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Just don’t let studios take the tax write off and this is all fixed
I've seen others suggest that it gets surrendered to the public domain if they take the deduction. I'd be fine with that.
Wouldn't that also put the characters into public domain like Wile E Coyote? I can't imagine they'd do that for a tax write-off.
I don't think so, the character wouldn't be public domain, just the exact specific movie. So anyone could screen the movie, but people couldn't make new works based on those characters.
It wouldn't necessarily.
Basically, you'd say that this one work is copyright free, but any characters appearing in it would still have copyright under other works.
The practical effect is that you'd be able to download this movie, watch it, share it, cut up bits and pieces and use them elsewhere, but any original works based on the characters would not be allowed due to those characters still being covered from other works.
Well that would be different from how it works with Mickey Mouse and Sherlock Holmes, in both of those examples, some works involving the character are public domain and others are still under copyright. As such, people can do their own versions of Mickey mouse as long as it's the steamboat Willie version of Mickey mouse but not Mickey mouse from more recent works. People can write their own versions of Sherlock Holmes stories as long as they don't have the characteristics of Sherlock Holmes in later novels.
I suspect the same would apply to Wile E. Coyote if this film went into the public domain, people could use the character as long as it's the version of the character from this movie and not the version from the '60s cartoons.
There was a weird situation with the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" where the copyright to the movie lapsed into the public domain due to someone forgetting to renew it (when that was a thing), but the story, and characters were still protected. It was basically decided that the still frames were public domain, but since they became story in movie form, not just anyone could legally sell copies of the movie.
I think that only applies if you can make an argument that the two characters are distinct. Your Mickey/Steamboat Willie example is good because they are distinct (slightly different looks, and different names). Another good example is Sherlock Holmes. There was a big lawsuit where the current rights holders tried to argue that the later works are still under copyright just because Sherlock has emotions, and he didn't in the earlier stories. I don't remember how the suit turned out though.
No, just that one piece. Really, maybe there could be a second class of Public Domain where it free to share, but nobody can charge for a showing or access to.