Disney Lost Roger Rabbit

Summary

Today's links Disney has lost Roger Rabbit (permalink) Gary K Wolf is the author of a fantastic 1981 novel called Who Censored Roger Rabbit? which Disney licensed and turned into an equally fantastic 1988 live action/animated hybrid movie called Who Framed Roger Rabbit? But despite the commercial and critical acclaim of the movie, Disney hasn't made any feature-length sequels. This is a nightmare scenario for a creator: you make a piece of work that turns out to be incredibly popular, but you've licensed it to a kind of absentee landlord who owns the rights but refuses to exercise them. Luckily, the copyright system contains a provision designed to rescue creative workers who fall into this trap: "Termination of Transfer." "Termination of Transfer" was introduced via the 1976 Copyright Act. It allows creators to unilaterally cancel the copyright licenses they have signed over to others, by waiting 35 years and then filing some paperwork with the US Copyright Office. Termination is a powerful copyright policy, and unlike most copyright, it solely benefits creative workers and not our bosses. Copyright is a very weak tool for protecting creators' interests, because copyright only gives us something to bargain with, without giving us any bargaining power, which means that copyright becomes something we bargain away. Think of it this way: for the past 50 years, copyright has only expanded in every direction. Copyright now lasts longer, covers more kinds of works, prohibits more uses without permission, and carries stiffer penalties. The media industry is now larger and more profitable than at any time in history. But at the same time, the amount of money being earned by creative workers has only fallen over this period, both in real terms (how much money an average creative worker brings home) and as a share of the total (what percentage of the revenues from a creator's work the creator gets to keep). How to explain this seeming paradox? The answer lies in the structure...