awkward-elevator:

Swedish Chef Ramsay

calamityjon:

kurtbusiek:

I’ll say this, though: 75 years after the debut of Superman…he ought to be in the public domain.

When Superman debuted, the expectation was that he’d be owned by the publisher for 56 years, maximum. Those 19 (so far) extra years were given by Congress to corporations, but the gift came from all of us, whether we agreed or not. Superman would have belonged to everyone by now, under the original deal. Not the publisher, not the creators’ estates, everyone. And I think it’s worth noting that we let — and are continuing to let — Congress and corporations simply take what would be ours and give it to the corporations.

Public domain enriches the world’s shared storehouse of artistic treasure. Unreasonable copyright extension harms that. Currently, Superman is scheduled to go into the public domain in 20 years. Unless copyright is extended again, of course. And that’s a big, big “unless.”

And keep in mind: when I say Superman should be in the public domain by now, I mean Batman, Captain America, Wonder Woman, Namor, the Shadow, Mandrake and others, too. All these characters should be as available to everyone as Dracula, Hercules, D’Artagnan and Dorothy Gale.

I’ve had a great time writing Superman and other DC characters, but there should come a point that Superman, like Sherlock Holmes or Tom Sawyer, can be used by anyone. And that time should have come years ago.

That wouldn’t mean DC couldn’t still tell Superman stories — they’d have a great advantage, in fact, since they’d still solely own all the bits that hadn’t gone PD yet, so they’d be able to maintain and continue their legend, while others would only be able to draw on those concepts that had been published 56 years ago or more. A little more stuff every year, but then DC would have another year of new stuff they’d created, too.

But if Superman, Batman, the Shadow and others could be used as freely as, say, Elizabeth Kostova used Dracula in THE HISTORIAN (or dozens of others who’ve used him, including me), it’d be an interesting world.

And as long as I’m musing on copyright: You know, if copyright length was tied to the life of the human creator, even in work for hire cases, companies would have good reason to keep those creators healthy and secure in their golden years. Food for thought.

Thought experiment for the tl;dr crowd: The natural realm of an idea is the public domain, copyright is a temporary allowance granted by law to encourage the creation of new ideas - not to mine one idea repeatedly for eons. 

Thomas Jefferson, speaking about patents, extols the virtues of the public domain:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.

–Thomas Jefferson
13 August 1813

Introducing Violet, Hector’s only friend at school.

lowlighter:

while I was looking for stuff to post, I found some teen!peanuts I drew for my sister like last summer

aniseshaw:

shycustis:

Do you remember SOPA? The bill that would give government the right to spy on internet activity without warrant, and let them censor “unwanted” sites by blocking people’s access to them?

Meet its twin. But this time it’s all the more frightening; the House has passed it despite Obama’s threats to veto. And by an alarmingly large margin, at that. CISPA threatens the US constitution’s guarantees of due privacy and free speech, permitting any government agency to access and transfer of vast amounts of data- from internet records to even the content of personal e-mails, and all without obtaining a warrant.

What’s even more disgusting than this bill actually making through the House is some of the arguments used to help it’s passage, and comments made by one of the bill’s biggest supporters admitting the bill helps big business while insulting opposers (whose is also speculated to have personal reasons for wanting CISPA made into law).

This threatens every element of your online presence. From personal emails to general activity, any government agency will have the ability to go fishing without consequence.

Please, PLEASE, sign the following petitions. You don’t even have to be a US citizen to sign most of them or act against CISPA, and please keep in mind that if this shit flies in America, who knows what country might use its example to do it, too.

Petition: Avaaz: Save the Internet from the US
(you don’t have to be a US citizen to sign this)

Petition: Sites Not Spies
(you don’t have to be a US citizen to sign this)

Petition: CISPA is Back: Write Congress

Petition: Tell Mike Rogers more that 14-year-olds oppose CISPA
(you don’t have to be a US citizen to sign this)

Twitter: Tweet @RepMikeRogers with your age
Twitter: Tweet @BarackObama and tell him to veto CISPA
Twitter: Tweet reps like @RepDelBene, @GovHankJohnson, @KeithEllison and @GovGaryJohnson and thanks them for acting against CISPA. Look for other reps that have spoken against it, and thank them.

Call your reps: and tell them you strongly oppose the bill. You can look up your reps using the form on the lower portion of this page.

Resource: Fight for the Future

Reblog: This and other posts like it to raise awareness of this threat to internet freedom and privacy.

I will be posting more petitions and resources as I become aware of them.

AMERICANS. GET ON THIS PLEASE.

300 FAVORITE MOVIES (in no particular order)

86. Beetlejuice (1988)

“Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse!”

ziggytheartninja:

humming-metallica-in-the-tardis:

letmegogetmywings:

weaverandom:

macabrekawaii:

helixfruit:

aliviawithasideofem:

The Avengers Makeup Tutorial Series: Thor

SWEET JESUS.

Ok so that cheered me up like whoa.

How is she so flawless.

Okay this is the legit best makeup tutorial in the entire world. 

HAMMER

HAMMER

IM LAUGHING SO HARD

frenden:

Half off the next 25 Manga Studio 5 brush orders with this checkout code!

I just realized I can make discount codes on Shopify and want to test them out.

The next 25 people who use the checkout code FRIEND-EN on my Manga Studio 5 brushes get ‘em half off!

If you use it, let me know if the checkout and code entering process was easy!