort is a Lych from celtic floklore, Harry goes the Hero's Journey and etc. If you think it's not possible to have success with work inspired by Harry Potter, just take a look at Percy Jackson.

[@AschKris]

If copyright laws went for 25 years JK Rowling would still be filthy rich. The only people who profit from the insanely long copyrights of today are not indie authors who won't make money anyways because they're buried along other hundreds of similarly generic authors in Amazon, the ones who benefit are the ones who have already made it.

[@TreeHairedGingerAle]

I think copyright laws can show us how difficult static laws can be, in a life where morality is dynamic and situational. I can't even remotely argue that JKR hasn't earned enough from her work, that her fans haven't made Harry Potter to be way more than she ever could have done alone, or that the concepts involved aren't rooted in tales humans have been telling each other for millennia. Even her fame for having created it can't be denied: everyone knows who she is, it's not like she's a struggling artist anymore. HP should definitely go to the public domain already: because the level of success it has enjoyed not only has guaranteed her a life of as much stability and luxury as she chooses already...but the work has peaked. ... However, if I were to think about a nobody out there who, say, writes an incredible, social-commentary story about a young, Polynesian/Cook-Island woman-of-size, who becomes a skilled pilot and then isekai's herself into a futuristic society populated by aliens and telepathic/psychic cats; the thought of someone coming across her work, plunking a thin white woman into the role, scrubbing all substance and commentary from the story in favor of spectacle, and gaining all success and credit for it, makes me squidgy.

[@SomeoneBeginingWithI]

Yes, I agree there needs to be a time period where you have exclusive right to creative works, so things don't just get stolen like that. I think maybe a time period more like 25 years would be more fair than the whole life of the author +70 years like the current american law.

[@crazydragy4233]

Thing is, copyright is a social contract. It's as arbitrary and moral as we agree to be so it doesn't change that much in the end.

[@LoonyLuna798]

Is this an actual book? Because I find myself intrigued. If it's not a book, someone please find this comment and make it a book, I need to read this story.

[@chrisamies2141]

@@LoonyLuna798 it could also be both stories, "Adaptation"-style. The Polynesian pilot finds her own history inexplicably replaced by that of a thin white person.

[@afifmajid8754]

If copyright laws are indeed so stifling, how come JK managed to 'borrow' all her ideas from Earthsea and LotR etc. There is a massive difference between inspiration and duplication. Damn right you can't write about a mouse named Mickey or a wizard named Harry, you can however write about a squirrel named Sammy, and a witch named Katie going a magic boarding school named Dogworms or sth. Copyright doesn't stifle innovation, it forces variety in the content we view, and can be a attributor to the unprecedented amount of new content we get(shows, video games, movies) we get every year, because people justly can't just rip off Pokemon or HP or Marvel to get a quick buck

[@kevinmatsumoto6483]

actually you could have a mouse named mickey or a wizard named Harry, you just can't have a Mickey Mouse or a Harry Potter. As a matter of fact there's a far darker wizard named harry that I knew about first. Fellow named Dresden. As for borrowing her ideas from Earthsea and LoTR well both of them "borrowed" their ideas from even older stories. Hell I just watched a ERB about Luke vs Harry and thought that the ERB team missed a great opportunity to have King Arthur come in to basically say that they both ripped him off.

[@spookygreg]

Harry Potter has been pretty bad this whole time. It’s just an antisemitic, racist, and classist series that we only liked because most of us were children when we first read it and couldn’t see through all the magical imagery yet.

[@Kagomai15]

literally what's stopping Joanne from making more money off of Harry Potter if it becomes Public Domain? she is part of the Public

[@prozorozo]

It doesent, but it at least partially divorces her from the works so that other creators can now, without the threat of legal action, create their own works off of harry potter, whether it be websites or small keychains

[@TakeruDavis]

9:23 When you talked about fans and the fandom being critical part for success, it very much reflects on pivotal decision made about three years ago to redesign CGI model of a certain character. Fans are always the best source of income for these IPs and it's good studios are realizing it, even if it sometimes takes longer than it should

[@GoreHusbando]

As one of those fans who rallied for a redesign and immediately kept my word about going to those films as soon as they came out, and overall being an extremely dedicated fan to the series, you are 100% in right in that regard. Fans do have some power, but that can also be a double edged sword if the games are anything to go by.

[@ArielVHarloff]

I freaking love Carry On but honestly the second and third book are SO MUCH better because they started being their on thing

[@somebodyelsesdog]

Yes!!! Book three was so good because it had matured into its own story about grief and relationships and growth instead of simply functioning as a drarry-based commentary on the chosen one trope! I love books one and three, but for different reasons. They're the same characters in similar settings, but with a different purpose and a different mode of storytelling. Carry on reminds me of the beginning of David Levinthan's boy meets boy: the exposition runs you over with carefully cultivated shock, a surprising yet familiar (because so carefully created) beginning which settles down as the book progresses into something that feels more human, like any way the wind blows. I love carry on, the romance at its core, and the tropes it tackles, but I love any was the wind blows, and the way it portrays vulnerability and growth after loss even more. Was half of that a bunch of long, meaningless words cobbled together to make me sound more intelligent and academically inclined than I am? Maybe, but I think my message comes across regardless.

[@isobelsheene51]

Awesome to see quidditch the sport talked about on your channel! The gender rule is such a core part of the community (both the 4-max rule and the way the full range of genders are included in that) and I appreciate you pointing out the multiple reasons a name-change may be a good idea (still an ongoing discussion in the community) with sincerity. Nice to see quidditch talked about seriously rather than condescendingly for a change!

[@lbear4292]

I wish Rowling was a smurf:(

[@pandalandalopalis6515]

i remember actually reading the books for the first time after i had seen all the movies. and i realized that most of my favourite scenes were *just* from the *movies* and not in the books at all. i also found her writing style to be very simple and uninspired (like i know they're meant to be children's books but still). it's kind of like, she may have built the house, but what are the things you actually love about the house? the things put in it, the decoration, the smell of home, the people, the memories attached. as far as im concerned, when it comes to the things i love about harry potter, those things were not really created by her. (it's interesting - i went back and looked at the notes i made when reading the books on what scenes that i liked that were just in the movies and not in the books, and almost all of those scenes have some kind of profound emotion attached to them. her books just didnt really include those things, at least i didnt feel that when reading it. scenes like harry yelling "HE WAS HIS FRIEND!" about sirius in prisoner of azkaban; when harry was being possessed by voldemort in order of the phoenix and he's remembering his friends and telling voldemort that he'll never win because "You'll never know love . . . or friendship"; and so many other examples like that.)

[@Missiletainn]

Copyleft time! Everything into the Public Domain.

[@LemonDove]

25 yrs sounds reasonable, but I wonder how it would work for a series. If you let it reset for new installments then everyone might make all their fiction connected in the same universe and release new stuff just to extend copyright. But if it’s just for the single work, it could get weird figuring out which aspects of a series you can use. Like if at a time where only the Hobbit was public domain, would it be infringement to write something depicting the ring Bilbo found as evil until Fellowship’s copyright expired?

[@SomeoneBeginingWithI]

yeah that's a good point. Authors might feel financial pressure to keep making works in the same universe when that's not what they want to do creatively.

[@crazydragy4233]

I am surprised to not see any mention of Uniquenameosaurus' work here. It's so perfect for this discussion. I recommend checking his videos on the topic out for the different perspective.

[@ZelphTheWebmancer]

Uniquenameosaurus' video is what made me change my opinion on copyright. This one help solidify that and also made me hopeful showing there is already change on the way.

[@tmead07]

Great video! Another work that the Potter stories remind me of is The House with a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs (and illustrated by Edward Gorey!). Though the uncle and “aunt” (actually a neighbor) who take him in following the loss of his parents are helpful characters here and provide his entrée to magic.

[@lyndonwesthaven6623]

High five, fellow Bellairs fan! My first horror book in elementary was the Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie and I was *terrified* of it.

[@katszulga1888]

I love how these Harry Potter vids always point me in the direction of more books people loved. Thank you!

[@JMTgpro]

I'll say it... It does make sense that copyrite lasts at least the life of the author + a few more years. Especially in the narrative/fiction sector. Other sectors such as engineering, science, really manifests other realities to the subject, realities not comparable to that of art. First: As you mention, all art has archetypes and tropes lacking open to the public, which serve as pillars of genre, structure and style. There is no archetype or trope you can think of that has been or is copyrighted, none. There may continue to be stories about magic schools where students dress in black and use brooms to fly, learn potions and use wooden magic wands. You don't need Hogwarts for it, since in fact, I just described little witch academia. (If what you really want is for it to be possible for schools to put on plays without a mega corporation like Warner coming to intimidate , then call the protagonist Larry Gonzales) Second: You can criticize and talk about the influence of Disney, whatever you want. But, those data that the most lucrative years of a work of narrative fiction (Books), are the first two years... It would only apply to authors already established in the mainstream. As any new author will admit to you, as any self-published author will confess to you... The first few years are the worst. Not to mention that success, if achieved, can come at any time. Even established authors will be able to tell you. The best example... Game of Thrones. GRRM went from being an established author of a popular series in the fantasy sector (Possibly selling 10k, a hit by real industry standards), to an author with 90 million books sold. He published his first book in that saga, 30 years ago. Under this idea of ​​copyright reduction of narrative works, it would imply that HBO only had to wait a few years for the first book to be 25 years old, and then make the series, leaving aside its creator. The narrative industry (books), is more complicated with respect to the "moment of success". especially in the current market, and in this era of adaptations. Just saying, they're just beginning to adapt works by established and exemplary authors into their niches like Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, original works from 30 years ago: American God's; 20+ years. Good Omens 30+ years, The Sandman 30+ years. No, the current laws could originally be a trick by Disney to keep Mickey, but at present, they do help authors (real and physical persons) to maintain control of their creations in an era of mega-industries ( Disney, Warner, Universal... ), happy to take them off their hands. And what's worse... Take advantage of a person's existing work (A book is not only a creation that can be developed, as would be the formula for a vaccine or the desing for an engine, it is also the permanent manifestation of private and unlicensed work). Seriously, I don't understand why I would want a world where companies can literally take advantage of the work of individuals, adapting books from the 70s-80s-90s, without giving a penny to authors who, because of that reduction, live. Just so that a third party can make fan fiction of "canon" characters. Third: On the participation of the fandom. In principle, I agree with the role of the fandom as a creator of value, only not that idealization of creation of value as equal to the work of creation in art, that is... No. Group interest in a creation does not imply social interest. There is no reason why the interest shown during leisure by people can break the connection of a third party with the product of their work. Like... What would be the reason why, because I love Star Wars, George Lucas can't sell it to Disney for two billion? What would be the reason that an author should sacrifice ownership of his creative work, because I love it too much that it motivates me to produce derivative work with the canon of the book? What is so valuable about the canon that this is necessary? Because again, it's not about wizarding schools, wands or black uniforms... It's about Harry, Ron, Voldermort... Canon. If there is nothing stopping you from doing a play or a book about an inclusive magic school with an anti-racist and trans protagonist, why does that school need to be called Hogwarts? The real point here is not copyright time or corporations, is this, right? Wanting to modify at will what we enjoy and love, and establish it as a canon, no matter what the consequences. It's not about grannies selling green scarves with a Slytherin badge or student plays, it's about the monopoly of the canon and the benefit of a name's popularity. And to that, I will only say that it is not a sufficient reason. That in our leisure and happiness we approach certain works and want to explore them and produce modifications to our similarities, does not give reason why the monopoly of the canon should be broken. Our desire to want to see Harry and Draco together in a book published in bookstores does not justify that mega corporations have the power to harm people in an industry that is difficult to emerge. Anyway, love what you love, explore fantasy worlds, love characters and write fanfics if you wish. discuss canon, explore characters... But don't destroy an industry that is already screwed up to enter and emerge, just because the idea of ​​being able to use names of characters from the canon, with recognition and proven success, sounds cool and would make a more economically successful derivative work than creating something without using canon.

[@j.s.elliot7121]

Thank you for the coherent and reasoned response. Too many people are eager to obliterate what few financial protections authors have.

[@Eliot_86]

I disagree here is why - Imagine you had an idea, one your really passionate about. You go on to spend years of your life developing and crafting a world around that idea whilst also working full time and dealing with other responsibilities. You pour yourself into the pages, each character has elements of yourself woven within them. You know the characters so well that they no longer feel like ideas in your head and seem to you more like a separate person entirely, basically your child. You love them and craft a story for them that conveys your deepest most intimate thoughts and beliefs. And after hundreds of hours perfecting and fine tuning this idea into a working universe of its own you decide your ready to share it with the world. You want other people to know and love the characters as much as you do. And to your surprise and joy the book becomes wildly successful and fans create a wonderful niche community where everyone writes fanfics and discuses them characters with the same respect love and care you showed them. But then your work enters the public domain and it’s suddenly not just dedicated fans building on your world but large companies who want nothing more than a payment. Radical groups and bigoted hateful companies now have full freedom to mold your carefully crafted words to fit their narrative. You have to watch as your characters are used as voices for hateful rhetoric and abuse. You can do nothing as companies make millions through defiling the characters that you see almost as your own child. Suddenly your safe accepting world is open for anyone to manipulate and even though you keep trying to distance your story from what others are doing with its image you know you will never be able to undo the now tangible connection between your work and hate speech. That sounds like hell. It would stop me from ever publishing my stories because if I did I would have no control over what my works name and face will be used to say. Artists get the rights to their paintings, authors should get rights to their stories. Fanfics are different because since you can’t profit off it the only people taking the time to write it are fans who share that intital connection and respect for the original work. But as soon as you bring money to it suddenly Harry Potters face can be used to spit transphobic beliefs of pragarU latest video and Percy Jackson is suddenly the poster child for communism. People really need to think about the world they are asking for but trying to shorten the copyright.

[@Sam_on_YouTube]

I was taking Intellectual Property class in law school when the Harry Potter Lexicon came out. I had trouble understanding the reasoning behind it. It was a work ABOUT Harry Potter, which should not have been banned. They were working in creating Pottermore at the time, which helped their argument that it wasna derrivative work. But I still disagree.

[@iregretcommenting]

Like a lot of people have mentioned, scale really matters when considering the ethics of a situation. For every big media franchise milking a copyright past its due, there are a ton of small creators who's work is stolen and misused. Copyright exists for a reason and it's definitely not to "boost innovation", at the best of times it gives people the right to own their own creations. I think there is a reasonable threshold for successful works moving into the public domain and it is even explored in this video. HP became a part of modern culture, it's ideas and words escaped their original context. I would prefer a system where the ubiquity of a work becomes the legal defense for fan creators. It's also worth remembering that not all fan content is beautiful, queer, communally made additions to a work's canon. Giving people permission to profit off of their own versions of the story applies to the best and worst people equally. There's something to be said for copyright protecting an author from standing by while their works turned into something they vehemently reject for profit (whether or not I as the audience agree with the author or fan).

[@ShutItKyle]

Copyleft. All rights reversed.

[@SebastianSeanCrow]

30:13 ever since I first found out how fucked up copyright laws were, I made the decision that in my last will and testament (and I have publicly stated this and I’ve told others in my life) that 100% of all my works upon my death shall enter public domain. And if there’s an option for the length of copyright when I do get my comics copyrighted I can’t imagine having it for more than 30-60 years but with my knowledge of how you register copyright it wouldn’t make sense to hold onto a single volumes copyright for more than 10 years. I’d still have the series, I’d still add to it, my main concern is how often smaller artists get fucked over cuz bigger companies will steal their work. But copyright doesn’t always help with art theft unfortunately

[@VicvicW]

You don't register copyright. You haven't had to do that for ages. You have copyright from the creation of the work.

[@charleslavoie7622]

About the copyright duration: imagine being a small author with no notoriety. You write an amazing book, but it gets next to no recognition, and you don't get much money out of your hard work. Two years later, your book falls into public domain. A multimillion entertainment company stumbles upon your story, decides to adapt it into a movie. They have a big marketing campaign, the movie makes MILLIONS and you don't get a single dollar because your book was now public domain. Worse : your name isn't even credited. How would you feel ? Too short of a copyright span would be a disaster for many smaller creators and artists.

[@HeidiSholl]

So the thing with Mickey Mouse entering the public domain, is that Disney aren't worried about small creators using Mickey's image. They already do all the time. Etsy is full of people using copyrighted Disney characters, and Disney doesn't care. There's a small Alice in Wonderland theme park near me that uses loads of Disney iconography. I've worked for Princess Hire companies, who use Disney's character's constantly. Disney doesn't care. They would care if, say, Paramount or WB started to release Mickey Mouse related content, or if Primark's Disney line was suddenly not profiting Disney. And I think that's perfectly their right. But I also don't think Mickey Mouse should fall under copyright anymore, because it's such a unique thing, it should have it's own protective law. Copyright laws are outdated in the modern world anyway. Mickey Mouse is pretty synonemous with Disney, the company, not really so much Disney the man. Why should other billionaire companies be able to get their hands on that? Imagine if Universal Orlando was allowed to have Mickey Mouse in their park, right next door to Disney? Or the new Paramount in London had an exact Disney Toon Town. Like, they can have their own version of a Toon Town for sure, but not physically take Disney's, I think that's completely fair. Just as it's completely fair for smaller creators on Etsy to keep making their Disney related products without fear. Not that Disney ever really goes after these people becase A) It's not worth their time to be chasing after every individual who uses Mickey Mouse and B) It would look really bad on them if they did, which is the last thing they want. So I wouldn't say Mickey Mouse is being "held hostage". Just because the copyright law means that you technically shouldn't be able to sell Mickey Mouse bookmarks on Etsy, doesn't mean that Disney is actually going to stop you if you do. I could talk about this for hours, but I know most people just see "big bad Disney" trying to keep it's copyright, and automatically think that they're working against the people, but that's just not true. Also, I studied copyright law, I've been in debates about this, I'm aware that there have been times when Disney did sue smaller businesses, but they are few and far between, and the majority of people have nothing to worry about.

[@friedrice4015]

Honestly, there's a lot of fandoms I interact with even though I no longer interact with that media. Like Percy Jackson. Nothing happened, I just grew up and I don't have the time to keep up with a new book every year. Same with Harry Potter. I just don't even have time for five new movies in my life. I have a handful of fanfics I'm subscribed to at any given time, and that's kinda it. It's like I live in a parallel universe where the authors don't exist.

[@twotruckslyrics]

same 😅whole list of favorite subscribed fanfics personally

[@lulublue5537]

culture is owned by all of us and media is included in that! copyright as it is isn't giving authors their fair dues, it's giving megacorporations ownership of culture. as a creator, I know the fear of someone taking my ideas for their own uses. I want to make a living off my own work. but I also know once I put something out into the world, it isn't strictly mine anymore. anyone who pours their heat into my work the way I poured my heart into making it has just as much of a stake in it. I can't pretend it's just mine anymore. so long as I'm making my living, I don't care. sure there are bad faith actors who might want to plagiarize, but for every one of those there's hundreds if not thousands of people with love and good intentions. I hate the idea of squashing my fans passion in the name of my supposed personal wellbeing, and I think every well intentioned artist should think the same.

[@harlanhardway5955]

25 years, heck even 50 years after the publication of the work would be fine with me. It's a hell of a lot better than what we have now. I remember hearing about the Micky Mouse law when I was really little. And then I distinctly remember when things started falling into the public domain again and we all of a sudden got books like "Pride, Prejudice and Zombies". It was so mind-blowing to me. It definitely shouldn't take that long for things to fall into the public domain. I'm worried about the TM laws though. So far every time public interest has gone up against cooperate IP protection in the US, as far as I know, the public interest has lost. So I could very much see TM being used as a proxy copywrite in order to lock down IP into perpetuity. Which... is just so distopian.

[@UsualHandleISwear123]

I disagreed with a lot of your conclusions and then I realized this system could give us a proper 3rd season of The Owl House, so now I'm all in

[@jojothejelly6623]

11:38 ooooh that explains a lot about those movies. The Fantastic Beasts movies should’ve been the magical version of Steve Irwin’s show just someone who loves animals protecting and teaching about them. Newt could have a new assistant/apprentice so there’s an in universe reason to be teaching about them.

[@kristi4113]

So, basically…a horcrux wasn’t something JK came up with on a whim. She actually has her own so she lives forever. 😮

[@NikkiAirytStorytime]

i like this video. but imagine writing for 10 years and then someone takes your book away from you after two years. and you haven’t even made it big yet, you just spent money and time to get it published.

[@existentialbreadroll]

Loved the video! I just had a thought though - how does the work and art of people who are marginalized fit into all this? I mean, if the example of JK Rowling in this was instead an author from Africa whose work is then being exploited and commodified by someone in America who has more access and resources to churn out more "product" from the art, wouldn't we want some protections for the original creator in this case? Not sure if I'm thinking about this the right way or if the answer is in the video and I missed it. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated!

[@haileys5224]

I think it’s less about what could possibly happen then looking at the abject reality of copyright. While it’s true copy right may potentially protect a marginalized person the trend of copyright shows us that bigger corporations benefit from copy right while smaller people don’t have the money to contest copyright infringement through the courts. In order to shut down a project on the grounds of copyright infringement you need to win the case in court. The courts favor wealthy people systematically, because they can afford the top legal defenses, and even if they don’t have legal standing they can cause the defendant to go bankrupt through legal fees. Inversely, a marginalized person bringing a copyright claim, especially against a well established person or company, would not only need to prove copyright, they would be on the hook for legal fees if they don’t win, or the legal process often gets dragged out so long they run out of money and the case gets dropped. It’s rare for lesser know people to win copyright, and even when they win the protection of their Artistic property is still at the whim of cooperations. When urban outfitter lost a case they continued to sell the product, because the payout was less then the profit for their products. TLDR: It takes a lot of time and money to bring a copyright case to court. This means that it tends to benefit well established entities, and copyright laws actually protecting marginalized people is the exception to the rule. It’s not that it can’t or won’t happen, just that it’s not the intentional function of copy right, and it’s definitely not the norm.

[@existentialbreadroll]

@@haileys5224 Thank you for explaining all that ! I didn't think of it that way but if I understood you correctly - if the power is imbalanced anyway, even a "right" to redressal isn't really a right but a privilege that, again, only the powerful get to have. That makes sense to me now.

[@existentialbreadroll]

But then again, what might be an alternative in protecting marginalized people? I know it's probably a complicated and nuanced answer to that but just wondering.

[@oftinuvielskin9020]

Good point! I was thinking somewhat along the same lines - If no copyright existed at all, then corporations would spring up to scrounge through works by new, unknown artists to steal their stories, reworking them into something more commercial that they can use their much greater economic power to market and sell, thus pushing their commercialized versions of works into stores before the original artist is able to make much more than a dime. In general, I'm missing a discussion of the most important argument for copyright - that artists deserve to be paid for their work. And I suppose I would want some distinction being made between individual artists and corporations owning IP, and between artists who have not profited much off their work and artists like JK Rowling who have made millions and has a huge cultural footprint to the point that her story has become part of the common culture.

[@low-energypolitics5677]

@@existentialbreadroll Something like “compelled royalties” is probably near-impossible to enforce, but if after a piece of intellectual property’s copyright expired the original creator was entitled to a portion of gross sales (though not entitled to gatekeep the production), that might be a compromise that still enables creators-marginalized or otherwise-of original works to profit from derivative works. This would also need to expire, but it could potentially extend longer than the copyright itself. Those entitled to the compelled royalty could waive it, if they wanted, but that would be up to the original creator. For an example of why someone might waive a royalty, I’m thinking porn companies getting ahold of Disney property and them not wanting the association of being paid by a porn producer. A creator might also waive royalties for charitable reasons. This is all just a fantasy, probably, but if the US government were the marketplace for royalties, rather than individual rights holders, it could circumvent even the issue of whether an originator had the wherewithal to defend a claim. I don’t think there’s any precedent for the government taking on this kind of role, but if you imagine copyright expiration as property entering the public domain, then it almost makes sense to have the government holding the bag when this royalty-almost a tax-comes due.

[@knosos15]

I agree with everything you say about copyright but I'm not sure at all about any of the Harry Potter stuff really. I feel like even if JKR made no money from it I still would not really be comfortable with people making Harry Potter fiction . I just want people to move on. I don't want Harry Potter to be reclaimed I want it to die.

[@bettyp5669]

Thats not realistic, people love HP and many grew up with it. HP isn't going anywhere, nor does it have to. Like stated in the video, it's beyond what JK Rowling created

[@knosos15]

​@@bettyp5669 Maybe it's not realistic. I don't know but I don't think it makes any difference. Whether something is realistic or unrealistic doesn't affect whether it's right or wrong and I think any HP content right now is wrong. Any content, even the content JKR isn't directly profiting from, is promoting her work and supporting her platform shes using to destroy the rights of me and many others. I'm fine with other trans people making their own decisions and choosing to engage with the franchise even if I disagree with it but I am extremely uncomfortable with cis people doing it and I cannot be okay with them because I think they are choosing notalgia over trans rights

[@bettyp5669]

@@knosos15 I completely understand that it's tainted for you and obviously won't tell you how to feel. It is the way of the world though, so many of the things we interact with on a daily basis can be partially traced back to some "wrong doing". All we can do is learn to make peace with the nuances of life as hardly anything is black and white. I wish you well.

[@knosos15]

@@bettyp5669 I guess for me the difference is that the wrong doing is happening right now. I don't think I'd mind it in the future but not now while the harm is being done. I don't have any ill will towards any trans person who disagrees with me on this though.