January 18, 2019 • 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.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I guess what will what's that? So this week I
started looking up Harry Potter knockoffs and they are so terrible.
I love them so much. So there's this one book
in Spanish called Harry perez Uh and he's got his
friends Ron and Harmonia and they take on this evil
character named Condomort. I love how they change everyone's name
(00:24):
except Ron's, like there's no alternative name for Ron. There's
also one from Russia where he's kind of more 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 Baltimore's protege Dmort, who apparently
used to work for the circus under the name Naughty Bubble.
(00:44):
And there's also kind of into this 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 I'm
kind of these, but you know, seeing all these crazy titles,
maybe wonder how does copyright work? Like why can you
(01:06):
remix of Sherlock Home Story, but not use Felix the
Cat to advertise your work, Like, why are people so
excited about two thou nineteens public domain day? We're gonna
get into all of this. Let's dig in either podcast listeners,
(01:40):
Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
always I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh how
Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof class
celebrating the demise of copyright by eating or those those
Charleston June they are and dancing the 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 Tristan is doing this is because he's
(02:00):
laring the Charleston song. It took me a minute to
uh 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 three,
and it kicked off this national craze. What's notable about
this is that two thousand nineteen actually marks the end
of the Charleston's Songs copyright protection. I don't know if
(02:22):
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, which is obviously great news for any
listeners who are into the Charleston or at least as
into it as Tristan is. Apparently I guess so. But
(02:44):
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 the
slew of works from this year have just entered the
public domain for the very first time, I 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 exactly why this is and how it
(03:06):
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 is why we're marking the occasion with an episode
all about the ins and outs of copyright. So we'll
talk a little bit about the history of copyright law,
(03:27):
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 two nineteen to see exactly what sort of
hidden treasures just fell into our laps. But you know, well,
where do you want to start off here? Alright? Well,
I thought we should give our listeners a little bit
of context to all of this. So for starters, January
(03:47):
one is recognized all around the world is Public Domain Day,
and 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 automatically enter the public domain as they age
out of their copyright terms. But this is where things
get a little bit tricky. So different countries have their
(04:08):
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 bit differently. So here copyrights
(04:29):
made prior to night have nothing to do with the
lifespan of the works 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. But so, just as an example, the
Grapes of Wrath won't enter the U S public domain
until January of two thousand thirty five, because that will
(04:52):
be ninety five years after it was first published. Now,
on the other hand, readers in places like Canada and
New Zealand can ead and rework the text for free
starting this year, and that's because two thousand nineteen is
fifty years after the death of the book's author, John Steinbeck.
Isn't that weird? Like something about that like feels so
off to me. I mean, it's this like quintessential American
(05:14):
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 that it actually
reminds you. I was reading about the rights to the
song this Land Is Your Land, which, of course you
know what he got through wrote the lyrics too, and
that's a piece of music that just feels inseparable from
the American identity, and it's kind of become this great
American almost like an anthem. Ever since it was published
(05:36):
back in but again for Canada and other countries with
copyright terms of life plus fifty years, that song ended
in the public domain last year, whereas in the US
you'll actually have to wait till one to be able
to use it. And that's when you're planning to put
out a dub step reminder. That's right, absolutely, But before
we move on, I do want to mention that this
(05:57):
Land is Your Land is kind of a fun a
case to look at. So the lyrics plain that the
land belongs to you and me, and that was actually
got Three's intention for the song to in He published
the song with a copyright notice that read quote, this
song is copyrighted in the US for a period of
twenty eight years, and anybody caught singing it without our
(06:18):
permission will be mighty good friends of our because we
don't give it, durn publish it, write it, sing it,
swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all
we wanted to do. That's hilarious. I'm curious that, like,
why didn't the song under the public domain in the seventies,
you know, like what he wanted it to. Well, apparently
the publisher renewed the copyright at some point without gut
Thrie's input, So the song's copyright status wound up being
(06:41):
extended and now it's covered by the current ninety five
year term we have in the U. S Alright, 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
(07:01):
law began with the Constitution with grants Congress the power
to bestow exclusive rights to the 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. Those
rules were mended over time that went by nineteen o nine,
both copyright terms had doubled to twenty eight years or
(07:24):
fifty six total, I guess, got it. So that's where
would 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, that's right.
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
(07:45):
full seventy five years, meaning that any work produced through
nineteen twenty two would be copyright protected until nineteen. Then,
in just as the nineteen twenty three copyrights were about
to expire for the next year, a new piece of
legislation was passed. It makes you wonder why people were
so interested in changing the legislation, But the new law
(08:06):
attacked on another twenty years for the copyright of any
work made between nineteen twenty three and nineteen seventy seven.
And that's actually why there's this big twenty year gap
that we're just coming out of right now. That is
exactly right. So those extra two decades added in, you know,
was when this happened, it basically put a freeze on
the public domain editions. So the works that were scheduled
(08:28):
inner the public domain were suddenly off the table for
another twenty years. And so that's what made New Years
of nineteen such a big deal. I mean, the drought
is finally and I'm guessing that's for the foreseevil future
to right, like, like like a whole year's worth of work
should end of the public domain every year now, ongoing, right, right,
(08:48):
And this 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 fair, 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 already
(09:09):
entered the public domain because their copyrights were never renewed
for one reason or another. And in fact, one study
from two thousand eleven suggested that as many as nine
of works published in the nineteen twenties were never renewed
at all, and the same is true for roughly sixty
of the works from the nineteen forties, so there were
a ton of them that were out there. So basically
(09:30):
that extension in nine 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 for
public use. Of course, the tricky part has been determining
whether an old copyright has lapsed or not. Yeah, I'm
guessing that's a pretty murky business trying to figure all
that out, it is, And you know, so in the
(09:51):
past that's been safer to air on the side of
caution and just kind of steer clear of any work
whose status was in question, of course, to avoid getting sued.
But now the concerns are out the window, at least
as far as works from three go, and now that
they passed the year mark, we know for certain that
they're in the public domain. So I know there's probably
some folks listening or thinking, okay, but who cares about
(10:13):
all this old timey stuff anyway. You know, it's not
like I'm gonna 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 works to find a second lease on life.
And if you look at what happened to It's a
(10:34):
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 been had it remained under a copyright. You
(10:55):
know this this author Glenn Fleishman, and he had this
great quote in this article for The Atlantic, and 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 forms limits whether they get
considered at all. I mean, it's a good point and
(11:17):
actually reminds me of something I came across this week
from the American novelist Willi Cather, And you know, 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 Waste
(11:37):
Land by T. S. Eliott. 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 it, strangely enough, that's also how things broke down
in terms of US copyright law. So everything up through
nine is now part of the public domain, but it's
a different story for works from nineteen twenty three and
(11:59):
beyond on. So hundreds of 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. Yeah,
like even things we know about like the Harlem Renaissance,
the Great Depression, or World War Two. Like, we should
(12:22):
get like a fuller picture once we get access to
these materials. And also it'll be so fun to see
them show up in memes and music and things. 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,
(12:49):
so we're talking about the giant wave 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. So 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 Wolfe, Altice Huxley, Jane Austin Hemingway, and and
(13:13):
then in terms of poetry, there's work from E. Cummings,
William Carlos, Williams, Wallace Stevens, Pablo Neruda, Robert Frost, including
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
are there any books you're happy to see in the
public domain that was amazing to hear? Like all those
(13:35):
heavy hitters? Yeah? 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.
You know, I didn't think of that. So so what
new characters are we getting to play with now? Alright? Well,
two thousand nineteen is giving us access to new Tarzan
stories from Edgar Rice Burrows, but also two of Agatha
(13:58):
Christie's mystery novels star Belgian detective Hercule Paro, The Murder
of Roger Ackroyd and The Murder on the Links. Wait,
wasn't Tarzan already in the public domain? 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 poor Oh novel
that's already there too. So how do the laws work
(14:19):
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. 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
(14:40):
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 Tarzan
books without receiving permission. And of course to do that
you have to pay a fee to the Boroughs Estate.
And so things are a little more I see when
(15:00):
it comes to Poor Oh, and well, not all copyrighted
characters qualify for trademark protection, and and some people you know,
maintain that poor O does not qualify. So for reasons
that they're 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
(15:22):
legal status is kind of in limb. So the new
public domain additions for those characters are mostly exciting because
it means there are new Tarzan stories or poor Oh
mysteries that can be safely adapted are altered by anyone,
even if the characters themselves are still otherwise off limits.
So I am a little worried about what that might
mean for my next pick here, because even though two
(15:42):
nine frees up the rights to a bunch of classic
silent films from people like Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplain, Laurel,
and Hardy, which is awesome, by the way, because like
it would 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,
which just hit the public domain, and I was kind
of hoping we could add it to the PTG logo
(16:04):
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,
you know, Felix was the 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 and you know,
of course that's really around advertising, So how does that
(16:28):
work exactly? So you could actually publish your own Felix
the cat comic strips 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
(16:49):
is totally off. I feel like that's exactly where I
was going with us, like Felix EpiPens and 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, uh tunes like Dizzy
Fingers Horsey keep your tail up, I know that's a favorite,
the Pierson household raft and that timeless romantic valid o
(17:12):
g Oh gosh, oh golly, I'm in love. I think
these are probably in that collection of that old amberola,
like the house that's all those wax cylinders. That's pretty
cool to listen to, but 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 of wide eyed,
(17:33):
upbeat nonsense. 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 at nighttime, and another was riveting song, but and
I guess for fun, they just throw 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 is just so bizarre, and I'm really hoping
this catches on again. That is amazing and in the
same vein if that old timy nonsense songs, I'm pretty
pumped at the copyright finally expired on Yes we Have
No Bananas Today, which is actually one of the songs
(18:16):
I know. I would definitely leave it to you to
zero in on the banana song. And a bunch of these.
But weirdly, it turns out there's actually a sequel song
called the um. It's called I've Got the Yes, we
Have No Banana Blues and uh. Since it was released
the same year as the originally, it's now in the
public domain as well. So why did they do a
follow up song? Was just that popular? It's basically a
(18:38):
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
commenced bananas bananas. I wish I could break up a
million pianos. I get it. I kind of love that
this song is going to start annoying everyone all over
(18:59):
again with back out there, And I was I guess
that's kind of the scenario that these annual copyright expirations
allow for. So it's nice to have them back in
the mix. 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, No, no question, it's just fun
(19:19):
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. Yeah, it sounds great,
but before we get into that, let's take another quick break.
(19:47):
All right, So we spent a lot of time to
day 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 are anti copyright. 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
(20:08):
to be safe. It's actually something we're 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 creators but society as a whole.
So the idea is like, that's how copyrights were framed
in the U S Constitution. It was kind of this
(20:28):
way to promote the progress of science and useful arts,
and again in the first copyright law of sev. Nine,
it was thought of as a way to further the
encouragement of learning. I mean, it's interesting, was you 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? So the
(20:50):
idea is that it isn't like a short term fix it,
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 for muck with it for about twenty eight
years or however long, at which point the work belongs
to everyone. I mean, I get that the premises sound,
but it does it feels like these copyright terms have
kind of balloons so much that we've we've kind of
lost sight of their original purpose. Yeah, I mean, the
trouble is that there's always someone arguing that the length
(21:33):
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 start with
has gotten a lot more one sided over the last century,
which is of course an intentional move on the part
(21:55):
of copyright holders, or more specifically, the part of companies
that hold those copyrights, 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, like the what he got three example you
(22:15):
gave earlier, his descendants aren't cashing in from licensing deals.
It's the publisher that is sure. I mean that that's
a great point, and and corporations definitely played a huge
role in the twentieth century extensions to copyright terms. I mean,
the most famous example is probably the extension we mentioned earlier,
the one that raised the term for older US copyrights
from seventy five to ninety five years. And the law
(22:36):
was called the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, and
the Disney Corporation was 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 three. So what did
Sonny Bono have to do with this? Like, shouldn't have
been called the Mickey Mouse Act? Yeah, I mean, that
(22:57):
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 nine 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, and during his tenure, Bono had
(23:18):
actually pushed hard for better copyright protection, So the gesture
kind of made a lot of sense if you, you know,
knew all that. Yeah, But I mean, you know, what
it still strikes me about this whole thing is how
ironic it is that a company build on adaptations of
public domain fairy tales. They're the ones that wound up
fighting to keep all those adaptations under wraps. Yeah, and
the ironies don't end there either, because disney Steamboat Willie
(23:41):
cartoon was itself a parody of Buster Keaton's short called
Steamboat Bill Jr. It actually premiered the same year. So yeah,
and so while the Keaton shore entered the public domain
years ago, the cartoon inspired is still under lock and
Key it's kind of his ar but you know, just
like with Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouice his trademark. So
(24:01):
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. And so
one of the things you hope doesn't happen is that
someone makes an adult version of Steamboat Willie. Actually, one
(24:23):
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 their tarning in some way. So
for instance, the book could be published with errors, or
film could be released in low quality. Yeah, or someone
could replace every other line in your poem with Beyonce lyrics,
which might be an improvement depending on how bad the
(24:44):
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 will be diminished in the process.
I mean that sounds like a legit concern doesn't have
But you know, like I love the idea of Pride,
Prejudice and zombies. You know, like Jane Austin might not
have wanted that when she wrote it, but it's a
(25:06):
pretty great thing for all of us, and probably more
people went back and actually read Pride and Prejudice when
that 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 two thousand
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
(25:28):
and just actually, I'll just read 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
(25:49):
the listeners judgments of the quality of the professional audiobook
readers or copyrighted and public domain texts. 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 photo copies without breaking the law, artists
can pay tribute to and and even build off the
(26:10):
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. I was 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, you know, it can
grow substantially again after a twenty year hiatus. But before
we go exploring into that treasure trove once again, I
(26:32):
know we still have a bunch of weird copyright facts
to share, So let's get into the fact off all. Well,
here's something I think is pretty cool. There's this little
village in England called Wookie Hole. That's already cool. Yeah,
(26:53):
And there are over three 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, to protect
from imitators. And so the tradition actually continues today. If
(27:18):
you register with the Clowns International, they will have your
makeup painted on a ceramic. 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 Nolberto Cologne Lorenzana tried to do this in the
nineteen eighties. Apparently, Norberto added a simple chicken sandwich to
(27:40):
the menu at Church's Chicken in Puerto Rico, and the
company made millions of it. They even used the name
he gave it, the Paytree Sandwich. But when he tried
to sue for intellectual property theft, the judge sternly rebuked
and 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 are well.
(28:03):
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 imagine those exact rectangles.
(28:24):
But as Smithsonian notes, 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
(28:44):
agree with Yeah, that's really interesting. Well, here's a funny
one for mental class. Apparently the nineteen three Beach Boys
hit Surf in USA is a complete knockoff of a
Chuck Berry song called Sweet Little sixteen. I had never
heard of that. When very accused Brian Wilson of steel
in the song without telling anyone, Wilson's dad, who also
happened to be the band's manager, gave Barry the copyright
(29:06):
to 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? Well,
speaking of wild, did you know that animals can't own
copyrights manga? I don't even know how that could be
an issue. Well, in two thousand eleven, this photographer named
(29:28):
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 and
somehow this one female macaque named Naruto went crazy, and
of course the photos went viral. The Wikipedia put them
up claiming no one could own the copyright, and David
(29:51):
Slater assumed that he owned the rights. It was his
camera and idea after all. But Peter and their ethical
treatment of all animals decided to sue on a monkey's behalf,
claiming that this female should get the royalties on the photos.
So far, the U S Copyright Office has taken a
firm line that quote, the office will not register works
(30:11):
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. 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 at Tristan, will you
please queue up. Yes, we have no more bananas. That
(30:33):
is it for today's show. I do want to give
a special shout out to our listener Savantha, who tipped
us off on some Brady Bunch spinoffs from our last
nine things that we did, our 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 Hijinks only lasted six episodes, which sounds great and
(30:54):
terrible but yeah, but thank you so much for that, Sabantha.
But that's it for today's show. If you want to
send us facts where part time genius at House start
works dot com and from Gabe, Tristan Will and me.
Thank you so much for listening. M M.
I guess what will what's that? So this week I
started looking up Harry Potter knockoffs and they are so terrible.
I love them so much. So there's this one book
in Spanish called Harry perez Uh and he's got his
friends Ron and Harmonia and they take on this evil
character named Condomort. I love how they change everyone's name
(00:24):
except Ron's, like there's no alternative name for Ron. There's
also one from Russia where he's kind of more 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 Baltimore's protege Dmort, who apparently
used to work for the circus under the name Naughty Bubble.
(00:44):
And there's also kind of into this 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 I'm
kind of these, but you know, seeing all these crazy titles,
maybe wonder how does copyright work? Like why can you
(01:06):
remix of Sherlock Home Story, but not use Felix the
Cat to advertise your work, Like, why are people so
excited about two thou nineteens public domain day? We're gonna
get into all of this. Let's dig in either podcast listeners,
(01:40):
Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
always I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh how
Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof class
celebrating the demise of copyright by eating or those those
Charleston June they are and dancing the 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 Tristan is doing this is because he's
(02:00):
laring the Charleston song. It took me a minute to
uh 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 three,
and it kicked off this national craze. What's notable about
this is that two thousand nineteen actually marks the end
of the Charleston's Songs copyright protection. I don't know if
(02:22):
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, which is obviously great news for any
listeners who are into the Charleston or at least as
into it as Tristan is. Apparently I guess so. But
(02:44):
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 the
slew of works from this year have just entered the
public domain for the very first time, I 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 exactly why this is and how it
(03:06):
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 is why we're marking the occasion with an episode
all about the ins and outs of copyright. So we'll
talk a little bit about the history of copyright law,
(03:27):
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 two nineteen to see exactly what sort of
hidden treasures just fell into our laps. But you know, well,
where do you want to start off here? Alright? Well,
I thought we should give our listeners a little bit
of context to all of this. So for starters, January
(03:47):
one is recognized all around the world is Public Domain Day,
and 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 automatically enter the public domain as they age
out of their copyright terms. But this is where things
get a little bit tricky. So different countries have their
(04:08):
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 bit differently. So here copyrights
(04:29):
made prior to night have nothing to do with the
lifespan of the works 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. But so, just as an example, the
Grapes of Wrath won't enter the U S public domain
until January of two thousand thirty five, because that will
(04:52):
be ninety five years after it was first published. Now,
on the other hand, readers in places like Canada and
New Zealand can ead and rework the text for free
starting this year, and that's because two thousand nineteen is
fifty years after the death of the book's author, John Steinbeck.
Isn't that weird? Like something about that like feels so
off to me. I mean, it's this like quintessential American
(05:14):
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 that it actually
reminds you. I was reading about the rights to the
song this Land Is Your Land, which, of course you
know what he got through wrote the lyrics too, and
that's a piece of music that just feels inseparable from
the American identity, and it's kind of become this great
American almost like an anthem. Ever since it was published
(05:36):
back in but again for Canada and other countries with
copyright terms of life plus fifty years, that song ended
in the public domain last year, whereas in the US
you'll actually have to wait till one to be able
to use it. And that's when you're planning to put
out a dub step reminder. That's right, absolutely, But before
we move on, I do want to mention that this
(05:57):
Land is Your Land is kind of a fun a
case to look at. So the lyrics plain that the
land belongs to you and me, and that was actually
got Three's intention for the song to in He published
the song with a copyright notice that read quote, this
song is copyrighted in the US for a period of
twenty eight years, and anybody caught singing it without our
(06:18):
permission will be mighty good friends of our because we
don't give it, durn publish it, write it, sing it,
swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all
we wanted to do. That's hilarious. I'm curious that, like,
why didn't the song under the public domain in the seventies,
you know, like what he wanted it to. Well, apparently
the publisher renewed the copyright at some point without gut
Thrie's input, So the song's copyright status wound up being
(06:41):
extended and now it's covered by the current ninety five
year term we have in the U. S Alright, 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
(07:01):
law began with the Constitution with grants Congress the power
to bestow exclusive rights to the 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. Those
rules were mended over time that went by nineteen o nine,
both copyright terms had doubled to twenty eight years or
(07:24):
fifty six total, I guess, got it. So that's where
would 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, that's right.
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
(07:45):
full seventy five years, meaning that any work produced through
nineteen twenty two would be copyright protected until nineteen. Then,
in just as the nineteen twenty three copyrights were about
to expire for the next year, a new piece of
legislation was passed. It makes you wonder why people were
so interested in changing the legislation, But the new law
(08:06):
attacked on another twenty years for the copyright of any
work made between nineteen twenty three and nineteen seventy seven.
And that's actually why there's this big twenty year gap
that we're just coming out of right now. That is
exactly right. So those extra two decades added in, you know,
was when this happened, it basically put a freeze on
the public domain editions. So the works that were scheduled
(08:28):
inner the public domain were suddenly off the table for
another twenty years. And so that's what made New Years
of nineteen such a big deal. I mean, the drought
is finally and I'm guessing that's for the foreseevil future
to right, like, like like a whole year's worth of work
should end of the public domain every year now, ongoing, right, right,
(08:48):
And this 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 fair, 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 already
(09:09):
entered the public domain because their copyrights were never renewed
for one reason or another. And in fact, one study
from two thousand eleven suggested that as many as nine
of works published in the nineteen twenties were never renewed
at all, and the same is true for roughly sixty
of the works from the nineteen forties, so there were
a ton of them that were out there. So basically
(09:30):
that extension in nine 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 for
public use. Of course, the tricky part has been determining
whether an old copyright has lapsed or not. Yeah, I'm
guessing that's a pretty murky business trying to figure all
that out, it is, And you know, so in the
(09:51):
past that's been safer to air on the side of
caution and just kind of steer clear of any work
whose status was in question, of course, to avoid getting sued.
But now the concerns are out the window, at least
as far as works from three go, and now that
they passed the year mark, we know for certain that
they're in the public domain. So I know there's probably
some folks listening or thinking, okay, but who cares about
(10:13):
all this old timey stuff anyway. You know, it's not
like I'm gonna 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 works to find a second lease on life.
And if you look at what happened to It's a
(10:34):
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 been had it remained under a copyright. You
(10:55):
know this this author Glenn Fleishman, and he had this
great quote in this article for The Atlantic, and 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 forms limits whether they get
considered at all. I mean, it's a good point and
(11:17):
actually reminds me of something I came across this week
from the American novelist Willi Cather, And you know, 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 Waste
(11:37):
Land by T. S. Eliott. 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 it, strangely enough, that's also how things broke down
in terms of US copyright law. So everything up through
nine is now part of the public domain, but it's
a different story for works from nineteen twenty three and
(11:59):
beyond on. So hundreds of 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. Yeah,
like even things we know about like the Harlem Renaissance,
the Great Depression, or World War Two. Like, we should
(12:22):
get like a fuller picture once we get access to
these materials. And also it'll be so fun to see
them show up in memes and music and things. 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,
(12:49):
so we're talking about the giant wave 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. So 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 Wolfe, Altice Huxley, Jane Austin Hemingway, and and
(13:13):
then in terms of poetry, there's work from E. Cummings,
William Carlos, Williams, Wallace Stevens, Pablo Neruda, Robert Frost, including
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
are there any books you're happy to see in the
public domain that was amazing to hear? Like all those
(13:35):
heavy hitters? Yeah? 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.
You know, I didn't think of that. So so what
new characters are we getting to play with now? Alright? Well,
two thousand nineteen is giving us access to new Tarzan
stories from Edgar Rice Burrows, but also two of Agatha
(13:58):
Christie's mystery novels star Belgian detective Hercule Paro, The Murder
of Roger Ackroyd and The Murder on the Links. Wait,
wasn't Tarzan already in the public domain? 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 poor Oh novel
that's already there too. So how do the laws work
(14:19):
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. 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
(14:40):
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 Tarzan
books without receiving permission. And of course to do that
you have to pay a fee to the Boroughs Estate.
And so things are a little more I see when
(15:00):
it comes to Poor Oh, and well, not all copyrighted
characters qualify for trademark protection, and and some people you know,
maintain that poor O does not qualify. So for reasons
that they're 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
(15:22):
legal status is kind of in limb. So the new
public domain additions for those characters are mostly exciting because
it means there are new Tarzan stories or poor Oh
mysteries that can be safely adapted are altered by anyone,
even if the characters themselves are still otherwise off limits.
So I am a little worried about what that might
mean for my next pick here, because even though two
(15:42):
nine frees up the rights to a bunch of classic
silent films from people like Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplain, Laurel,
and Hardy, which is awesome, by the way, because like
it would 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,
which just hit the public domain, and I was kind
of hoping we could add it to the PTG logo
(16:04):
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,
you know, Felix was the 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 and you know,
of course that's really around advertising, So how does that
(16:28):
work exactly? So you could actually publish your own Felix
the cat comic strips 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
(16:49):
is totally off. I feel like that's exactly where I
was going with us, like Felix EpiPens and 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, uh tunes like Dizzy
Fingers Horsey keep your tail up, I know that's a favorite,
the Pierson household raft and that timeless romantic valid o
(17:12):
g Oh gosh, oh golly, I'm in love. I think
these are probably in that collection of that old amberola,
like the house that's all those wax cylinders. That's pretty
cool to listen to, but 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 of wide eyed,
(17:33):
upbeat nonsense. 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 at nighttime, and another was riveting song, but and
I guess for fun, they just throw 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 is just so bizarre, and I'm really hoping
this catches on again. That is amazing and in the
same vein if that old timy nonsense songs, I'm pretty
pumped at the copyright finally expired on Yes we Have
No Bananas Today, which is actually one of the songs
(18:16):
I know. I would definitely leave it to you to
zero in on the banana song. And a bunch of these.
But weirdly, it turns out there's actually a sequel song
called the um. It's called I've Got the Yes, we
Have No Banana Blues and uh. Since it was released
the same year as the originally, it's now in the
public domain as well. So why did they do a
follow up song? Was just that popular? It's basically a
(18:38):
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
commenced bananas bananas. I wish I could break up a
million pianos. I get it. I kind of love that
this song is going to start annoying everyone all over
(18:59):
again with back out there, And I was I guess
that's kind of the scenario that these annual copyright expirations
allow for. So it's nice to have them back in
the mix. 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, No, no question, it's just fun
(19:19):
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. Yeah, it sounds great,
but before we get into that, let's take another quick break.
(19:47):
All right, So we spent a lot of time to
day 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 are anti copyright. 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
(20:08):
to be safe. It's actually something we're 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 creators but society as a whole.
So the idea is like, that's how copyrights were framed
in the U S Constitution. It was kind of this
(20:28):
way to promote the progress of science and useful arts,
and again in the first copyright law of sev. Nine,
it was thought of as a way to further the
encouragement of learning. I mean, it's interesting, was you 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? So the
(20:50):
idea is that it isn't like a short term fix it,
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 for muck with it for about twenty eight
years or however long, at which point the work belongs
to everyone. I mean, I get that the premises sound,
but it does it feels like these copyright terms have
kind of balloons so much that we've we've kind of
lost sight of their original purpose. Yeah, I mean, the
trouble is that there's always someone arguing that the length
(21:33):
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 start with
has gotten a lot more one sided over the last century,
which is of course an intentional move on the part
(21:55):
of copyright holders, or more specifically, the part of companies
that hold those copyrights, 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, like the what he got three example you
(22:15):
gave earlier, his descendants aren't cashing in from licensing deals.
It's the publisher that is sure. I mean that that's
a great point, and and corporations definitely played a huge
role in the twentieth century extensions to copyright terms. I mean,
the most famous example is probably the extension we mentioned earlier,
the one that raised the term for older US copyrights
from seventy five to ninety five years. And the law
(22:36):
was called the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, and
the Disney Corporation was 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 three. So what did
Sonny Bono have to do with this? Like, shouldn't have
been called the Mickey Mouse Act? Yeah, I mean, that
(22:57):
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 nine 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, and during his tenure, Bono had
(23:18):
actually pushed hard for better copyright protection, So the gesture
kind of made a lot of sense if you, you know,
knew all that. Yeah, But I mean, you know, what
it still strikes me about this whole thing is how
ironic it is that a company build on adaptations of
public domain fairy tales. They're the ones that wound up
fighting to keep all those adaptations under wraps. Yeah, and
the ironies don't end there either, because disney Steamboat Willie
(23:41):
cartoon was itself a parody of Buster Keaton's short called
Steamboat Bill Jr. It actually premiered the same year. So yeah,
and so while the Keaton shore entered the public domain
years ago, the cartoon inspired is still under lock and
Key it's kind of his ar but you know, just
like with Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouice his trademark. So
(24:01):
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. And so
one of the things you hope doesn't happen is that
someone makes an adult version of Steamboat Willie. Actually, one
(24:23):
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 their tarning in some way. So
for instance, the book could be published with errors, or
film could be released in low quality. Yeah, or someone
could replace every other line in your poem with Beyonce lyrics,
which might be an improvement depending on how bad the
(24:44):
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 will be diminished in the process.
I mean that sounds like a legit concern doesn't have
But you know, like I love the idea of Pride,
Prejudice and zombies. You know, like Jane Austin might not
have wanted that when she wrote it, but it's a
(25:06):
pretty great thing for all of us, and probably more
people went back and actually read Pride and Prejudice when
that 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 two thousand
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
(25:28):
and just actually, I'll just read 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
(25:49):
the listeners judgments of the quality of the professional audiobook
readers or copyrighted and public domain texts. 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 photo copies without breaking the law, artists
can pay tribute to and and even build off the
(26:10):
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. I was 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, you know, it can
grow substantially again after a twenty year hiatus. But before
we go exploring into that treasure trove once again, I
(26:32):
know we still have a bunch of weird copyright facts
to share, So let's get into the fact off all. Well,
here's something I think is pretty cool. There's this little
village in England called Wookie Hole. That's already cool. Yeah,
(26:53):
And there are over three 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, to protect
from imitators. And so the tradition actually continues today. If
(27:18):
you register with the Clowns International, they will have your
makeup painted on a ceramic. 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 Nolberto Cologne Lorenzana tried to do this in the
nineteen eighties. Apparently, Norberto added a simple chicken sandwich to
(27:40):
the menu at Church's Chicken in Puerto Rico, and the
company made millions of it. They even used the name
he gave it, the Paytree Sandwich. But when he tried
to sue for intellectual property theft, the judge sternly rebuked
and 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 are well.
(28:03):
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 imagine those exact rectangles.
(28:24):
But as Smithsonian notes, 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
(28:44):
agree with Yeah, that's really interesting. Well, here's a funny
one for mental class. Apparently the nineteen three Beach Boys
hit Surf in USA is a complete knockoff of a
Chuck Berry song called Sweet Little sixteen. I had never
heard of that. When very accused Brian Wilson of steel
in the song without telling anyone, Wilson's dad, who also
happened to be the band's manager, gave Barry the copyright
(29:06):
to 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? Well,
speaking of wild, did you know that animals can't own
copyrights manga? I don't even know how that could be
an issue. Well, in two thousand eleven, this photographer named
(29:28):
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 and
somehow this one female macaque named Naruto went crazy, and
of course the photos went viral. The Wikipedia put them
up claiming no one could own the copyright, and David
(29:51):
Slater assumed that he owned the rights. It was his
camera and idea after all. But Peter and their ethical
treatment of all animals decided to sue on a monkey's behalf,
claiming that this female should get the royalties on the photos.
So far, the U S Copyright Office has taken a
firm line that quote, the office will not register works
(30:11):
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. 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 at Tristan, will you
please queue up. Yes, we have no more bananas. That
(30:33):
is it for today's show. I do want to give
a special shout out to our listener Savantha, who tipped
us off on some Brady Bunch spinoffs from our last
nine things that we did, our 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 Hijinks only lasted six episodes, which sounds great and
(30:54):
terrible but yeah, but thank you so much for that, Sabantha.
But that's it for today's show. If you want to
send us facts where part time genius at House start
works dot com and from Gabe, Tristan Will and me.
Thank you so much for listening. M M.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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