This isn't fair to Disney. What's the point of buying something if the other person is allowed to steal it back.

If I made a video game, it would be a annoying for it for it to be illegal for me to sell because something I licensed for it got revoked. I don't want the extra headaches of needing to do extra work down the line. I want to have a video game that I am allowed to sell and do stuff with for the rest of time.

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kennywinker 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They didn’t buy it. They licensed it, and these are the terms of copyright - which is what they used to license it.

If you rent a house, and your lease expires, that’s not the landlord stealing the house back from you.

	▲	8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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axiolite 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> What's the point of buying something if the other person is allowed to steal it back.

If you can't make a profit off of a licensed property after 35 years of exclusive control, you've done something horribly wrong. If you sit on a licensed property and do nothing with it for decades, it should be allowed to revert to someone else, or better yet go into public domain.

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AnthonyMouse 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The issue is, what happens if you have a work where e.g. the music and the script were written by different people? If one of them can terminate the license then you create a situation where nobody can distribute it because nobody has the rights to all of it anymore.

Of course, what they should do is have the copyright expire after 35 years. Then if the original creators want to make sequel at that point they're entitled to -- just like everybody else.

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charcircuit 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Termination of Transfer has nothing to do with how much profit a work is making.

	▲	olalonde 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Interesting. The article certainly gave that impression. It's strange that the process isn't automatic when the main requirement is simply submitting a notice.

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protocolture 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

3 months is too long. 35 years is crazy.

	▲	NetMageSCW 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Why would anyone invest millions in something that they can’t make money with after three months?

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monkeywork 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is that what is happening? My understanding of Termination of Transfer is that it keeps you from being able to make a sequel to your video game using the characters you licensed from me, but that the game you have already created you can continue to sell.

What the termination allows me to do as the creator of that character in this analogy is say - charcircuit isn't doing anything with my character for 35 years - I'm going to take back control and maybe do something myself with it or license it to someone else to do something with...

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charcircuit 10 hours ago | parent [-]

I can't keep selling it if you terminate the distribution right to some texture you made that I used in my game.

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blendergeek 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't think you are correct here. From the FAQ [0] on the website linked by the post:

“Derivative works” exception – although a successful termination causes all of the rights to revert, this will not affect exploitation of derivative works created during the lifetime of the agreement, even after that agreement has been terminated. Once the agreement has been terminated, the grantee (see the glossary) may continue after termination to utilize “derivative works prepared under authority of the grant before its termination…[consistent with] the term of the grant” (to quote from the U.S. Copyright Act). This means that if, for example, an author granted a company a 50-year exclusive license to create a movie based on the author’s novel, that company can continue to use and exploit the movie even after the author successfully terminates the exclusive license. The company may not prepare a new movie based on the novel; it may only continue to use the existing movie that it created when the exclusive license was still current.

[0]: https://rightsback.org/faq/#So.2C_I_get_all_of_my_rights_bac...

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charcircuit 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Thank you, I was wrong. This does seem more reasonable. But it would be nice if minor changes were still allowed. For example patching security issues of a video game should be allowed.

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jrmg 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I wish this were further up in the comments. Most people seem to be assuming that you get all the marbles back.

Imagine the chaos if someone were able to say ‘whoops, all those books you bought are no longer sellable!’.

Imagine if Alan Cox took back all the bits of Linux he wrote and decided they were no longer to be licensed under the GPL!

…although maybe it’s only a matter of time before that second thing happens somewhere? “The company may not prepare a new movie based on the novel; it may only continue to use the existing movie that it created when the exclusive license was still current” seems problematic for open source software (or commercial software! What if the original authors of the FAT file system decided to try to start getting royalties from new derivative works?…)

	▲	jrmg 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Replying to myself… From https://rightsback.org/faq/#What_kinds_of_agreements_cannot_... , works for hire are not covered, which includes most 1990s software (though I do still wonder about open source licenses): Under the U.S. Copyright Act, copyrighted works that qualify as “works made for hire” are subject to special rules that govern who becomes the first owner of copyright in a work. For regular works, the person who creates the work becomes the first owner of copyright. However, for “works made for hire” either the employer or person who commissioned the work becomes the first owner of copyright. Neither of these transfers of rights from the author to the employer or commissioning party, which occur by operation of the Copyright Act, nor any subsequent agreements entered into by the employer or commissioning party in relation to the work, may be challenged by the author or their family members. There’s a whole lot more nuance there, but notably “A contribution to a collective work” is allowed to be a work for hire.

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alt227 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, if you license something to use in your game then that item comes with a license term. You did not buy it and you do not own it. If you did buy it instead of license it, you would be free to do whatever you wanted with it forever. But you didnt buy it, you licensed its use.

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invl 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

this happens with eg licensed music or product tie-ins or whatever, and the game just stops being sold

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charcircuit 10 hours ago | parent [-]

And I think it would be best if they could license the content in perpetuity so it doesn't come to that. But that's impossible as even if the studio gets a perpetual license, it can still be terminated.

	▲	alt227 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Thats up to whatever you agree with the owner when you license it.

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11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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Fricken 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Copyright was originally intended to last 14 years, after which the work is transferred to public domain. That was back in the 1700s, when the pace of life moved much faster than it does now.

If it weren't for Disney's success at regulatory capture, the copyright would be expired and anybody would be able to produce a fictional work featuring Roger Rabbit, including Disney.

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BLKNSLVR 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not sure if sarcasm. If not:

Is 35 years not long enough? Disney knew the terms going in.

I think it should go back to the 25-year automatic ownership back to the actual creator.

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KPGv2 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> What's the point of buying something if the other person is allowed to steal it back.

Well in the case of the very thing we're talking about, the point was apparently to make $330 million in a single year in the 1980s

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consp 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I honestly can't tell if this is meant sarcastic or not. The power offset is so huge you need clauses like this to keep the power at some form of equilibrium.

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wpm 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Oh noooo it isn't fair to Disney!

Oh, wait, I actually don't care about that at all.

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water-data-dude 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The power dynamic is very asymmetrical. Disney is ABSOLUTELY free to negotiate with him to continue distributing the movie, running the ride, etc.

It has been 35 YEARS and Disney's failed to do anything else with the IP. The original creator wants to make a sequel, and now he's able to.

Also: you mentioned a scenario where you might make a video game and wanted to be able to distribute it in perpetuity. Unless you based the video game on some pre-existing creative work that someone else came up with (Roger Rabbit's Raucous Riot or something), you WILL retain the rights. Termination of copyright doesn't apply to works made for hire [0] (i.e., if you pay your employees to create the IP, it doesn't apply).

TLDR; fuck the mouse.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_1976#Terminat...

	▲	charcircuit 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>Unless you based the video game on some pre-existing creative work that someone else came up with Licensing assets like rocks, foliage, random textures or sounds is extremely common in the game industry, even among big games.