Public Domain

I read this comic called Fables which is a modern day telling of all the old fable characters you know and love and how they live in New York City.  We’re talking Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf, Prince Charming, Red Riding Hood…all different characters from all fantasy stories end up living together because there’s an enemy taking over ALL their lands back home.

I read an interesting article today about how the creators are going to use Peter Pan soon and how they are unable to do so at the beginning because he was not public domain in England (whereas he was in America).  But now that Peter Pan is public domain, they can use him in their stories.

I find it interesting to think about characters from folklore stories being copyrighted.  I suppose everything that is created can have a copyright.  It is strange to think about something entering public domain and able to be used in any manner someone wishes.

While it isn’t a stretch of the imagination in terms of characters in a story, think about when the Beatles music will enter public domain within the next decade…their music will be able to be put into films or albums and used as public domain.  We can mashup their songs with other songs, creating remixes, morphing it into something altogether different, and altogether legal to do.  It will be an interesting shift.  I would like to think that copyright would have a minimum time of living as long as the creators are living.  I think it would be strange to see my work entering the public domain.