It sure is hard to figure out this sentence. If this reflects the level of writing skill you plan to bring to your endeavors, don’t plan on much success at it.
I will give you credit for being able to write something entertaining. It’s rather amusing to see you ignore information from people who actually know what they’re talking about and continue to proffer your opinion as if it had any chance of getting anywhere. Rotsa ruck.
Bolding mine.
Yes it is that hard to accept. I do not believe that everything has to be public domain someday, and you can’t make me!
But seriously, what is your argument that things should become PB? In law that is, not just because you want them to.
Cite?
Kadmos1 is a brand new poster, and their only posts have been to this thread.
It seems likely that the newbie thought they would get approval, and in the absence of that approval they are still plowing on, to prove a point of some kind. K1 can’t bear being wrong.
We’ve had a lot of new posters like that. Maybe we should stop feeding it.
For crying out loud, stop saying this.
I already explained to you the difference in protections & the lack of crossover.
You. Are. Wrong.
I thought it was complaining that CDEL was that entity who falsely claimed Trademark rights that they didn’t own, but I admit I only skimmed it when I saw the gist.
Yes, a perpetual Copyright wouldn’t be legal, nor justified by the existence of a Trademark registration.
You have not come close to describing that situation though.
He’s asking if it’s hard for these companies to understand that people hold that idea (that Trademarks should be released & unenforced). At least, that’s how I read it. He’s missing an “is”.
What he’s not clear on is why they should care that people hold that idea.
He’s not wrong–the Constitution does specify that Copyrights should be “limited” (though it doesn’t define the term).
What he’s not correct on is that Trademarks have no place in that discussion, as they aren’t a form of Copyright and they do nothing to extend Copyright protections.
I just don’t want anyone else reading this & coming away thinking (even for a second) that this guy has a point.
Thanks, Guin–after the frustration of this thread, I needed that.
You’re free to insist that a dandelion knows calculus. But why should anyone who gets your letter insisting that your view, and not the Supreme Court’s, is the one they should adopt actually listen?
Finally someone is somewhat understanding. Let’s consider this. Let’s say all the Tarzan novels here were public domain (this is assuming current copyright laws are kept the same and it is now the year 2061). A fan wants to write a Tarzan novel with that name in the title. They would use the credit format I listed in post#42. However, they can’t because that name is trademarked. As such, the TM acts as a permanent copyright. This is part of the points I am trying to make.
Oh God, my eyes, my EYES!
Ok.
Ok.
Correct.
Still not correct.
Still just as wrong as it was every other time you made that claim.
Copyrights protect works; Trademarks protect brands.
The works are in the public domain. Copyright’s job is over. The Trademark is not extending the Copyright protections, as it only applies to that which was never affected by the Copyright protections. As such, it cannot possibly act as a perpetual Copyright.
Here, maybe this will help clear things up.
Let’s say I wrote a children’s book called “Fuzzy Bunny Goes to the Dentist”.
I would automatically hold the Copyright to that book from inception.
If I never asserted Trademark rights to “Fuzzy Bunny” then, even while I still held the Copyright to “Fuzzy Bunny Goes to the Dentist”, other writers would be free to write their own “Fuzzy Bunny” books.
Similarly, if, prior to writing the book, I Trademarked “Fuzzy Bunny” in anticipation, then, even before I wrote “Fuzzy Bunny Goes to the Dentist” (and thus before I held the Copyright on it), no other writers would be free to write their own “Fuzzy Bunny” books.
The second example gets a bit more complicated because Trademarks can’t be “parked” indefinitely–either you use it or you lose it–but it works for the purposes of this example.
See how the two have nothing to do with each other? One could hold a Copyright without holding a Trademark and vice versa.
That help?
Debillw3, your second example I will go with. The problem is someone cannot write “Fuzzy Bunny” in the title. They could use the name in the story but not the title. That is 1 of the things I am trying to get at. So, since an estate has a trademark on a character name, it doesn’t feel like public domain. Public domain is public property but trademarks on a public domain character’s name shifts to private property (of sorts).
Just to be clear, what dictionary definition are you using, and what civil offense are you imagining?
Crime Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster (a mix of definitions 1 and 4). For civil offense, in this case, retroactive copyright extensions on a work that went past it’s original expiration date. For limited times, I find the 1909 Copyright Act’s 2 28-year (had to renew during the end of the 1st term or it went to the PD) to be the best case.
Not necessarily. If it’s a Trademark, you can’t write a Fuzzy Bunny story under any title–regardless of whether or not that title contains the name.
You might be able to get away with a brief mention that’s not relevant to the plot, but that’d depend on context & would likely require a consultation with a lawyer…
And?
The character is not “public domain”–the stories involving the character are, as, again, that’s the only thing Copyright deals with.
Copyright is required to have a limit (which only means that it’s not infinite). Trademarks have no such requirement, as you seem to be aware, which is why you keep calling it “perpetual Copyright” (since “perpetual Trademark” means nothing).
Debillw3 , if your 1st point it in post #75 is true, then for practical purposes, Tarzan has no public domain version.
I mean, if you ignore the definitions of “Copyright” and “Public domain”, I guess that argument could be made.
Of course, I won’t ignore the definitions, so I’m going to (once again) point out that you’re incorrect.
Definition 1 is: “an illegal act for which someone can be punished by the government.”
Definition 4 is: “something reprehensible, foolish, or disgraceful.”
It’s not clear to me what you mean when you say “a mix” of those two. For example, do you mean an illegal act for which someone can be reprehensible, foolish, or punished by the government?
If the family still held the deed to the property and all necessary fees and taxes have been paid - yes, they still own it even if they don’t live in/on it.
Nonsense - if you reprint a copy of Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar you most certainly COULD print the trademarked name in the title because that name and title is a part of the (now public domain) work.
As noted, you certainly can reprint Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar and use “Tarzan” in the title. What you can’t do is publish a story titled “Tarzen on the Starship Enterprise”.
What so many people fail to understand is that intellectual property is still property. Just as an antique desk can be your legal property that you can pass down to your heirs, trademarks you own can likewise be passed down.
Having read a LOT of ERB stories… look, he wasn’t that stellar a writer. We’re talking pulp fiction here, not Shakespeare. He had great characters and ideas but honestly, in execution he was a bit of a hack. And I say that as a fan.
Holy shit - you haven’t read any of the actual Tarzan books? Have you read any ERB novel? Any?
Do you have any idea how arrogant that is?
Have you noticed that there is not one but TWO contemporary Sherlock Holmes TV series these days? Elementary and Sherlock, if you didn’t know. CLEARLY the CDEL is willing to license people to use those characters, and even riff off the original stories. Yet you won’t make the effort to get similar permission yourself. Yes, you CAN in fact write a new and original Sherlock Holmes story legally and even profit from doing so… but you have to get permission first from the entity holding the trademark.
So why don’t you work on convincing the CDEL to give a stamp of approval to your work? Clearly it’s NOT impossible, more than one person has done so.
The original Tarzan books ARE, in fact, public domain. If you republish those works the ERB estate has no claim on any profits you make from it, nor can they even scold you for printing them off and giving them away for free.
What trademark does is control the use of the character in new works. If you don’t like that it has to do with trademark law, not copyright. As has been explained to you more than once in this thread.
Is it me, or are all people answering to Kadmos 1 deliberately obtuse?
Regardless of his misuse of the word “copyright”, what he means is quite blatantly clear. He thinks that it shouldn’t be lawful to trademark the name of a fiction character because it forever prevents people from freely writing new fiction involving this character, and he believes that at some point people should be able to do that.
So, why aren’t people adressing this, instead of telling him over and over again what are the differences between trademark and copyright? Surely, doing so two or three times should be enough, and eventually people should begin to discuss the validity of this opinion, if only so that he won’t try to explain the same thing 20 times because he thinks that nobody understands what he means.