I'd be so excited if Superman ever entered the public ___domain. Then I'm convinced we'd get much better adaptations than the drivel we've been seeing for the last several years.
> I'd be so excited if Superman ever entered the public ___domain. Then I'm convinced we'd get much better adaptations than the drivel we've been seeing for the last several years.
Individual works are entering the public ___domain, but what you’re proposing is much trickier and largely unsettled legal territory.
When early Superman stories enter the public ___domain there’s no legal guarantee that courts will agree that this includes the right to tell new stories with the character. Further it almost certainly DOESN’T include the right to tell stories about the characters using elements that come from later, still-under-copyright works — and much of what we think of as Superman’s mythos comes not from the early comics but from the 1940s radio show (flight rather than big jumps, The Daily Planet, Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, kryptonite, “look, up in the sky...”), or from silver age comics of the 50s and 60s (Braniac, Bizaro, Zod, most of the characteristics of the arctic fortress of solitude, vision powers, breath powers, kandor...).
It’ll be decades before a recognizable Superman mythos is public ___domain.
> I assume it's already fine to make characters with Superman-like powers but with another name
You may want to take a look at the outcome of National Comics Publications, Inc. v. Fawcett Publications, Inc. https://bit.ly/2CHZt0i the courts have and will slap down clearly “ersatz Superman” characters.
edit: had to use a URL shortener because HN keeps mangling the Wikipedia URL
Interesting. It makes it mysterious to me at which point a mere collection of "facts" about a fictional character turns into a copyrightable depiction.
> It makes it mysterious to me at which point a mere collection of "facts" about a fictional character turns into a copyrightable depiction.
The decision by Hand in National is widely considered to be extremely clear and readable, if you're really curious.
It's important to understand that while mere collections of facts are not copyrightable, nothing about fiction is factual -- you can't defend Captain Marvel on the basis of "we're merely reporting the facts about his powers, which happen to mirror facts about someone elses'" because those powers aren't facts at all but represent conscious creative decisions on the part of Fawcett Comics. When all of your creative decisions are tuned to mirroring the creative decisions of another copyrighted work, you're in pretty well-defined copyright violation territory.
> The copyrights to Superman, Batman, Disney's Snow White, and early Looney Tunes characters will all fall into the public ___domain between 2031 and 2035.
Because these movies being public ___domain just means these specific movies are public ___domain, nothing more. You can recut and remix them, if you wish.
You can’t do whatever you want with the character of Superman and the many elements of his stories that exist outside these works, however.
Superman is such a basic character that you can absolutely make stories about him without actually copying the character. Also, it's desirable to have your own character that you can merchandise exclusively. As an example, the Japanese manga/anime "One Punch Man" is a work that takes the very basic premise of an unbeatable super-man and goes interesting places with it.
