June 13, 2025 • 31 mins
In 2019, a new cache of works entered the public domain—from Charlie Chaplin to Jane Austen stories to Felix the Cat cartoons. But what does that really mean? Will and Mango dig into how Mickey Mouse changed copyright laws, why Woody Guthrie got foiled by his publishers, and why British clowns check a case of eggs before putting on their makeup.
This episode originally aired on January 18, 2019.
Photo by Ali Dashti via Pexels. Thanks, Ali!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Guess what will?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
What's that mango?
Speaker 1 (00:03):
So this week I started looking up Harry Potter knockoffs
and they are so terrible. I love them so much,
all right, So what'd you find? So there's this one
book in Spanish called Harry Porez and he's got his
friends Ron and Harmonia and they take on this evil
character named Condo Mort. I love how they change everyone's
(00:24):
name except Ron's, like there's no alternative name from Ron.
There's also one from Russia where he's kind of more
of a rock star and he rides a double bass
instead of a broom. But my favorite one is from China,
where Harry has to chase down Voldemort's protege Jandamort, who
apparently used to work for the circus under the name
Naughty Bubble. And there's also kind of into that to
(00:47):
check this out for some reason, there's also a character
named Big Spinach in it, but none of it makes
any sense. And can you imagine, like how bummed you'd
be if you ask for a Harry Potter book from
your parents and instead they brought you one of these
knock on ma I'm kind of into the but you know,
seeing all these crazy titles. Maybe wonder how does copyright work?
Like why can you remix a Sherlock home story but
(01:08):
not use Felix the Cat to advertise your work? Like
why are people so excited about twenty nineteen's public domain day.
We're gonna get into all of this. Let's dig in.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Hey, the podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangush hot ticketter and on the other side of
the soundproof glass celebrating the demise of copyright by eating
Those are those Charleston jew They are dancing with Charleston.
That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. All right, so
just explain a little bit. I have to point out
that part of the reason Christin is doing this is
(01:59):
because he's lairing the Charleston song. It took me a
minute to figure this out. You could probably hear this
in the background now. The song itself was written to
accompany the dance back when it debuted back in nineteen
twenty three, and it kicked off this national craze. What's
notable about this is that twenty nineteen actually marks the
end of the Charleston Songs copyright protection. I don't know
(02:22):
if you knew this, if you've been following this, but
that is the case. So now anyone can make a
new recording of the song or play a nineteen twenty
three performance of it on a podcast, all without having
to pay a dime or worry about getting sued at
least I hope that.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Which is obviously great news for any listeners who are
into the Charleston or at least as into it as
Kristan is. Apparently I guess so.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
But you know, it turns out there's a lot of
reasons the party like it's nineteen twenty three this month,
even if you're not a Charleston fan, And that's because
a slew of works from this year have just entered
the public domain for the very first time. Now, believe
it or not, this is actually the first mass influx
of public domain material in the US in twenty years,
I think. So we'll get in exactly why this is
(03:05):
and how it involves Mickey Mouse a little bit later,
but the main takeaway is that thousands of classic books
and movies and songs and other works of art they
are now free to use, remix, sell, all without any
legal restriction around them, which.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Is why we're marking the occasion with an episode all
about the ins and outs of the copyright. So we'll
talk a little bit about the history of copyright law,
including why the terms have been extended in the US
and also what makes this year so different from others.
Plus we'll take a closer look at the public domain
class of twenty nineteen to see exactly what sort of
hidden treasures just fell into our laps. But you know, will,
where do you want to start off here? All?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Right?
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Well, I thought we should give our listeners a little
bit of context to all of this. So for starters,
January first is recognized all around the world is Public
Domain Day, and I actually didn't know that until we
were doing our research for this episode. But the way
that it works is that at the stroke of midnight
on New Year's Eve, older works are automatically enter the
public domain as they age out of their copyright terms.
(04:04):
But this is where things get a little bit tricky.
So different countries have their own rules for how long
a work can remain under copyright, so most countries will
provide copyright protection for the life of their author. Plus
a certain set number of years beyond that, like the
author's life plus fifty or seventy or whatever it may be.
But in the US things have traditionally worked a little
(04:26):
bit differently. So here copyrights made prior to nineteen seventy
eight have nothing to do with the life span of
the work's author. Instead, these copyright materials are protected for
a flat ninety five years after their first publication. It
always makes you wonder, like where they come up with
the number why ninety five? So, just as an example,
the Grapes of Wrath won't enter the US public domain
(04:48):
until January of two thousand and thirty five, because that
will be ninety five years after it was first published. Now,
on the other hand, readers in places like Canada and
New Zealand, can Rea and rework the text for free
starting this year, and that's because twenty nineteen is fifty
years after the death of the book's author, John Steinbeck.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Isn't that weird? Like something about that like feels so
off to me. Yeah, I mean, it's this like quintessential
American novel and people in other countries actually get to
do whatever they want with it. First, I know, three
decades before Americans get to. It's super weird, but it
actually reminds you. I was reading about the rights to
the song this Land is Your Land, which, of course
you know what you got through. You wrote the lyrics too,
and that's a piece of music that just feels inseparable
(05:31):
from the American identity, and it's kind of come this
great American almost like an anthem, ever since it was
published back in nineteen forty five. But again for Canada
and other countries with copyright terms of life plus fifty years,
that song entered in the public domain last year, whereas
in the US you'll actually have to wait till twenty
forty one to be able to use it. Twenty forty one,
and that's when you're planning to put out a dubstep rema.
(05:53):
That's right, absolutely, But before we move on, I do
want to mention that this Land is Your Land is
kind of a funny case to look at it. So
the lyrics clained that the land belongs to you and me,
and that was actually Guthrie's intention for the song too.
In nineteen forty five, he published the song with a
copyright notice that read quote, this song is copyrighted in
(06:13):
the US for a period of twenty eight years, and
anybody caught singing it without our permission will be mighty
good friends of ourn because we don't give a durn
publish it, write it, sing it, swing to it, yodel it.
We wrote it. That's all we wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
That's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And I'm curious that, like, why didn't the song enter
the public domain in the seventies, you know, like what
he wanted it to.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Well, apparently the publisher renewed the copyright at some point
without Guthrie's input, so the song's copyright status wound up
being extended and now it's covered by the current ninety
five year term we have in the US.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Okay, all right, well in that case, I mean now
seems like a good time to break down the key
changes to the copyright law that have taken place here
in the US over you know, over several decades. But
don't worry about your eyes glazing over because I'm going
to try to keep this short and sweet good. So
they basically, American copyright law began with the Constitution, which
grants Congress the power to bestow exclusive rights to the
(07:06):
author of a work for quote limited times. So at first,
that limited time meant fourteen years, with the option to
renew for another fourteen years, making the max possible twenty
eight years. Now, those rules were mended over time that went.
By nineteen oh nine, both copyright terms had doubled to
twenty eight years or fifty six total.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I guess got it.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So that's where what you would have gotten that twenty
eight year term he claimed, you know, for the copyright
he was talking about. But you know, I'm sure he
never intended to renew the song for that second twenty
eight year period.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
So then you fast forward to nineteen seventy six and
the extension started getting kind of out of hand. So
the fifty six year period was bumped up to a
full seventy five years, meaning that any work produced through
nineteen twenty two would be copyright protected until nineteen ninety eight. Then,
in nineteen ninety eight, just as the nineteen twenty three
copyrights were about to expire for the next year, a
(08:00):
new piece of legislation was passed. It makes you wonder
why people were so interested in changing the legislation, But yeah,
the new law attacked on another twenty years for the
copyright of any work made between nineteen twenty three and
nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
And that's actually why there's this big twenty year gap
that we're just coming out of right now.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
That is exactly right.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
So those extra two decades added in, you know, nineteen
ninety eight was when this happened. It basically put a
freeze on the public domain editions. So the works that
were scheduled dinner the public domain were suddenly off the
table for another twenty years. And so that's what made
New Years of twenty nineteen such a big deal.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I mean, the drought is finally.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
And I'm guessing that's for the foreseeable future too, right,
Like a whole year's worth of work should enter the
public domain every year now, ongoing.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Right, right, And it's really just the beginning of like
four decades worth of annual time capsules, you know, so
you know, long as corporations don't succeed in extending the
copyright terms even further. Although if we're being it's not
like the last twenty years haven't brought any new additions
to the public domain from this era, because plenty of
works from the nineteen twenties through the nineteen seventies have
(09:09):
already entered the public domain because their copyrights were never
renewed for one reason or another. And in fact, one
study from twenty eleven suggested that as many as ninety
percent of works published in the nineteen twenties were never
renewed at all, and the same is true for roughly
sixty percent of the works from the nineteen forties, So
there were a ton.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Of them that were out there.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
So basically that extension in nineteen ninety eight only applied
to the works whose copyrights were still active at that time,
and so anything that hadn't been previously renewed was already
fair game.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
For public use.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Of course, the tricky part has been determining whether an
old copyright has lapsed or not.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah, I'm guessing that's a pretty murky business trying to
figure all that out.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
It is, And you know, so in the past it's
been safer to err on the side of caution and
just kind of steer clear of any work whose status
was in.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Question, of course, to avoid getting sued.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
His concerns are out the window at least as far
as works from nineteen twenty three go, And now that
they've passed the ninety five year mark. We know for
certain that they're in the public domain.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So I know there are probably some folks listening who
are thinking, okay, but who cares about all this old
timey stuff anyway. You know, it's not like I'm going
to start listening to chart toppers from the nineteen twenties
or whatever. But you know, that's totally fair. But here's
the thing that Gabe was pointing out to me. Most
of us honestly don't know what we've been missing out on.
Like the public domain provides this great chance for overlooked
(10:30):
works to find a second lease on life. And if
you look at what happened to It's a Wonderful Life.
You know, that movie actually flopped when it was first released,
but once it entered the public domain, it slowly became
a holiday classic. And that success only happened because TV
networks were actually able to play the movie for free
year after year. So in this weird way, it's like
cultural worth is actually greater today than it would have
(10:52):
been had it remained under a copyright. You know, there
is this author, Glenn Fleischman, and he had this great
quote in this article for the Atlantic, and he said, quote,
only so much that's created has room to persist in memory, culture,
and scholarship. Some works may have been forgotten because they
were simply terrible or perishable, but it's also the case
that a lack of access to these works and digital
(11:13):
forms limits whether they get considered at all.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
I mean, it's a good point, and it actually reminds
me of something I came across this week from the
American novelist Willa Cather, and she once called nineteen twenty
two the year the world broke in two, and that
was because of all the big literary and cultural shakeups
that took place that year. It was the start of
the Harlem Renaissance, plus the publication of works like Ulysses
by James Joyce and The Wasteland by T. S.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Eliott.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
So to her, nineteen twenty two was this turning point,
like there was a world before that year and then
there was a world after it. And strangely enough, that's
also how things broke down in terms of US copyright law.
So everything up through nineteen twenty two is now part
of the public domain, but it's a different story for
works from nineteen twenty three and beyond. So hundreds of
(12:01):
thousands of songs and movies and books and newspapers, magazines,
like so many different things of that era had been
held back for decades, longer than they should have been,
And so as a result, you figure there have to
be a lot of blind spots in our understanding of
that period in American history.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, like even things we know about, like the Harlem Renaissance,
so the Great Depression of World War two, Like we
should get like a fuller picture once we get access
to these materials.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Then.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Also, it'll be so fun to see them show up
in memes and music and things.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
All right, Well, I'm excited to hear what you think
should make the cut this year. But before we share
our favorites, let's take a quick break. You're listening to
Part Time Genius, so we're talking about the giant wave
(12:51):
of classic art that just entered the public domain this month.
All right, Megan, So I'm curious which works are you
most excited to have free of their copyrights this year.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
I'm just gonna go ahead and get the literature picks
out of the way first, because that's where you find
a lot of the heavy hitters, and honestly, it's too
many to go through So for fiction, we've got stories
from authors like Virginia Woolf, Aldus Huxley, Jane Austen Hemingway.
And then in terms of poetry, there's work from E. Cummings,
William Carlos, Williams, Wallace Stevens, Pablo Neruda, Robert Frost, including
(13:22):
one of his most famous poems, Stopping by Woods on
a snowy evening Like, which is just cool that these
texts are out there and easier to explore and play
with them before. But but what about you, Like, are
there any books you're happy to see in the public
domain that.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Was amazing to hear, like all those heavy hitters.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Here, But I always like it when famous literary characters
make their way into the public domain because you get
a whole bunch of new takes on them, Like that's
what happened with Robin Hood or Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
You know, I didn't think of that. So what new
characters are we getting to play with now?
Speaker 3 (13:51):
All right? Well, twenty nineteen is giving us access to
new Tarzan stories from Edgar Rice Burrows, but also two
of Agatha Christie's mystery novels, Starr Belgian detective Hercule Puro,
the Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and the Murder on the Links.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Wait, wasn't Tarzan already in the public domain?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Though, Yeah, that's right, there's a story from nineteen ten
that's been in the public domain. And actually there's one
earlier Poro novel that's already there too.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
So how do the laws work with characters like that?
I mean, can people just write their own new Tarzan
stories or can they only publish and rework the existing books?
Like is the copyright on the character or just the
stories he appears in.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Well, you can't actually copyright a name or a phrase
or anything like that. But what you can do is
get your character trademarked while it's still under copyright. So,
if you take the case of Tarzan, that's what the
author's airs did. So even though the original Tarzan stories
can be freely published and adapted for movies or comics
or whatever else, you still can't publish your own original
(14:52):
Tarzan books without receiving permission, And of course to do
that you'd have to pay a fee to the Burroughs estate,
And so things are a little more icy when it
comes to Pooro.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
And why is that? Well, not all.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Copyrighted characters qualify for trademark protection, and some people you
know maintain that Pooro does not qualify so for reasons
that they're a little too complicated to get into here.
But until someone is willing to gamble, you know, a
potential lawsuit to publish their own unauthorized story, the character's
legal status is kind of in limen So the new
(15:25):
public domain additions for those characters are mostly exciting because
it means there are new Tarzan stories or Pooro mysteries
that can be safely adapted or altered by anyone, even
if the characters themselves are still otherwise off limits.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
So I'm a little worried about what that might mean
for our next pick here, because even though twenty nineteen
Freese up the rights to a bunch of classic silent
films from people like a Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel,
and Hardy, which is awesome, by the way, because like,
it'd be so amazing to start seeing these movies on
late night TV. But you know, the one I was
most personally excited about was the Felix the Cat cartoons,
(15:59):
which just hit the public domain, and I was kind
of hoping we could add it to the PTG logo
or just make him like the official show mascot or something,
but I'm guessing that's not the case if he's still
trademark right.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
You know, Felix was one that stood out to me too,
so I actually did a little bit of digging on this,
and it turns out that even though the character is
still technically trademarked by DreamWorks, they only control his use
in certain instances. And you know, of course that's really
around advertising, So how does that work exactly? So you
could actually publish your own Felix the Cat comic strips
(16:32):
and even adapt those new stories into animated shorts, but weirdly,
you just can't include Felix himself and any of the
advertising for that. Apparently, DreamWorks also owns the Felix trademark
for quote life saving instruments, so I guess a line
of Felix branded fire extinguishers is totally off.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I feel like that's exactly where I was going with this,
like Felix EpiPens and spook detectors. But you know, if
cartoons aren't your thing, We've also got plenty of new
public domain songs to keep us busy, and there's some
real chestnuts here, tunes like dizzy Fingers Horsey keep your
tail up, I know that's a favorite in the Pierson
household aught and that timeless romantic vallid o g oh gosh,
(17:14):
oh golly, I'm in love.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
I think these are probably in that collection of that
old amberolla, like, oh yeah, the house that's all those
wax cylinders. That's pretty cool to listen to, And you
know it truly was a different time. I was actually
listening to a few songs from our list this week,
and I was struck by how many of them were
just kind.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Of wide eyed, upbeat nonsense.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Like there was this one that was basically about how
strange it is that the earth rotates, and that it
can be daytime in one part of the world and
nighttime in another. It was riveting song, but and I
guess for fun, they just threw in a bunch of
gibbers that doesn't rhyme or fit the meter or anything.
So there's this one line that goes, when it's nighttime
in Italy, it's Wednesday over here, when it's fish day
(17:55):
in Germany, you can't get shaved in Massachusetts, and the
whole thing. It's just so bizarre, and I'm really hoping
this catches on again.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
That is amazing and in the same vein of that
old timy nonsense songs. I'm pretty pumped that the copyright
finally expired on Yes We Have No Bananas Today, which
is actually one of the songs. I know.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
I would definitely leave it to you to zero in
on the Banana song and a bunch of these, But.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Weirdly, it turns out there's actually a sequel song called
the It's called I've Got the Yes we Have No
Banana Blues, and since it was released the same year
as the original, it's now in the public domain as well.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
So why did they do a follow up song? Was
it just that popular?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
It's basically a response to how popular the first song
was and how sick everyone was of hearing it all
the time. And so one of the line says, quote,
it hasn't got a bit of sense, and I go
wild when they commence bananas bananas, I wish I could
break up a million pianos.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
I get it.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
I mean, I kind of love that this song is
going to start annoying everyone all over again.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Back out there, and I was.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I guess that's kind of the scenario that these annual
copyright expirations allow for.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
So it's nice to have them back in the mix.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah, I guess that's true. But you know, we can
probably make a more compelling case for them than that,
I'm guessing. I mean, the public domain is good for
lots of stuff beyond just annoying your friends with weird
old songs.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
No, no question, it's just fun to read all those
lyrics and everything. But all right, Well, now that we've
checked out some of the most notable inductees for this year,
I do think we should take a closer look at
the benefits that come from having the growing catalog of
public domain works.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yeah, it sounds great, But before we get into that,
let's take another quick break.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
All right, Magael, So we spent a lot of time
today singing the praises of the public domain and kind
of lamenting all the extensions that certain copyrights have been
granted over the years. And honestly, at this point, I'm
a little bit worried that people might get the impression
that we or anti copyright.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Well, I mean, I do think we could survive that
sort of scandal, but let's go ahead and make the
case for copyrights anyway, just to be safe. It's actually
something worth doing, because even though copyrights can feel annoying
or restrictive, the core idea makes a lot of sense
granting creators the right to control how their work is used,
and in its purest form, copyright protections benefit not just
(20:22):
creators but society as a whole. So the idea is, like,
that's how copyrights were framed in the US Constitution. It
was kind of this way to promote the progress of
science and useful arts, and again in the first Copyright
Law of seventeen ninety, it was thought of as a
way to further the encouragement of learning.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
I mean, it's interesting because you'd almost guess that we're
talking about the public domain again and not copyrights. I mean,
how does restricting access to a work encourage learning or
promote science and art.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
So the idea is that it isn't like a short
term fix, it's one for the long run. So the
basic idea is that copyright protection offers an incentive for
people to create new works. I mean, why go to
the trouble of writing a book or making a movie
if anyone can just copy it right after it's made public. Right. So,
one way I've seen it described is that copyright is
basically a contract between creators and society. They continue making
(21:12):
new stuff and in return, we promised not to rip
it off or muck with it for about twenty eight
years or however long, at which point the work belongs
to everyone.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
I mean, I get that the premise is sound, but
it does it feels like these copyright terms have kind
of ballooned so much that we've kind of lost sight
of their original purpose.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah, I mean, the trouble is that there's always someone
arguing that the length of the copyright is too short
to make a profit. And back in the days of
fourteen and twenty eight year terms, content creators may have
had a point. But you know, now that we're up
to ninety five years or a lifetime plus seventy years,
the terms they really start to seem excessive. So the
contract we started with has gotten a lot more one
(21:50):
sided over the last century, which is.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Of course an intentional move on the part of copyright holders,
or more specifically, the part of companies that hold those
copyright Yeah, because the ones making money on the ninety
five year copyrights or lifetime plus copyrights aren't the authors
or really even their families in most cases. Instead, it's
the companies that control the rights once the creator is gone.
(22:13):
Like the Woody Guthrie example you gave earlier, his descendants
aren't cashing in from licensing deals.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
It's the publisher that is sure.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
I mean, that's a great point. And corporations definitely played
a huge role in the twentieth century extensions to copyright terms.
I mean, the most famous example is probably the nineteen
ninety eight extension you mentioned earlier, the one that raised
the term for older US copyrights from seventy five to
ninety five years. And the law was called the Sonny
Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. And the Disney Corporation was
(22:42):
actually his biggest and most vocal champion, and that's because
they wanted to keep the first Mickey Mouse cartoon ever released,
which is Steamboat Willie, from entering the public domain in
two thousand and three.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
So what did Sonny Bono have to do with this? Like,
shouldn't it have been called the Mickey Mouse Act?
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah, I mean that might have been more accurate. And
actually Disney lobbied so hard for the legislation that some
people actually do refer to it as the Mickey Mouse
Protection Act, but in reality, the ninety eight bill was
named as a way to honor Sonny Bono, who had
passed away in January of that year. And if that
sounds kind of random, it isn't just that he was
an entertainer. It's also that he was a congressman in California,
(23:17):
and during his tenure, Bono had actually pushed hard for
better copyright protection. So the gesture kind of made a
lot of sense if you knew all that.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, But I mean, you know, it still strikes me
about this whole thing is how ironic it is that
a company built on adaptations of public domain fairy tales
they're the ones that wound up fighting to keep all
those adaptations under wraps.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah, and the ironies don't end there either, because Disney's
Steamboat Willie cartoon was itself a parody of Buster Keaton's
short called Steamboat Bill Junior. It actually premiered the same year.
So yeah, and so while the Keaton short entered the
public domain years ago, the cartoon it inspired is still
under lock and key. It's kind of bizarre, but you know,
(23:59):
just like with Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouse's trademark, so
when the copyright on his debut cartoon expires, the short
itself can be bought or sold or given away or
remixed by anyone, but the Mickey character will still belong
to the Disney Company for as long as it continues
to you know, use his likeness and continuity.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
So one of the things you hope doesn't happen is
that someone makes an adult version of Steamboat Willie. Actually,
one of the main arguments you hear from staunch copyright
defenders like the ideas that when work slip into the
public domain, they will be abused. They're tarnet in some way.
So for instance, the book could be published with errors,
or a film could be released in low quality.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah, or someone could replace every other line in your
poem with Beyonce lyrics, which.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Might be an improvement depending on how bad the poetry is.
But I mean, you get the point. The worry is
that a public domain work will be over exploited and
that it's cultural or artistic worth, you know, by because
of that, it'll be diminished in the process.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I mean that sounds like a legit concern. Doesn't it.
But you know, like I love the idea of pride
and prejudice and zombies, you know, like Jane Austen might
not have wanted that when you wrote it, but it's
a pretty great thing for all of us.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
And probably more people went back and actually read Pride
and Prejudice when that Yeah, yeah, that's true. And for
the most part, I'm not sure the argument holds that
much water, you know, because, for instance, there was a
study back in twenty twelve where researchers took a bunch
of different audio books, some of the public domains, some
under copyright, and they had listeners provide feedback on the
quality of each one and just actually, I'll just read
(25:30):
here what they found. So our data provided almost no
support for the arguments made by proponents of copyright term
extension that once works fall into the public domain, they
will be produced in poor quality versions that will undermine
their cultural or economic value. Our data indicate no statistically
significant difference, for example, between the listener's judgments of the
(25:50):
quality of the professional audiobook readers or copyrighted and public
domain texts.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So it sounds like we're saying, even though there could
be downsides, to a work entering the public domain, those
drawbacks tend to be heavily outweighed by the benefits of
open access. I mean, teachers can make photocopies without breaking
the law, artists can pay tribute to and even build
off the worst that inspire them, and the rest of
us can kick back and listen to Yes, we have
no bananas on loop, completely free of charge.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
I was there with you until that last part, but
I do agree the public domain is a win for society,
and it's exciting to see how it can grow substantially
again after a twenty year hiatus. But before we go
exploring into that treasure trove once again, I know we
still have a bunch of weird copyright facts to share,
so let's get into the fact off. All right, Well,
(26:47):
here's something I think is pretty cool. There's this little
village in England called Wookie Hole.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
That's already cool.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Yeah, yeah, And there are over three hundred eggs painted
with clown faces on them. And this collection is known
as the Clown Register. And while it started as a
hobby where one individual was cataloging these clowns just for fun,
the collection grew into a way for professional clowns to
basically copyright the way they make up their faces, you know,
(27:13):
to protect from imitators. That's crazy, and so the tradition
actually continues today. If you register with the Clowns International,
they will have your makeup painted on a ceramic.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
That's crazy. There's one thing I learned this week that
you can't copyright, and that's a chicken sandwich. And I
know this because a man named Narberto Cologne Lorenzana tried
to do this in the nineteen eighties. Apparently, Narberto added
a simple chicken sandwich to the menu at Church's Chicken
in Puerto Rico, and the company made millions off it.
(27:44):
They even used the name he gave it, the Pache Sandwich.
But when he tried to sue for intellectual property theft,
the judge sternly rebuked him, letting him know that while films, books, music,
and architecture and even some art are all protected, culinary
inventions are kind of a gray area, especially chicken sandwiches.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Well, speaking of architecture, it is interesting to note that
Hershey's has a trademark for the structural design of their
chocolate bar, and apparently it took a ton of work
to get that. Basically, they were trying to protect the
fact that you can snap those little rectangles off to
fit perfectly on a smorn if you think about like,
everyone can image those exact rectangles. But as Smithsonian notes,
(28:26):
functionality is not a qualifying feature when registering a product
design for trademark, so to win the case, they basically
had to show that the ridges were more than just utility.
The architectural design was something that people associated with Hershey Bars,
even when the brand name was absent from the chocolate,
and I would completely agree with.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
You, Yeah, it's really interesting. Well, here's a funny one
for mental phloss. Apparently, the nineteen sixty three Beach Boys
hit Surfin Usa is a complete knockoff of a Chuck
Berry song called Sweet Little Sixteen. I had never heard
of that that when very accused Brian Wilson of steel
the song without telling anyone, Wilson's dad, who also happened
to be the band's manager, gave Barry the copyright to
(29:06):
the tune, but he didn't tell anyone in the band,
so the band actually only learned that they weren't getting
royalties from the song twenty five years after it was released. Like,
why are we not getting any money on this song
we stole? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Well, speaking of wild did you know that animals can't
own copyrights manga?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I don't even know how that could be an issue.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Well, in twenty eleven, this photographer named David Slater went
to Indonesia and he had this brilliant idea, like what
if he set up a tripod and tried to get
the monkeys to take selfies of themselves. Sure, and somehow
this one female macaque named Nrudo went crazy, and of
course the photos went viral. The Wikipedia put them up,
(29:47):
claiming no one could own the copyright, and David Slater
assumed that he owned the rights. It was his camera
and idea after all. But PETA and their ethical treatment
of all animals decided to sue on the monkey's behalf,
claiming that this female should get the royalties on the photos.
So far, the US Copyright Office has taken a firm
(30:08):
line that quote, the Office will not register works produced
by nature, animals or plants, and it's put the photos
in the public domain. But PETA is still fighting for
its social media star client.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
That's pretty crazy. I mean, I think monkeys are a
great way to end the show, clown eggs, monkey selfies.
I do think you deserve today's trophy and to celebrate
your victory, Tristan, will you please queue up. Yes, we
have no more bananas. That is it for today's show.
I do want to give a special shout out to
our listener Samantha, who tipped us off on some Brady
Bunch spinoffs from our last nine things that we did,
(30:41):
our favorite of which is The Brady Brides, where Marcia
and Jen have a double wedding to their boyfriends and
then have to live in the same house because they
can't afford to move out. Unfortunately, The High Drinks only
last is six episodes, which sounds great and terrible but one. Yeah,
but thank you so much for that, Samantha. But that's
it for today's show. If you want to send us
facts where part time genius at how stuffworks dot com
(31:02):
and from Gabe, Tristan, Will and me. Thank you so
much for listening.
Guess what will?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
What's that mango?
Speaker 1 (00:03):
So this week I started looking up Harry Potter knockoffs
and they are so terrible. I love them so much,
all right, So what'd you find? So there's this one
book in Spanish called Harry Porez and he's got his
friends Ron and Harmonia and they take on this evil
character named Condo Mort. I love how they change everyone's
(00:24):
name except Ron's, like there's no alternative name from Ron.
There's also one from Russia where he's kind of more
of a rock star and he rides a double bass
instead of a broom. But my favorite one is from China,
where Harry has to chase down Voldemort's protege Jandamort, who
apparently used to work for the circus under the name
Naughty Bubble. And there's also kind of into that to
(00:47):
check this out for some reason, there's also a character
named Big Spinach in it, but none of it makes
any sense. And can you imagine, like how bummed you'd
be if you ask for a Harry Potter book from
your parents and instead they brought you one of these
knock on ma I'm kind of into the but you know,
seeing all these crazy titles. Maybe wonder how does copyright work?
Like why can you remix a Sherlock home story but
(01:08):
not use Felix the Cat to advertise your work? Like
why are people so excited about twenty nineteen's public domain day.
We're gonna get into all of this. Let's dig in.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Hey, the podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangush hot ticketter and on the other side of
the soundproof glass celebrating the demise of copyright by eating
Those are those Charleston jew They are dancing with Charleston.
That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. All right, so
just explain a little bit. I have to point out
that part of the reason Christin is doing this is
(01:59):
because he's lairing the Charleston song. It took me a
minute to figure this out. You could probably hear this
in the background now. The song itself was written to
accompany the dance back when it debuted back in nineteen
twenty three, and it kicked off this national craze. What's
notable about this is that twenty nineteen actually marks the
end of the Charleston Songs copyright protection. I don't know
(02:22):
if you knew this, if you've been following this, but
that is the case. So now anyone can make a
new recording of the song or play a nineteen twenty
three performance of it on a podcast, all without having
to pay a dime or worry about getting sued at
least I hope that.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Which is obviously great news for any listeners who are
into the Charleston or at least as into it as
Kristan is. Apparently I guess so.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
But you know, it turns out there's a lot of
reasons the party like it's nineteen twenty three this month,
even if you're not a Charleston fan, And that's because
a slew of works from this year have just entered
the public domain for the very first time. Now, believe
it or not, this is actually the first mass influx
of public domain material in the US in twenty years,
I think. So we'll get in exactly why this is
(03:05):
and how it involves Mickey Mouse a little bit later,
but the main takeaway is that thousands of classic books
and movies and songs and other works of art they
are now free to use, remix, sell, all without any
legal restriction around them, which.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Is why we're marking the occasion with an episode all
about the ins and outs of the copyright. So we'll
talk a little bit about the history of copyright law,
including why the terms have been extended in the US
and also what makes this year so different from others.
Plus we'll take a closer look at the public domain
class of twenty nineteen to see exactly what sort of
hidden treasures just fell into our laps. But you know, will,
where do you want to start off here? All?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Right?
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Well, I thought we should give our listeners a little
bit of context to all of this. So for starters,
January first is recognized all around the world is Public
Domain Day, and I actually didn't know that until we
were doing our research for this episode. But the way
that it works is that at the stroke of midnight
on New Year's Eve, older works are automatically enter the
public domain as they age out of their copyright terms.
(04:04):
But this is where things get a little bit tricky.
So different countries have their own rules for how long
a work can remain under copyright, so most countries will
provide copyright protection for the life of their author. Plus
a certain set number of years beyond that, like the
author's life plus fifty or seventy or whatever it may be.
But in the US things have traditionally worked a little
(04:26):
bit differently. So here copyrights made prior to nineteen seventy
eight have nothing to do with the life span of
the work's author. Instead, these copyright materials are protected for
a flat ninety five years after their first publication. It
always makes you wonder, like where they come up with
the number why ninety five? So, just as an example,
the Grapes of Wrath won't enter the US public domain
(04:48):
until January of two thousand and thirty five, because that
will be ninety five years after it was first published. Now,
on the other hand, readers in places like Canada and
New Zealand, can Rea and rework the text for free
starting this year, and that's because twenty nineteen is fifty
years after the death of the book's author, John Steinbeck.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Isn't that weird? Like something about that like feels so
off to me. Yeah, I mean, it's this like quintessential
American novel and people in other countries actually get to
do whatever they want with it. First, I know, three
decades before Americans get to. It's super weird, but it
actually reminds you. I was reading about the rights to
the song this Land is Your Land, which, of course
you know what you got through. You wrote the lyrics too,
and that's a piece of music that just feels inseparable
(05:31):
from the American identity, and it's kind of come this
great American almost like an anthem, ever since it was
published back in nineteen forty five. But again for Canada
and other countries with copyright terms of life plus fifty years,
that song entered in the public domain last year, whereas
in the US you'll actually have to wait till twenty
forty one to be able to use it. Twenty forty one,
and that's when you're planning to put out a dubstep rema.
(05:53):
That's right, absolutely, But before we move on, I do
want to mention that this Land is Your Land is
kind of a funny case to look at it. So
the lyrics clained that the land belongs to you and me,
and that was actually Guthrie's intention for the song too.
In nineteen forty five, he published the song with a
copyright notice that read quote, this song is copyrighted in
(06:13):
the US for a period of twenty eight years, and
anybody caught singing it without our permission will be mighty
good friends of ourn because we don't give a durn
publish it, write it, sing it, swing to it, yodel it.
We wrote it. That's all we wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
That's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And I'm curious that, like, why didn't the song enter
the public domain in the seventies, you know, like what
he wanted it to.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Well, apparently the publisher renewed the copyright at some point
without Guthrie's input, so the song's copyright status wound up
being extended and now it's covered by the current ninety
five year term we have in the US.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Okay, all right, well in that case, I mean now
seems like a good time to break down the key
changes to the copyright law that have taken place here
in the US over you know, over several decades. But
don't worry about your eyes glazing over because I'm going
to try to keep this short and sweet good. So
they basically, American copyright law began with the Constitution, which
grants Congress the power to bestow exclusive rights to the
(07:06):
author of a work for quote limited times. So at first,
that limited time meant fourteen years, with the option to
renew for another fourteen years, making the max possible twenty
eight years. Now, those rules were mended over time that went.
By nineteen oh nine, both copyright terms had doubled to
twenty eight years or fifty six total.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I guess got it.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So that's where what you would have gotten that twenty
eight year term he claimed, you know, for the copyright
he was talking about. But you know, I'm sure he
never intended to renew the song for that second twenty
eight year period.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
So then you fast forward to nineteen seventy six and
the extension started getting kind of out of hand. So
the fifty six year period was bumped up to a
full seventy five years, meaning that any work produced through
nineteen twenty two would be copyright protected until nineteen ninety eight. Then,
in nineteen ninety eight, just as the nineteen twenty three
copyrights were about to expire for the next year, a
(08:00):
new piece of legislation was passed. It makes you wonder
why people were so interested in changing the legislation, But yeah,
the new law attacked on another twenty years for the
copyright of any work made between nineteen twenty three and
nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
And that's actually why there's this big twenty year gap
that we're just coming out of right now.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
That is exactly right.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
So those extra two decades added in, you know, nineteen
ninety eight was when this happened. It basically put a
freeze on the public domain editions. So the works that
were scheduled dinner the public domain were suddenly off the
table for another twenty years. And so that's what made
New Years of twenty nineteen such a big deal.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I mean, the drought is finally.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
And I'm guessing that's for the foreseeable future too, right,
Like a whole year's worth of work should enter the
public domain every year now, ongoing.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Right, right, And it's really just the beginning of like
four decades worth of annual time capsules, you know, so
you know, long as corporations don't succeed in extending the
copyright terms even further. Although if we're being it's not
like the last twenty years haven't brought any new additions
to the public domain from this era, because plenty of
works from the nineteen twenties through the nineteen seventies have
(09:09):
already entered the public domain because their copyrights were never
renewed for one reason or another. And in fact, one
study from twenty eleven suggested that as many as ninety
percent of works published in the nineteen twenties were never
renewed at all, and the same is true for roughly
sixty percent of the works from the nineteen forties, So
there were a ton.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Of them that were out there.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
So basically that extension in nineteen ninety eight only applied
to the works whose copyrights were still active at that time,
and so anything that hadn't been previously renewed was already
fair game.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
For public use.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Of course, the tricky part has been determining whether an
old copyright has lapsed or not.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah, I'm guessing that's a pretty murky business trying to
figure all that out.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
It is, And you know, so in the past it's
been safer to err on the side of caution and
just kind of steer clear of any work whose status
was in.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Question, of course, to avoid getting sued.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
His concerns are out the window at least as far
as works from nineteen twenty three go, And now that
they've passed the ninety five year mark. We know for
certain that they're in the public domain.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So I know there are probably some folks listening who
are thinking, okay, but who cares about all this old
timey stuff anyway. You know, it's not like I'm going
to start listening to chart toppers from the nineteen twenties
or whatever. But you know, that's totally fair. But here's
the thing that Gabe was pointing out to me. Most
of us honestly don't know what we've been missing out on.
Like the public domain provides this great chance for overlooked
(10:30):
works to find a second lease on life. And if
you look at what happened to It's a Wonderful Life.
You know, that movie actually flopped when it was first released,
but once it entered the public domain, it slowly became
a holiday classic. And that success only happened because TV
networks were actually able to play the movie for free
year after year. So in this weird way, it's like
cultural worth is actually greater today than it would have
(10:52):
been had it remained under a copyright. You know, there
is this author, Glenn Fleischman, and he had this great
quote in this article for the Atlantic, and he said, quote,
only so much that's created has room to persist in memory, culture,
and scholarship. Some works may have been forgotten because they
were simply terrible or perishable, but it's also the case
that a lack of access to these works and digital
(11:13):
forms limits whether they get considered at all.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
I mean, it's a good point, and it actually reminds
me of something I came across this week from the
American novelist Willa Cather, and she once called nineteen twenty
two the year the world broke in two, and that
was because of all the big literary and cultural shakeups
that took place that year. It was the start of
the Harlem Renaissance, plus the publication of works like Ulysses
by James Joyce and The Wasteland by T. S.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Eliott.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
So to her, nineteen twenty two was this turning point,
like there was a world before that year and then
there was a world after it. And strangely enough, that's
also how things broke down in terms of US copyright law.
So everything up through nineteen twenty two is now part
of the public domain, but it's a different story for
works from nineteen twenty three and beyond. So hundreds of
(12:01):
thousands of songs and movies and books and newspapers, magazines,
like so many different things of that era had been
held back for decades, longer than they should have been,
And so as a result, you figure there have to
be a lot of blind spots in our understanding of
that period in American history.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, like even things we know about, like the Harlem Renaissance,
so the Great Depression of World War two, Like we
should get like a fuller picture once we get access
to these materials.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Then.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Also, it'll be so fun to see them show up
in memes and music and things.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
All right, Well, I'm excited to hear what you think
should make the cut this year. But before we share
our favorites, let's take a quick break. You're listening to
Part Time Genius, so we're talking about the giant wave
(12:51):
of classic art that just entered the public domain this month.
All right, Megan, So I'm curious which works are you
most excited to have free of their copyrights this year.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
I'm just gonna go ahead and get the literature picks
out of the way first, because that's where you find
a lot of the heavy hitters, and honestly, it's too
many to go through So for fiction, we've got stories
from authors like Virginia Woolf, Aldus Huxley, Jane Austen Hemingway.
And then in terms of poetry, there's work from E. Cummings,
William Carlos, Williams, Wallace Stevens, Pablo Neruda, Robert Frost, including
(13:22):
one of his most famous poems, Stopping by Woods on
a snowy evening Like, which is just cool that these
texts are out there and easier to explore and play
with them before. But but what about you, Like, are
there any books you're happy to see in the public
domain that.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Was amazing to hear, like all those heavy hitters.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Here, But I always like it when famous literary characters
make their way into the public domain because you get
a whole bunch of new takes on them, Like that's
what happened with Robin Hood or Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
You know, I didn't think of that. So what new
characters are we getting to play with now?
Speaker 3 (13:51):
All right? Well, twenty nineteen is giving us access to
new Tarzan stories from Edgar Rice Burrows, but also two
of Agatha Christie's mystery novels, Starr Belgian detective Hercule Puro,
the Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and the Murder on the Links.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Wait, wasn't Tarzan already in the public domain?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Though, Yeah, that's right, there's a story from nineteen ten
that's been in the public domain. And actually there's one
earlier Poro novel that's already there too.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
So how do the laws work with characters like that?
I mean, can people just write their own new Tarzan
stories or can they only publish and rework the existing books?
Like is the copyright on the character or just the
stories he appears in.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Well, you can't actually copyright a name or a phrase
or anything like that. But what you can do is
get your character trademarked while it's still under copyright. So,
if you take the case of Tarzan, that's what the
author's airs did. So even though the original Tarzan stories
can be freely published and adapted for movies or comics
or whatever else, you still can't publish your own original
(14:52):
Tarzan books without receiving permission, And of course to do
that you'd have to pay a fee to the Burroughs estate,
And so things are a little more icy when it
comes to Pooro.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
And why is that? Well, not all.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Copyrighted characters qualify for trademark protection, and some people you
know maintain that Pooro does not qualify so for reasons
that they're a little too complicated to get into here.
But until someone is willing to gamble, you know, a
potential lawsuit to publish their own unauthorized story, the character's
legal status is kind of in limen So the new
(15:25):
public domain additions for those characters are mostly exciting because
it means there are new Tarzan stories or Pooro mysteries
that can be safely adapted or altered by anyone, even
if the characters themselves are still otherwise off limits.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
So I'm a little worried about what that might mean
for our next pick here, because even though twenty nineteen
Freese up the rights to a bunch of classic silent
films from people like a Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel,
and Hardy, which is awesome, by the way, because like,
it'd be so amazing to start seeing these movies on
late night TV. But you know, the one I was
most personally excited about was the Felix the Cat cartoons,
(15:59):
which just hit the public domain, and I was kind
of hoping we could add it to the PTG logo
or just make him like the official show mascot or something,
but I'm guessing that's not the case if he's still
trademark right.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
You know, Felix was one that stood out to me too,
so I actually did a little bit of digging on this,
and it turns out that even though the character is
still technically trademarked by DreamWorks, they only control his use
in certain instances. And you know, of course that's really
around advertising, So how does that work exactly? So you
could actually publish your own Felix the Cat comic strips
(16:32):
and even adapt those new stories into animated shorts, but weirdly,
you just can't include Felix himself and any of the
advertising for that. Apparently, DreamWorks also owns the Felix trademark
for quote life saving instruments, so I guess a line
of Felix branded fire extinguishers is totally off.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I feel like that's exactly where I was going with this,
like Felix EpiPens and spook detectors. But you know, if
cartoons aren't your thing, We've also got plenty of new
public domain songs to keep us busy, and there's some
real chestnuts here, tunes like dizzy Fingers Horsey keep your
tail up, I know that's a favorite in the Pierson
household aught and that timeless romantic vallid o g oh gosh,
(17:14):
oh golly, I'm in love.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
I think these are probably in that collection of that
old amberolla, like, oh yeah, the house that's all those
wax cylinders. That's pretty cool to listen to, And you
know it truly was a different time. I was actually
listening to a few songs from our list this week,
and I was struck by how many of them were
just kind.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Of wide eyed, upbeat nonsense.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Like there was this one that was basically about how
strange it is that the earth rotates, and that it
can be daytime in one part of the world and
nighttime in another. It was riveting song, but and I
guess for fun, they just threw in a bunch of
gibbers that doesn't rhyme or fit the meter or anything.
So there's this one line that goes, when it's nighttime
in Italy, it's Wednesday over here, when it's fish day
(17:55):
in Germany, you can't get shaved in Massachusetts, and the
whole thing. It's just so bizarre, and I'm really hoping
this catches on again.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
That is amazing and in the same vein of that
old timy nonsense songs. I'm pretty pumped that the copyright
finally expired on Yes We Have No Bananas Today, which
is actually one of the songs. I know.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
I would definitely leave it to you to zero in
on the Banana song and a bunch of these, But.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Weirdly, it turns out there's actually a sequel song called
the It's called I've Got the Yes we Have No
Banana Blues, and since it was released the same year
as the original, it's now in the public domain as well.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
So why did they do a follow up song? Was
it just that popular?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
It's basically a response to how popular the first song
was and how sick everyone was of hearing it all
the time. And so one of the line says, quote,
it hasn't got a bit of sense, and I go
wild when they commence bananas bananas, I wish I could
break up a million pianos.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
I get it.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
I mean, I kind of love that this song is
going to start annoying everyone all over again.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Back out there, and I was.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I guess that's kind of the scenario that these annual
copyright expirations allow for.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
So it's nice to have them back in the mix.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah, I guess that's true. But you know, we can
probably make a more compelling case for them than that,
I'm guessing. I mean, the public domain is good for
lots of stuff beyond just annoying your friends with weird
old songs.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
No, no question, it's just fun to read all those
lyrics and everything. But all right, Well, now that we've
checked out some of the most notable inductees for this year,
I do think we should take a closer look at
the benefits that come from having the growing catalog of
public domain works.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yeah, it sounds great, But before we get into that,
let's take another quick break.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
All right, Magael, So we spent a lot of time
today singing the praises of the public domain and kind
of lamenting all the extensions that certain copyrights have been
granted over the years. And honestly, at this point, I'm
a little bit worried that people might get the impression
that we or anti copyright.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Well, I mean, I do think we could survive that
sort of scandal, but let's go ahead and make the
case for copyrights anyway, just to be safe. It's actually
something worth doing, because even though copyrights can feel annoying
or restrictive, the core idea makes a lot of sense
granting creators the right to control how their work is used,
and in its purest form, copyright protections benefit not just
(20:22):
creators but society as a whole. So the idea is, like,
that's how copyrights were framed in the US Constitution. It
was kind of this way to promote the progress of
science and useful arts, and again in the first Copyright
Law of seventeen ninety, it was thought of as a
way to further the encouragement of learning.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
I mean, it's interesting because you'd almost guess that we're
talking about the public domain again and not copyrights. I mean,
how does restricting access to a work encourage learning or
promote science and art.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
So the idea is that it isn't like a short
term fix, it's one for the long run. So the
basic idea is that copyright protection offers an incentive for
people to create new works. I mean, why go to
the trouble of writing a book or making a movie
if anyone can just copy it right after it's made public. Right. So,
one way I've seen it described is that copyright is
basically a contract between creators and society. They continue making
(21:12):
new stuff and in return, we promised not to rip
it off or muck with it for about twenty eight
years or however long, at which point the work belongs
to everyone.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
I mean, I get that the premise is sound, but
it does it feels like these copyright terms have kind
of ballooned so much that we've kind of lost sight
of their original purpose.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah, I mean, the trouble is that there's always someone
arguing that the length of the copyright is too short
to make a profit. And back in the days of
fourteen and twenty eight year terms, content creators may have
had a point. But you know, now that we're up
to ninety five years or a lifetime plus seventy years,
the terms they really start to seem excessive. So the
contract we started with has gotten a lot more one
(21:50):
sided over the last century, which is.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Of course an intentional move on the part of copyright holders,
or more specifically, the part of companies that hold those
copyright Yeah, because the ones making money on the ninety
five year copyrights or lifetime plus copyrights aren't the authors
or really even their families in most cases. Instead, it's
the companies that control the rights once the creator is gone.
(22:13):
Like the Woody Guthrie example you gave earlier, his descendants
aren't cashing in from licensing deals.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
It's the publisher that is sure.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
I mean, that's a great point. And corporations definitely played
a huge role in the twentieth century extensions to copyright terms.
I mean, the most famous example is probably the nineteen
ninety eight extension you mentioned earlier, the one that raised
the term for older US copyrights from seventy five to
ninety five years. And the law was called the Sonny
Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. And the Disney Corporation was
(22:42):
actually his biggest and most vocal champion, and that's because
they wanted to keep the first Mickey Mouse cartoon ever released,
which is Steamboat Willie, from entering the public domain in
two thousand and three.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
So what did Sonny Bono have to do with this? Like,
shouldn't it have been called the Mickey Mouse Act?
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah, I mean that might have been more accurate. And
actually Disney lobbied so hard for the legislation that some
people actually do refer to it as the Mickey Mouse
Protection Act, but in reality, the ninety eight bill was
named as a way to honor Sonny Bono, who had
passed away in January of that year. And if that
sounds kind of random, it isn't just that he was
an entertainer. It's also that he was a congressman in California,
(23:17):
and during his tenure, Bono had actually pushed hard for
better copyright protection. So the gesture kind of made a
lot of sense if you knew all that.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, But I mean, you know, it still strikes me
about this whole thing is how ironic it is that
a company built on adaptations of public domain fairy tales
they're the ones that wound up fighting to keep all
those adaptations under wraps.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah, and the ironies don't end there either, because Disney's
Steamboat Willie cartoon was itself a parody of Buster Keaton's
short called Steamboat Bill Junior. It actually premiered the same year.
So yeah, and so while the Keaton short entered the
public domain years ago, the cartoon it inspired is still
under lock and key. It's kind of bizarre, but you know,
(23:59):
just like with Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouse's trademark, so
when the copyright on his debut cartoon expires, the short
itself can be bought or sold or given away or
remixed by anyone, but the Mickey character will still belong
to the Disney Company for as long as it continues
to you know, use his likeness and continuity.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
So one of the things you hope doesn't happen is
that someone makes an adult version of Steamboat Willie. Actually,
one of the main arguments you hear from staunch copyright
defenders like the ideas that when work slip into the
public domain, they will be abused. They're tarnet in some way.
So for instance, the book could be published with errors,
or a film could be released in low quality.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah, or someone could replace every other line in your
poem with Beyonce lyrics, which.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Might be an improvement depending on how bad the poetry is.
But I mean, you get the point. The worry is
that a public domain work will be over exploited and
that it's cultural or artistic worth, you know, by because
of that, it'll be diminished in the process.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I mean that sounds like a legit concern. Doesn't it.
But you know, like I love the idea of pride
and prejudice and zombies, you know, like Jane Austen might
not have wanted that when you wrote it, but it's
a pretty great thing for all of us.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
And probably more people went back and actually read Pride
and Prejudice when that Yeah, yeah, that's true. And for
the most part, I'm not sure the argument holds that
much water, you know, because, for instance, there was a
study back in twenty twelve where researchers took a bunch
of different audio books, some of the public domains, some
under copyright, and they had listeners provide feedback on the
quality of each one and just actually, I'll just read
(25:30):
here what they found. So our data provided almost no
support for the arguments made by proponents of copyright term
extension that once works fall into the public domain, they
will be produced in poor quality versions that will undermine
their cultural or economic value. Our data indicate no statistically
significant difference, for example, between the listener's judgments of the
(25:50):
quality of the professional audiobook readers or copyrighted and public
domain texts.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So it sounds like we're saying, even though there could
be downsides, to a work entering the public domain, those
drawbacks tend to be heavily outweighed by the benefits of
open access. I mean, teachers can make photocopies without breaking
the law, artists can pay tribute to and even build
off the worst that inspire them, and the rest of
us can kick back and listen to Yes, we have
no bananas on loop, completely free of charge.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
I was there with you until that last part, but
I do agree the public domain is a win for society,
and it's exciting to see how it can grow substantially
again after a twenty year hiatus. But before we go
exploring into that treasure trove once again, I know we
still have a bunch of weird copyright facts to share,
so let's get into the fact off. All right, Well,
(26:47):
here's something I think is pretty cool. There's this little
village in England called Wookie Hole.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
That's already cool.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Yeah, yeah, And there are over three hundred eggs painted
with clown faces on them. And this collection is known
as the Clown Register. And while it started as a
hobby where one individual was cataloging these clowns just for fun,
the collection grew into a way for professional clowns to
basically copyright the way they make up their faces, you know,
(27:13):
to protect from imitators. That's crazy, and so the tradition
actually continues today. If you register with the Clowns International,
they will have your makeup painted on a ceramic.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
That's crazy. There's one thing I learned this week that
you can't copyright, and that's a chicken sandwich. And I
know this because a man named Narberto Cologne Lorenzana tried
to do this in the nineteen eighties. Apparently, Narberto added
a simple chicken sandwich to the menu at Church's Chicken
in Puerto Rico, and the company made millions off it.
(27:44):
They even used the name he gave it, the Pache Sandwich.
But when he tried to sue for intellectual property theft,
the judge sternly rebuked him, letting him know that while films, books, music,
and architecture and even some art are all protected, culinary
inventions are kind of a gray area, especially chicken sandwiches.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Well, speaking of architecture, it is interesting to note that
Hershey's has a trademark for the structural design of their
chocolate bar, and apparently it took a ton of work
to get that. Basically, they were trying to protect the
fact that you can snap those little rectangles off to
fit perfectly on a smorn if you think about like,
everyone can image those exact rectangles. But as Smithsonian notes,
(28:26):
functionality is not a qualifying feature when registering a product
design for trademark, so to win the case, they basically
had to show that the ridges were more than just utility.
The architectural design was something that people associated with Hershey Bars,
even when the brand name was absent from the chocolate,
and I would completely agree with.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
You, Yeah, it's really interesting. Well, here's a funny one
for mental phloss. Apparently, the nineteen sixty three Beach Boys
hit Surfin Usa is a complete knockoff of a Chuck
Berry song called Sweet Little Sixteen. I had never heard
of that that when very accused Brian Wilson of steel
the song without telling anyone, Wilson's dad, who also happened
to be the band's manager, gave Barry the copyright to
(29:06):
the tune, but he didn't tell anyone in the band,
so the band actually only learned that they weren't getting
royalties from the song twenty five years after it was released. Like,
why are we not getting any money on this song
we stole? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Well, speaking of wild did you know that animals can't
own copyrights manga?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I don't even know how that could be an issue.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Well, in twenty eleven, this photographer named David Slater went
to Indonesia and he had this brilliant idea, like what
if he set up a tripod and tried to get
the monkeys to take selfies of themselves. Sure, and somehow
this one female macaque named Nrudo went crazy, and of
course the photos went viral. The Wikipedia put them up,
(29:47):
claiming no one could own the copyright, and David Slater
assumed that he owned the rights. It was his camera
and idea after all. But PETA and their ethical treatment
of all animals decided to sue on the monkey's behalf,
claiming that this female should get the royalties on the photos.
So far, the US Copyright Office has taken a firm
(30:08):
line that quote, the Office will not register works produced
by nature, animals or plants, and it's put the photos
in the public domain. But PETA is still fighting for
its social media star client.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
That's pretty crazy. I mean, I think monkeys are a
great way to end the show, clown eggs, monkey selfies.
I do think you deserve today's trophy and to celebrate
your victory, Tristan, will you please queue up. Yes, we
have no more bananas. That is it for today's show.
I do want to give a special shout out to
our listener Samantha, who tipped us off on some Brady
Bunch spinoffs from our last nine things that we did,
(30:41):
our favorite of which is The Brady Brides, where Marcia
and Jen have a double wedding to their boyfriends and
then have to live in the same house because they
can't afford to move out. Unfortunately, The High Drinks only
last is six episodes, which sounds great and terrible but one. Yeah,
but thank you so much for that, Samantha. But that's
it for today's show. If you want to send us
facts where part time genius at how stuffworks dot com
(31:02):
and from Gabe, Tristan, Will and me. Thank you so
much for listening.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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