@opencharacters / opencharacters.tumblr.com
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I started a blog to act like sort of a database of characters. It has a search function, tags, categories and you can even follow the blog via rss feed.
I try to just give a general idea of the characters and like links to more info about things.
Check it out. I will still maintain this tumblr blog but I will also be posting there simply because I think it would prove a nicer tool for creatives.
Countries should threaten release American works into the public domain, n-years earlier, as a special punishment for America's poor behaviour in trade recently. If America threatens revenge in kind, then horror of horrors, we might end up with reasonable international copyright system with copyrights of a reasonable length.
DESTROY THE BERNE CONVENTION!
Despite it being proven to be public domain in two separate court cases (Universal v. RKO and Universal v. Nintendo) Project Gutenberg and sites like it don't host the 1932 King Kong novelization even the internet archive just has like scans, not epubs that would make good reading on e-readers.
I find it possible to be because they are known to be cautious and King Kong is a registered trademark. I however have no such qualms, so heres the epub of the 1932 novelization of King Kong. Notably came out before the movie to drum up interest in the film.
[ID: image of a black and white drawing of a male deer fawn END ID]
Bambi comes from the german book Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde which translates to Bambi: A Life story from the Forest. The book came out in 1923 and therefore has been public domain in the US since 2022. In the EU and other Life + 70 countries it had been in public domain since 2016.
The sequel Bambi's Children came out in 1939 which Felix Salten, the author wrote after he was forced to flee Nazi-occupied Austria to Switzerland. This book is not public domain in the US and wont be until 2035. It is public domain in Europe though.
Bambi notably became a Disney movie of the same name which of course aint public domain yet. Disney was involved in a copyright dispute with Felix's daughter for decades going back and forth over adequate compensation and contracts for the work, her disagreeing with some of the use of the Bambi brand.
The original story is quite interesting and Bambi is a fun character, just avoid things original to the Disney version.
[ID: Photo of an empty room with dividing walls and yellow wallpaper giving it a liminal feel END ID]
I feel the Backrooms doesn't need introductions but for those who have been living under a rock The Backrooms is a creepypasta concept of glitching into some sort of liminal space outside of space and time. The inspiration was most likely the liminal space aesthetic that had been gaining popularity around that time. The original post came from 4chan's /x/ post by an anonymous user who posted this image along with a small creepypasta. Due to the anonymous nature of it, there is really no person who can be credited with creating the Backrooms so the concept is public domain.
As for this picture, last year the owner of Hobbtown USA in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Bob Mazza held a fundraiser for repairs of the location and one of the promises was releasing some old photos he had, including the iconic one which was found on archives of his website from 2003 when they were doing renovations.
He released them into the public domain and posted all his pictures of the location from back then onto the Internet Archive, you can find all the images here
So you can use the images and concept however you like.
IP laws only serve the corporate bottom line, and in their worst forms, they kill people.
One of the things that is a stronger anti ai stance and makes more sense is mostly that the billions in dollars tied to it are not gaining any revenue. Companies believe this is the cure to their ails (having to pay workers) when often hallucinations just cause more work and often it still requires cheap labor overseas to moderate.
OpenAI projected 125 billion in revenue despite the fact that they have been losing revenue every year and the ceo recently said people just saying hello and please costs them millions.
Thats why AI is everywhere because companies have sunk billions and billions into it and the only way they make money is if it becomes a revolution akin to the printing press.
It has its use cases but i think statistical ai is more valuable in cancer research and wildlife conservation rather generative ai is gonna make companies able to print money and forget about workers and customers to generate wealth.
Thats my main issue with AI everything else is like small beans and fighting for stricter copyright to own the AI is just a self own of collective knowledge im afraid
The problem isnt AI its capitalism
Thank you Derek, menswear guide, for reminding me why paying more to be free advertising for brands is dumb.
The argument that something like the Winnie the Pooh horror film or the Popeye slasher film should be evidence that copyright law needs to be stronger because "its corrupting innocent childrens media into horror for shock value" falls flat with this movie
[ID: poster for the banana splits movie with 4 aniamtronics looking ominously, with three in the background, a tiger, elephant and dog with a monkey of sort with an axe and the banana splits movie written in a dripping yellow font END ID
The Banana Splits is an old Hannah-Barbera childrens show from the 60s, retooled in 2019 for a Five Nights at Freddy's-esque horror film. Now admittedly I do like this movie but like, this didnt happen because of public domain, The Banana Splits is very much still under copyright, so childrens media retooled into horror is not unique to public domain works.
We should all respect corporate ips and due to things like the Winnie the Pooh horror film being a level of disrespect thats unforgivable i do think nothing after 1930 should be public domain. The Mickey Mouse slasher film has caused Disney and its fans a great deal of turmoil and is exactly the type of thing the 1998 copyright extension act was trying to shield us from!
[ID: Black and white image of a person in a superhero costume with a helmet and circular emblems on the chest with a z in it END ID]
Captain Z-Ro was a space opera serial from the 50s playing off popular serial characters like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.
He had a device called the ZX-99 which was a time machine used to view the past but also send people back in time, usually in order to alter it in some way. While it was always used to go back in time, mainly as a way to teach kids history it stands to reason the ZX-99 could also travel into the future.
The serial was not renewed and subsequent renewal efforts in the 80s were rejected by the copyright office.
[ID: image from a black and white comic strip of a young boy in a striped shirt and overalls.]
Dennis the Menace originated as a comic strip in the 1950s. Like a lot of things this appearance of his was not renewed after the initial 28 years.
It should be noted that this is not the Dennis the Menace from the UK comic that bears the same name.
He's just a young boy who causes mischief often armed with a slingshot.
Finally some good fucking news
AI users will do anything but open a fucking photoshop and learn to photo bash.
i admire series like chainmail chasers or morley grove. because they are like building off nostalgia for late 2000s, early 2010s internet creepypastas but putting their own spin on it with smile dog and slenderman respectively. i think thats commendable and i think the open nature of creepypastas as something that naturally is built off on by the community lends itself greatly to it.
check out chainmail chasers and morley grove
[ID: drawing of an elephant sitting on an egg, the elephant has eyelashes and theres some sort of creature looking confused at it to the left. it appears like a screenshot from a magazine. in the lower right corner is a signature of Dr Seuss END ID]
Matilda is an elephant who has motherly instinct to sit on an egg until it hatches. This is an early Dr Seuss story for Judge Magazine published in 1938 called Matilda, the Elephant with a Mother Complex.
The story was never renewed therefore it's another Dr Seuss story that's in the public domain.
The story itself would be reworked into the Horton book "Horton in Horton Hatches the Egg", making Matilda like a proto-Horton.
Horton won't be public domain until 2036 but Matilda already is.
