pudge's Journal: From Madden to Mickey

ESPN and ABC are both owned by Disney. ABC did Monday Night Football since its inception decades ago, but next year for the first time, it will be on ESPN.

NBC, owned by Universal, is getting back into the NFL business too, with Sunday Night Football, which has been on ESPN the last few years.

John Madden and partner have been the announcers for Monday Night Football these last few years, but ESPN had other plans, so Madden went to NBC to do Sunday Night Football. Al Michaels wanted to go too, but was under contract with ESPN/ABC/Disney.

So a deal was struck. In exchange for letting Michaels out of his contract to reunite with Madden, NBC gave ESPN a few golf broadcast contracts, expanded rights for highlights for the 2006 Winter Olympics (which starts tomorrow), and the rights to ... Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Oswald was Walt Disney's first cartoon character, created in 1927, for Universal. Oswald was highly successful and Disney wanted more money when his contract came up for renewal, but an agreement could not be reached, so Disney struck out on his own, but this time with a mouse character, later named Mickey.

Interestingly, if not for the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, Oswald's copyright would already have expired, and Disney would have had the rights to him anyway (or at least, the early films Walt Disney created). Of course, everyone else would have, too.

One problem

[FortKnox]

I only have one problem with the ESPN monday night crew. Joe Theismann. They didnt' understand that ALL THREE of the ESPN crew were stupid and seemed to know nothing about football. Put Theismann on the sideline and put Suzy Kolber in the box, and I'd be glad to unmute the TV monday nights...

Re:One problem

[pudge]

Yeah, Theismann is a tool.

Trading for an Announcer..

[RailGunner]

Trading for an announcer has happened before.

In 1948, the Brooklyn Dodgers traded Catcher Cliff Dapper to the Atlanta Crackers for... Hall of Fame Announcer Ernie Harwell. [wikipedia.org]

This will only perpetuate copyright

[John Harrison]

NBC Universal has admitted that the rabbit had no financial value to them in that it generated no income. However it did have some value in the form of this trade. This will just provide another rationale to continue extending copyright. Even properties that will never see the light of day are held in reserve because of the potential for a trade such as this. Very, very lame.

Re:This will only perpetuate copyright

[pudge]

Except that the point of ending copyrights was never that the work no longer has value after a time, so that argument is completely moot. The point of granting copyright in the first place is to give incentive to creating by protecting the rights to the work, and obviously that right does not need to be perpetual in order to be an incentive.

The argument by Disney and others is that if copyright is not perpetual, that people will stop creating. We know that's a lie.

Re:This will only perpetuate copyright

[alangmead]

Although I see your point that the notion of a limited time for copyrights was not because works lost their value over time, there have been arguments (like Lessig's Eldred Act Tax [lessig.org]) that the copyright terms of works should be shortened if the work no longer had value. This could be twisted to imply that copyright to works which still have a value should be extended.

I tend to view the original purpose of copyright as a temporary monopoly granted to the owner of the work, and in exchange for that temporary

Re:This will only perpetuate copyright

[pudge]

there have been arguments (like Lessig's Eldred Act Tax [lessig.org]) that the copyright terms of works should be shortened if the work no longer had value. This could be twisted to imply that copyright to works which still have a value should be extended.

Yep.

I tend to view the original purpose of copyright as a temporary monopoly granted to the owner of the work, and in exchange for that temporary monopoly the public domain in enriched when the copyright terms are done.

Oh sure; I mentioned that the purpose

Re:This will only perpetuate copyright

[alangmead]

Some would argue that giving the copyright owner the ability to control the supply side of "supply and demand" allows the owner to increase its worth. In actuality, they use it to the restrict the total amount of content available to the consumer and increase the worth of their existing works. I agree that this runs counter to the extent of the system. (Even the supply and demand argument is bogus, because I vibrant public domain allows all content creators to derive new works from it and add value.)

I wi

Re:This will only perpetuate copyright

[pudge]

I agree, and think there's a very good chance of it. Dunno what the outcome will be, but it is very likely it will be a more widely discussed issue.