That’s already the case. There would be two copyrights for a cartoon for Donald duck, and possibly, in fact likely, many others.

A copyright is essentially a right of enforcement. You don’t have to register anything or file anything in order to gain that right. It’s a right to sue someone to enjoin further use and potentially to recoup money damages if you can prove loss.

The standard for whether something is copyrightable at the outset is whether it is the product of a modicum of creativity, and reduced to a tangible medium of expression.

So far one cartoon of Donald duck, each drawn frame of the show would have its own copyright. Also, the character would have a copyright. The dialogue of the script would have another copyright. And the test for whether a particular character is something that can be copyrighted is to ask whether the character is separable from the overall work and whether the character is “well delineated.”

Donald duck is certainly the product of creativity, it is reduced to a tangible medium of expression when it is drawn on paper, and it is the main character of the show and has its own personality and behavior. So it is pretty clearly of deserving protection. Although at this point in time, I believe some of Disney’s earliest characters are now in the public domain, Even Mickey mouse, which people like my IP professor in law school said was never going to happen. This is because I believe in 1984 there was a law called the copyright act of 1984 but was colloquial referred to as the Mickey mouse copyright act. It was championed by Sonny Bono, who I believe was friends with Walt Disney personally, and which many said had the sole purpose of extending Mickey mouse’s copyright for another 25 years or whatever it was. My memory is a little fuzzy on this. My professor figured that Disney was such a powerful institution that anytime Mickey mouse was about to fall into the public domain, Congress would stop it.

A doctrine sort of related to your question is called scen a faire. It is a French phrase which I have no doubt spelled wrong because I am on mobile. It means that elements essential to a scene of the kind which would be common to all scenes of that type, are not copyrightable. So this would include some background characters such as those that, despite being drawn in a creative way, are more so the product of the scene itself rather than any creativity. For example, if there is a scene in a cartoon where the character gets onto a train and hands the ticket to a ticket taker, the ticker taker character is probably not copyrightable.

Thanks for that explainer. I thought the verbiage in the article was a little over the top.

However there is a point at which the “style” of the art is the thing that is copyrightable, sort of by implication.

The standard for proving a copyright violation where a defendant claims a transformative use or a derivative work is “substantial similar.”

For as long as I can remember that includes the overall presentation of the work, and it’s hard to describe that as anything other than a “style.”

The article draws a comparison that allowing copyright protection for styles would be like allowing copyrights for entire genres. I don’t think that’s right. Nobody could copyright all “landscape paintings” as a genre, but look at landscape works by Katsushika Hokusai, and that style, to me, is creative enough to warrant protection, if it were made originally in America today and not already in the public domain. And he didn’t invent woodblock prints or even woodblock prints of landscapes, but the way he did it is so unique as to be insperable from the copyrighted work itself and arguably deserving of protection simply for its advancement of the art.

If you made a woodblock print in the same style but used it to portray a scene typical in anime, rather than a landscape, that’s clearly transformative and derivative, but not substantially similar. If you use the style to make prints of waves breaking around Mt. Fuji, that’s substantially similar. So like, as to dude’s anime style, if you use the same style to make landscapes, certainly that’s not infringing, as it’s not substantially similar.

I also don’t see the threatening outcome the author suggests as worrisome. There are still exceptions for blatant copying that apply, mainly parody and fair use.

Mf you made this in Paint. Just kidding but it does look fake.

Never heard it called the birch bitch.

Lol.

Lead engineer: “oh did you say bird, okay I thought you said bear.”

Some, I assume, are good people.

Those are ones in captivity, for food.

They’ve gone nose-blind and smell-deaf.

God damnit.

Every browser I switched to since Firefox has been a good user experience, and then I find out some horrible bullshit.

Is there any safe browser that isn’t run by hateful assholes?

For real I’m here to sing songs.

Yes let’s parse comedy to remove all context and delivery.

Stfu.

What a strange and ridiculous argument.

You fight with what you have.

28 USC Sec. 566

(a)It is the primary role and mission of the United States Marshals Service to provide for the security and to obey, execute, and enforce all orders of the United States District Courts, the United States Courts of Appeals, the Court of International Trade, and the United States Tax Court, as provided by law.

(b) The United States marshal of each district is the marshal of the district court and of the court of appeals when sitting in that district, and of the Court of International Trade holding sessions in that district, and may, in the discretion of the respective courts, be required to attend any session of court.

©Except as otherwise provided by law or Rule of Procedure, the United States Marshals Service shall execute all lawful writs, process, and orders issued under the authority of the United States, and shall command all necessary assistance to execute its duties.

This codified the common law in the US.

The Court’s order to its district marshal is superior to any DoJ order. If the marshal won’t act, the Court can conpel them into court and hold them in contempt.

Courts (and marshals) can also deputize people to execute their orders. They can also hold others in contempt who contribute to orders not being followed…they can start seizing and freezing assets of Trump’s helpers; they can award money damages as sanctions, they can disbar attorneys. There’s a lot they can do. I hope the courts start playing hard ball with these lawless fucks.

Same. Updated firmware today.

Meanwhile best we can do in America is hide tracking dots in every color printer.

A lengthier way of saying what OP said.

Audi.

You don’t keep your Sega Genesis in an oaken cask?

Leave Facebook. Nobody will notice. If anyone does notice, text them the pics.

Hexbear is left wingers, so they say. Just vehemently anti American. Russia is their ultimate hero. It’s co.pletely contradictory. Saw one today arguing that Alexis Nolvany was a secret Nazi and got himself killed. And God damn, do they hate Vladimir Zelensky; he’s a Nazi dictator despite being popularly elected in an election that all observers found free and fair, and despite living a fairly modest lifestyle; and that’s in contrast to Putin, despite Putin living in multiple billion dollar secret bunker mansions guarded by the military and being president for life thanks to what all international observers agree are sham elections.