Thread by @ashleylynch

Just a reminder that the only reason Spider-Man isn't becoming a public domain character this year which would have allowed both Disney and Sony to utilize the character is because of lobbying against the copyright act by Disney.

I'm always torn about the copyright thing, because while I agree on stuff entering the public domain, there's an argument that can be made about the current cultural relevance of a lot of these characters.

Basically the biggest, most popular films of the last decade have all built on characters that without changes to the copyright act, would today be owned by no one.

But one of the positive side effects of that, which we don't currently get to enjoy, is if half the Marvel and DC characters were public domain, they'd stop being so special and by extension, so profitable.

Which would result in an emphasis on new stories and characters.

Part of the reason that we keep going back to the same well over and over and over and over again, the reason why we get 50 years of James Bond movies and 3 reboots of Spider-Man... is because this stuff was prevented from becoming public domain.

And it's not like making a character public domain destroys it. If it endures, it endures, and will do so in different forms.

That's how we can have a Sherlock BBC series, an American Sherlock series and a couple Sherlock feature films all happening at the same time.

Each of those series and movies are wildly different in their approach to Sherlock Holmes and each has their fanbases for various reasons.

And because Sherlock Holmes is public domain, you don't have one movie studio rebooting Sherlock every 4 years into movies that people decreasingly want, just so they can hold onto the rights.

Because that's the history of Fantastic Four on film. Virtually every F4 movie was made so the film rights didn't revert back to the owner. It's a very expensive way to park a franchise just because it may be more valuable in the future.

Notwithstanding that James Cameron would have made a Spider-man movie in the 90s if it weren't for the fact that several different companies claimed they were the rightful owners of the film rights to the character.

It took nearly a decade to sort out who could make Spider-Man.

But on the flip side, being able to sell of film rights to their characters is the only thing that kept Marvel alive. Without the ability to do that, it's entirely likely Marvel Comics just wouldn't exist today.

This blew up, so if you want more media analysis, check out my YouTube series Media Offline where I take a critical look at the ways we consume media.