I admittedly haven't read that rambling post, but...
My understanding of copyright is that the rights to a character are layered: Steamboat Willie is in the public domain, but Mickey's red pants aren't. The book Alice in Wonderland is in the public domain, but the 50s Disney character isn't. You can have the rights to one iteration of a character, but the canon that happened in a franchise afterwards can still be copyrighted by others.
I presume the Who Framed Roger Rabbit character design was done by Bob Zemeckis and Richard Williams' team for the film, and that those are the characters that an audience would want to see. A different rabbit and a different pinup girl using the same names aren't nearly as appealing.
It's a long-winded article, even for a lawyer, but the payload seems to be a crack at the head of the RIAA, which is suing Midjouney.
"In other words, Glazier doesn't want these lawsuits to get rid of Midjourney and protect creative workers from the threat of AI – he just wants the AI companies to pay the media companies to make the products that his clients will use to destroy creators' livelihoods."
This isn't fair to Disney. What's the point of buying something if the other person is allowed to steal it back.
If I made a video game, it would be a annoying for it for it to be illegal for me to sell because something I licensed for it got revoked. I don't want the extra headaches of needing to do extra work down the line. I want to have a video game that I am allowed to sell and do stuff with for the rest of time.
Is that what is happening? My understanding of Termination of Transfer is that it keeps you from being able to make a sequel to your video game using the characters you licensed from me, but that the game you have already created you can continue to sell.
What the termination allows me to do as the creator of that character in this analogy is say - charcircuit isn't doing anything with my character for 35 years - I'm going to take back control and maybe do something myself with it or license it to someone else to do something with...
The power dynamic is very asymmetrical. Disney is ABSOLUTELY free to negotiate with him to continue distributing the movie, running the ride, etc.
It has been 35 YEARS and Disney's failed to do anything else with the IP. The original creator wants to make a sequel, and now he's able to.
Also: you mentioned a scenario where you might make a video game and wanted to be able to distribute it in perpetuity. Unless you based the video game on some pre-existing creative work that someone else came up with (Roger Rabbit's Raucous Riot or something), you WILL retain the rights. Termination of copyright doesn't apply to works made for hire [0] (i.e., if you pay your employees to create the IP, it doesn't apply).
I honestly can't tell if this is meant sarcastic or not. The power offset is so huge you need clauses like this to keep the power at some form of equilibrium.
I admittedly haven't read that rambling post, but...
My understanding of copyright is that the rights to a character are layered: Steamboat Willie is in the public domain, but Mickey's red pants aren't. The book Alice in Wonderland is in the public domain, but the 50s Disney character isn't. You can have the rights to one iteration of a character, but the canon that happened in a franchise afterwards can still be copyrighted by others.
I presume the Who Framed Roger Rabbit character design was done by Bob Zemeckis and Richard Williams' team for the film, and that those are the characters that an audience would want to see. A different rabbit and a different pinup girl using the same names aren't nearly as appealing.
Direct link to the article: https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/18/im-not-bad/#im-just-drawn...
It's a long-winded article, even for a lawyer, but the payload seems to be a crack at the head of the RIAA, which is suing Midjouney.
"In other words, Glazier doesn't want these lawsuits to get rid of Midjourney and protect creative workers from the threat of AI – he just wants the AI companies to pay the media companies to make the products that his clients will use to destroy creators' livelihoods."
This isn't fair to Disney. What's the point of buying something if the other person is allowed to steal it back.
If I made a video game, it would be a annoying for it for it to be illegal for me to sell because something I licensed for it got revoked. I don't want the extra headaches of needing to do extra work down the line. I want to have a video game that I am allowed to sell and do stuff with for the rest of time.
Is that what is happening? My understanding of Termination of Transfer is that it keeps you from being able to make a sequel to your video game using the characters you licensed from me, but that the game you have already created you can continue to sell.
What the termination allows me to do as the creator of that character in this analogy is say - charcircuit isn't doing anything with my character for 35 years - I'm going to take back control and maybe do something myself with it or license it to someone else to do something with...
> What's the point of buying something if the other person is allowed to steal it back.
Well in the case of the very thing we're talking about, the point was apparently to make $330 million in a single year in the 1980s
this happens with eg licensed music or product tie-ins or whatever, and the game just stops being sold
Oh noooo it isn't fair to Disney!
Oh, wait, I actually don't care about that at all.
The power dynamic is very asymmetrical. Disney is ABSOLUTELY free to negotiate with him to continue distributing the movie, running the ride, etc.
It has been 35 YEARS and Disney's failed to do anything else with the IP. The original creator wants to make a sequel, and now he's able to.
Also: you mentioned a scenario where you might make a video game and wanted to be able to distribute it in perpetuity. Unless you based the video game on some pre-existing creative work that someone else came up with (Roger Rabbit's Raucous Riot or something), you WILL retain the rights. Termination of copyright doesn't apply to works made for hire [0] (i.e., if you pay your employees to create the IP, it doesn't apply).
TLDR; fuck the mouse.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_1976#Terminat...
I honestly can't tell if this is meant sarcastic or not. The power offset is so huge you need clauses like this to keep the power at some form of equilibrium.
A great article on how awfully twisted copyright has become away from its intended goal, or at least the publicly stated intended goal.
Much reform is needed, seems to apply to everything...
Lots of fun ranting (the good kind) about the ills of the industries built to take advantage of creators, but for those who just want to know more about the state of Roger Rabbit: https://www.imnotbad.com/2025/11/roger-rabbit-copyright-reve...
This should work for video game developers right? Can they reclaim ownership of the games they created in the 80s/90s that have been abandoned?
If the developer was a work for hire and never owned the copyright then no.
If the developer licensed the game to a publisher then maybe.