[00:00:05] Speaker A: Hi, everyone. Welcome to spill the tea, the podcast that brings awareness about lesser known topics in pop culture, history, literature, music and life. I'm Brigitta. I'm a writer who likes to learn things.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: And I'm Lara. I'm a researcher who loves to learn just about everything she can. Today's episode is going to be about one of my favorite passions, Anime and apparently Disney. Interesting things.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: So stick around and just hear us out. We probably should have put in the disclaimer. She swears when she's really passionate now that her kids are old enough to know. Don't repeat what mom says in school; you'll get in trouble with the principal. And I swear, like a 14 year old gamer. So unprovoked.
So, Lara.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Yeah?
[00:00:55] Speaker A: You found interesting stuff about anime and Disney.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: I started with most bizarre thing. Okay, so setting stage, because, you know, gotta set the stage.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Gotta set the stage.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Gotta set the stage. So I'm an audio learner. We'll get into probably one of those later as a conversation at a later date and time.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Because, you know, probably.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: But that means if I hear it, I remember it. And I remember it at random times. And I remember someone like 20 years ago.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: Yes, I know.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Telling me about how repetition of characters in anime, like you have Pokemon Digimon, monster literature.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: Transformers and Voltron and Thundercats. And you have all of these different groupings within anime. But that was because of copyright issues.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: So I went, I thought copyright was.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Just a us thing.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: It's not.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Oh, it's not.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: It's not. It's an introduction.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: That makes sense.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: I had been given to understand that it was a developing thing when anime started in Japan back during World War Two. But apparently it wasn't a developing thing, as I said. So, no, they have a very robust copyright law situation. So it got way more complicated as I started getting.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: And it makes sense that copyright is international since, you know, we have been creating art since the dawn of time and probably trying to steal art from each other since the dawn of time.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: But everybody, but everybody does have different spaces for intellectual property and exactly how aggressive they are about pursuing it and how aggressive they are about doing anything about it.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: Okay, that makes sense.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's still fairly level that if you create something you own, it makes sense.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: That is pretty basic.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: However, there's always exceptions, of course.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: So anime and Disney, huh?
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Anime and Disney. All right, so anime. Coolest thing. Okay, a lot of this is coming initially from Wikipedia. Because guess what, folks, Wikipedia. I don't tend to like it for, you know, scholarly research. But damn, it's good for pop culture.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: I always use it as a great.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Stepping off point because there's this to mine.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: Exactly. It gives you the. It gives you a general idea of what the topic is. Then there's that wonderful section at the bottom called resources.
[00:03:19] Speaker B: But here's the thing. There are certain categories that I'll go to Wikipedia first.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: I usually do anime and comics.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: Wikipedia is like the single best resources conglomerated online for things, for some of those pop culture things. So I ended up there immediately. And one of the interesting things I found out first, before we get into Disney, I found that Japanese anime actually started out as world War Two propaganda, the first anime ever made. The first Japanese animations ever made were made as World War Two propaganda by the Navy.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: The very first anime for Japan were made by the World War Two Navy in Japan.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: I'm almost afraid to see those.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: So I found that absolutely fascinating that the animation concept in Japan started with the government.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: Okay, I can see that. I mean, I can see how anime could easily be a lot like the newsreels that we had at the beginning of movies in the forties.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: And if you think about it, during that, during that world War Two era, we had bugs bunny coming out and trying to promote audiences to buy war bonds.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: True. That's right.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: And we had Nicole Mouse helping out with the war effort.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: I don't remember that, but I'm not.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Surprised it wasn't as prevalent as what Warner Brothers did.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: I'm also surprised by that.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Way more into that than Disney was.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: Makes sense. Warner Brothers was producing a lot more movies, so a lot more opportunities to have those types of news reels and those types of campaigns, I think. Yeah, campaigns.
So, yeah, that makes sense.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: But if you remember, some of the Warner brothers cartoons from that era were all about your victory garden. They made jokes about the victory gardens and Victory gardens and fun stuff.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: And I remember some of the little rascals, and I know that was pre World War two, but they were still in war bonds for World War one. And because I remember a little rascals where a woman was using war bonds to tie onto kite to help with the weight, and then they found out they were actually worth something, so they had to go hunting for this kite.
I remember that.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: I never watched little rascals, so I actually, that is, that is kind of funny, actually.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: And yes, I know it has not aged well, but, you know, there are a lot of things from our childhood that did not age well.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: We didn't age well. What are you talking about?
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Oh, you're not wrong.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: So moving a little bit forward in time. Okay, so we move a little bit forward in time and find out that as Japan's rebuilding, their animation team wants to reach larger audiences because they found out that reaching audiences through the propaganda was kind of cool. But now, how do we do this for a non war audience and a non military purpose? And they teamed up with Disney.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: Interesting. Disney also did figure out that animation was a extremely popular. So you look at all of the movies we have that are animation. They did a lot of shorts and stuff too. I think so. Yeah, I believe that.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: So Disney actually sent teams over to Japan. And Miyazaki san, we're getting familiar with him, contemporary because of all of the movies that we keep seeing that are coming over that are Japan anime movies.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: Okay. Howl's moving, Castle and Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind. And these are all hitting the big screen in America. Well, it turns out that studio Ghibli, which is the japanese group that Miyazaki worked with and made insanely famous internationally, studio Ghibli got its start working with Disney.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: Oh, interesting.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: So I remember when the first Disney release of a Miyazaki movie, the DVD, came to America.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: Which one was that?
[00:07:18] Speaker B: Oh, I don't remember which one it was.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Understand, people, that she's telling me all of this, and I have, like, barely tipped my toes into anime. So I'm literally looking at her going, uh huh, uh huh. With that kind of blank look on my face.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: And I am trying to find the tidbits that are really super interesting so that y'all aren't bored out of your mind.
So my goal is to keep her interested as much as you guys.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: So if you're lost, you're not alone.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: And if you already know all this, hey, let me know other things, because I'm always up for interview with more information.
I'm an information junkie. I freely admit it.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: We both are.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Everybody has their poison. Mine is data.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: Part of the reason we came up with this podcast is because both of us are information.
You're just better at research than I am.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: I have the DVD's. Okay. I have, like, every Miyazaki DVD that's ever been released in America. So in English. So I have the DVD's and so I don't remember. It might have been the cat returns. It might have. I don't remember which one was the first, but in all of them, for a while, the then vice president of Disney would come on at the beginning of the DVD and say, this is missed. And Kisan and I found this wonderful resource in Japan. We are talking, this is in the two thousands, folks. I've been watching Miyazaki movies since I was an undergrad back in.
Yeah, that dates me.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: I know, early 1990s. We didn't tell you the world, but.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I've been watching Miyazaki in English since the early 1990s. This wasn't new to me, but it apparently was new for Disney to bring him to America. It also wasn't new for Mister Miyazaki, for Miyazaki san, because Miyazaki san had worked with Disney back in the day. So this is sort of a full circle moment that they didn't share with you in those little before the movie starts.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: Oh, moments.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: Yeah, this is another one of those little trivia bits that they didn't share with you before the movie starts moments. So that it's just the little bits of trivia pieces are kind of cool. Part of the reason I wanted this, though, like I said, is because Pokemon and Digimon and all of the repetition, and I was like, okay, why? Why? Because why is my big question, why is this happening? Why do they get away with these? That, okay, I know you don't watch anime. I know you don't watch kids anime.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: That's not 100% true. I do watch some. I absolutely love avatar.
[00:09:54] Speaker B: Okay. Okay.
That is completely American. And it's really a semi completely American.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Really interesting.
[00:10:03] Speaker B: Semi completely American. That was, that was Nickelodeon making that.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that makes sense because it does show that.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Yes, that was.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: You do see that in some of.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: The episodes that was Nickelodeon making. Now what happened is the animators for that, they were very, again, I have that on dvd. So I've watched all the behind the scenes in about. So, yeah, anyway, you go by not.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Surprise pick.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: You go behind the scenes on in the very first one, and they talk about the four types of bending and the four version, four areas for martial arts styles, the four chinese martial arts that they take that inform each bending type.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: So each vending type is actually completely, the movements are completely based. That's why the combat animation is so good in it. Okay, pay attention to how the combat animation works. And that's why you have certain characters consistently moving a certain way is they are practicing a very specific martial art.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Oh, oh, now I have to go watch it again.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: And the waterbenders practice tai chi. Okay, okay, okay. I don't remember the other names of all the others.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: No, that's true.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: The fire benders are northern Shinto group.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: Northern Shinto. South on the show.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: Yeah, but the northern Shinto monks or something like that. Martial arts, it's a very specific group. But one of the things, when I started really digging to try. Cause like I said, it's always driven me nuts, because my kids. I've raised my kids right, guys. I have kids, and I've raised them right. They love anime because I raised them right. Come on. If you. If you are doing anime with your kids, I respect.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Respect.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: But, you know, my kids love anime. So I watched all the Pokemon. And yes, I want to shoot myself over that. Sometimes it's that much of a brain running.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: But no, that's okay. Well, it was designed for kids, so they, they have the attention span to do that kind of thing. Just ironic how short so many of my nibblings attention spans have been over the time.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Speaking of nibblings, because I don't have children, I only have cats. One of my nibblings, I remember years ago, you mentioned Transformers and Voltron. I don't remember which one of them asked me this, but one of them was like, what's the difference? And I could not answer that question.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: And. And see, this is exactly what the. Why was driving me nuts with these, because I really did watch him transformers in Voltron for myself. I also watched one back in the eighties called G Force.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Oh, I remember them.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: See?
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Was that the one that was live action and not anime?
[00:12:44] Speaker B: No, no, that's Power Rangers.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: No, there was another one that was.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: Oh, that was probably.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: It was a family and they all turned into rockets. I have no idea what the name is.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: I do not remember that. That definitely sounds odd.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: It was Japanese.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: Fair. Fair.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: It was cool. I do not remember the name.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: No, G Force was another one where you had. It was like Power Rangers, where you had b five.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: And they each have their own. They're all birds.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: They all have these bird masks. Look to them. Oh, the girls with the bird beak and the big blue guy with the bird. Yeah, they were all birds. And they came together into a big robot. And that is an archetype is the giant mecha robot. Okay. But it's very similar to Thundercats, where they're each a different cat coming to a giant tiger, a giant lion robot. Voltron. Same kind of deal. And it sounds like the same thing over and over. Right? And that's how it always read to me. The thing is, Japan has figured something out, but America is just now finally getting onto the bandwagon with what's up? You can use an entire animation series in perpetuity to market a toy.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because Hasbro was a Japanese company and they mastered that concept in the eighties.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: In the eighties? Are you kidding? Transformer movies are huge.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: Well, I mean, they started in the eighties.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: They started in the eighties with the cartoons.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: So did. What were the other ones that did?
[00:14:12] Speaker B: There's Bakugan that came out in the two thousands.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: There's Beyblade. That came out in the two thousands.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: I know none of these, but that's not surprising. Yeah.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: You don't have little kids.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: I don't.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: But Japan. For Japan. There's my, there's hello kitty. She was the original. She was one of the originals. Okay, where the toy came first, the product came first, the game came first, and then we have the anime or the manga. The comic book. Right. In American medium.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Oh, that's what manga means, is comic book, isn't it?
[00:14:48] Speaker B: Kinda.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: I don't know what manga means.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: I've never read it. Manga is the closest descriptor we have to it is graphic novel.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:56] Speaker B: So it's anything from a comic book to an incredibly serious philosophical discussion or piece of literature with drums.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:15:08] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: Oh, that gives me so many ideas.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: It's a bunch of background.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Sounds like it. Now I'm interested because I need another hobby.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: I will corrupt you.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: I think that ship has sailed.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: But one of the things I found out when I went poking into intellectual property in Japan, because that's where all of this originated, is that they have a framework, but it does fall completely to the requirement of the person that originally created the art actually do anything about it. So unlike America, where we put up the copyright notice and it's now on the user end to not violate the copyright in Japan. It's more of a, you can put the copyright on it, but it's kind of like when you go park your car in one of those lots where it's like you have to leave the money, and it's because you choose to leave the money, not because there's a meter there. Oh, oh, you know what I'm saying?
[00:16:15] Speaker A: Now? So the copyright isn't as much of a requirement necessarily.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: It can be prosecuted, but then you have to actually do the work to prosecute it. If you don't do the work to prosecute it, it's not enforced.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: That's kind of true here, actually.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Fair, I mean, but you have a lot of major corporations behind a lot of that. Is true prosecutions that is true. Seem to do that as much in Japan.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: Oh, so there's, the big difference is their corporations aren't the people that you go after.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: No, they have a lot more. They have a lot more small business.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: Oh, that's true.
[00:16:53] Speaker B: Manga companies are small business companies. Now I really want to have, they only have a couple of larger conglomerate firms. Same with anime. They're small businesses for the most part. Studio Ghibli was maybe at most 20 animators.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: It was not that massive of a deal.
Yeah. Despite all the work they produce and the quality they produced to it. It's not that many people doing the work.
But the other piece I found, and now granted, this is, I'm quoting someone who freely admits it's not legal advice. They're not an attorney. If you need legal advice, you contact an attorney. But the claim is that this was specific to Digimon. Because I was looking at Digimon and Pokemon. So I was looking at those two because those were the two that just were sticking in my head at that moment. Apparently they are considered different enough.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Really?
[00:17:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Despite the fact that there's some measure of collection of little monsters. And the little monsters and the main characters have a similar, have almost the same qualities of these archetypes. They're different. Wow.
Part of it green idea is art protected.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Interesting. I don't know how they're treated here.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: In the United States.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: They're probably a lot.
Really?
[00:18:17] Speaker B: Why do you think there's 20 gazillion Tetrises?
[00:18:19] Speaker A: Oh, that's fair. Or gem drop that. That makes sense. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. A lot of your online games are so similar.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: Game ideas are not protectable. According to this person, anybody can make a Pokémon clone, and that's perfectly legal.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Probably why you have games like kill Doctor lucky that are kind of like clue, and yet they're not.
[00:18:39] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: The mechanics of a game are not able to be protected. And this is where we had problems with D and D for a long time too, because they published, that's why they did the open license and why probably part of why they backed it off when everybody said, when they tried to say, oh, well, I'm doing the open license. And everybody revolted. They backed it off mostly because everybody revolted, but they also, oh, we may open license. We can't protect the mechanics anymore. Yeah.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: Wizards of the coast did not think that. True. And very quickly sapphoed with the TNT community. Apparently they didn't pay attention to just how rapid we can be.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Yep, yep. Absolutely. There is no. It's considered different enough because it's all in the details. Yes. The general idea is the exact same thing. So is Monster Rancher. So is all this. The general idea is the exact same thing, but indigenously, you have one person to one monster. In Pokemon, you have one person for however many they can catch. Okay, more like Monster Rancher, you have one person with however many they can catch. Okay, but Pokemon, you're trying to catch these wild things. Monster Rancher, you're out trying to save these monsters from this horrible, evil thing. So we change just that little detail. Everything changes. Hence transformers versus vocal.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: And why I can't explain the difference.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: When's the last time you actually saw the Transformers assemble and go into an interspatial battle?
[00:20:13] Speaker A: I don't think they did that in the movies.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Nope.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: Honestly, probably not since the cartoon.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Back in the eighties.
[00:20:21] Speaker B: Voltron. That's where all the action happens.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: Oh, that's true. Oh, that's the difference. Now, if I could just remember which nibbling asked me that question, I could probably tell them, although they probably already have figured this out or, you know, realized that, hey, that's what Google's for.
So this article also talks about public.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: Domain, because this is another important conversation to have when you're talking about anime, anime usage, somebody else's ideas. Copyright is public domain is when can everybody use it, right? Okay, so a lot of us that follow copyright and what goes on in the copyright world, talk about Disney and the big bad Disney and the copyright world, because Disney has rewritten copyright law to not be copyright law proper. Because everything is supposed to age and it's supposed to go out to where everybody has access to it. That's the way it was written. That's the way it's supposed.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: Exactly. You have, right. You have copyright to it up to a certain point, which is theoretically the length of someone's lifetime. I think it used to be 75 years.
[00:21:28] Speaker B: It started out in like 35 years.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: Oh, did it only started 35? See, you'd think as a writer, I would remember all.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: No, this is way, way back in the day. It started out at 35 years.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: And to be fair, I did learn about this in journalism law class. We won't discuss where that was in the nineties.
[00:21:45] Speaker B: I've covered copyright a lot more recently. Recently with the library science degree. I mean, to be fair, I've had a lot. I've had a lot with digital copyright and all that stuff too. So, you know, I had to get up to date.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: I should probably start looking a little more into that before I start publishing.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Any of my fiction or publishing any of your podcasts.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: Oh, that's fair.
I do have the copyright on my, on my food blog, so. Well, there's good.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: For the longest time, though, copyright initially started out at like 35 years in it and got moved to 50. So they decided 50 years and then it got moved. Then Disney got involved. Because Disney got involved. Copyright was still 50 years old. Copyright was. It got copyrighted for 50 years.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: That's right. That's when they got involved.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: It was at 50 years when Disney got involved with the Mickey Mouse, because Mickey Mouse is their flesh and blood.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: Yes, it is.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: It is everything that makes Disney Disney. And hey, we love Disney.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, Mickey Mouse was literally what Walt Disney sold to anyone who would listen was the concept of Mickey Mouse and Steve, but Lily.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: So Disney has been the big bad of the copyright world for so long because Disney has these hats and Disney has lots and lots and lots and lots of money to tear around and.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Lots and lots and lots of lawyers.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: And I will really admit, folks, Brady knows this. I am a cynic. I am firmly of the opinion that our federal government just belongs to whoever pays them the most money, to be honest.
[00:23:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
You'll find our political views very quickly on this podcast.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: Right. This isn't about the political view so much as it's about the deep pockets. And Disney bought copyright to, again, bend. It moved to 75 years.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, that's when that was because. Yeah.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: They first got it moved to 75. Got it first.
That's why I remember 75.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: And then they did another move. I don't remember when this was to move it to like 95 years, if I remember right.
[00:23:43] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: It might have been the semi bono copyright chain extension act that moved that. And that's the one that this is about?
[00:23:51] Speaker A: I think so.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: The thing is that one.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: Oh, it just expired.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: Oh, now this doesn't.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: This does not cover 1950s version of Mickey Mouse. This covers steamboat.
[00:24:05] Speaker A: Really?
[00:24:05] Speaker B: Mickey Mouse.
There's a very.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: Steamboat Willie just became public domain according.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: To this and according to law because Congress didn't renew it last year.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: This is what they get for not working.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: See, Alice could go there, but I'm not the only cynic in the room.
[00:24:26] Speaker A: No, you're kidding. We're both Gen Xers. Of course we're cynical.
[00:24:30] Speaker B: There is that. There is that. But yeah, all copyrighted work was published in 1923 before on October 20, because Congress did not renew that act.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: All of them before 1923.
No, I'm wondering if the happy birthday song is actually no longer.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: The happy Birthday song has not been copyright for a while.
[00:24:51] Speaker A: Oh, it hasn't.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: It hasn't. That fell out of copyright at least a decade. If not 20 years ago, it might have been around the same time that sunny Bennett.
Okay, happy birthday finally became public domain. But interestingly, so this is. So I'm quoting an article from classics with me that's talking about public domains and 100th anniversary. They point out that in 1998, works that were published in 1922 or earlier were in the public domain, and 1923 works were scheduled to expire in 1999. But that's when they passed the Sunny Bono extension.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: Yep, yep, yep. I remember that.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: Yep. So that's when they passed it. So the 1923 copyrights expired last year.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: Because it was 2023.
Oh, boy. I wonder what Disney's gonna do about that. Can they do anything about that?
[00:25:40] Speaker B: I don't know. Everybody expected another fight, though.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: Pretty sure Disney will do something about it.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: This was.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: This was you don't mess with the mouse.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: 2018 Congress extension in Congress didn't happen. They needed to pass the extension in 2018 in their business. So this is. This has been undone for a while.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: Oh, my.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: So rhapsody in Blue is now part of public domain as of this year.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: Wow. What else? Great Gatsby became public domain in January 2021. Hence, we have Leonardo DiCaprio as the Great Gatsby.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: Oh, no. That came out before then.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Did it?
[00:26:15] Speaker A: Yes, it did. I remember watching it while I was still married. Cause I discovered that I got bored at the same spot in the movie as I did in the book.
[00:26:22] Speaker B: I don't like the book that much. I didn't.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: I didn't either. I'll be honest with you, I didn't.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: Bother with the movie.
I know a lot of people like the book.
[00:26:30] Speaker A: Go for it.
[00:26:31] Speaker B: Awesome. You just. Not my cup of tea. Oh, wait, that worked. Anyway, Winnie the Pooh in January 2022 became public domain.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: Winnie the Pooh is public domain now.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: Remember Aa Milne was a British author?
[00:26:45] Speaker A: Oh, that's true.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: Which means he's covered under British copyright.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: So is it public domain in the States but not in the UK?
[00:26:52] Speaker B: That, I don't know. Didn't dig on that one.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: We didn't dig on that one.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: Didn't dig on that one. Because this was a side tangent that I got interested. But it side quest. But it does mean that Disney now theoretically could copyright their version of Winnie.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: The Pooh stuff because, yeah, Disney's had Winnie the pooh for a while. So Daisy's had Winnie the Pooh. I think all of our lives, their.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: Stuff now falls under American copyright law for their Winnie the Pooh. Smurfs will expire in 2054.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: 2054. Okay. Wait a hundred years? Smurfs came out in the fifties.
Oh, okay.
[00:27:35] Speaker B: We imported it from France.
[00:27:37] Speaker A: Oh, I did not know that. Oh, yeah, that explains something.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: Why vanity smirk even exists.
[00:27:44] Speaker A: Be nice to the French. They're not that bad.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: French is my second language. I know they're not that bad. Okay.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: They actually do have some of my favorite forms of poetry. No lie.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Wonder Woman becomes public domain in 2037.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: Um. Snow White.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: Snow White will become public domain unless. Unless Disney does something about it. Oh, Disney gonna be in some serious trouble.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: Mickey Mouse is due to become public this year.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: Disney will do something about that. I have a feeling.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: Popeye become 2025. Superman 2034. Batman. 2035. Doctor who 2059.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: BBC will love that Hulk.
[00:28:27] Speaker B: So marvel stuff. Hulk and Spider man in 2058 will become public domain.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: So I found out about Winnie the Pooh.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Winnie the Pooh expired in the US in 2021, but in the UK, it won't expire until January 1, 2027. Yeah, because it's still owned by the Milne estate, right?
[00:28:45] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: She is not the only one who loves Google and Sarah.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: Google's useful.
When you want to know a fact quickly, Google's useful. You just have to kind of double check who your source is for that fact. That's.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: All right.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Steamboat Willie and Disney's claim to Mickey Mouse on January 1, 2024, it expired.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: So Mickey Mouse already expired.
[00:29:07] Speaker B: Donald Dunning. Oh, my. Bugs Bunny, daffodil, Superman, Batman, wonder woman, spiderman. Yeah. Okay, so the expiration of its copyrights for the original classic stars, respectively, characters like Mickey Mouse, John Duck, goofy Bug, Bunny. Duck's funny. Jackie Duck did not belong to Disney nor Disney.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: They don't.
[00:29:26] Speaker B: They belong to more women. This article is really written really poorly.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: I'm seeing that a lot more nowadays. Why do I proofread my things three or four times?
[00:29:36] Speaker B: Disney does still own the copyrights for later incarnations.
[00:29:39] Speaker A: For what?
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Later incarnations of the characters.
[00:29:42] Speaker A: Okay, so they don't necessarily have access to. To the classic version.
[00:29:47] Speaker B: Everybody has access to everybody.
[00:29:50] Speaker A: Everybody else does too.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: We don't have. Okay, so example, I remember back when I was still working as a librarian in Illinois a few states ago, before I moved too many times.
Now, a couple decades, a few states, there was a big deal. So I'm originally from Michigan, and I went to high school in Flint so there was Genesee County, Flint. That's part of why it hit my radar practice. Had to deal with the library. There was a library that did a summer reading program.
Genesee Valley Public Library did a summer reading program concept to come up with a mascot. And they challenged their kids. One of the kids came up with a mascot and the library through the contest. It was a mouse that, unfortunately, according to the law, looked too much like Mickey Mouse, despite the fact the kid drew it himself and it wasn't supposed to be Mickey. And they went after a local public library district in Flint.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: I'm not kidding.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: You don't mess with the mouse over a mascot.
Summer fucking reading program.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Don't mess with the mouse. Not kidding.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: All right, so, yes, they went after it for just that piddly ass of a detail.
[00:31:08] Speaker A: Here's the thing they do.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: They have to own the image. I get it.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: And I, as a writer, I understand.
[00:31:15] Speaker B: But I absolutely understand. Mickey Mouse is.
I'm sorry. Mickey Mouse has been around long enough. Mickey mouse is older than we are. It's time for Mickey Mouse to fucking retire. Oh, I'm sorry. That was out loud.
[00:31:28] Speaker A: Anyway, Mickey Mouse is like 40 years older than us.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: And that's the point. The 40.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: The one that's 40 years older than.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: Us can now be used as a mascot for your summer reading program without Disney getting to say shit about it.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: Yeah, Disney can't say, sorry, folks, the.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: Language goes sideways because this is. This is a personal hot button for me that I'm. I don't have anything against Disney. I went to. I've gone to Disney World a few times. I really enjoy Disney. I really enjoy their product. I really enjoy all of it. But I am really kind of sick of the fact that this mouse is fucking older than I am and won't fucking retire.
[00:32:08] Speaker A: Oh, come on now. I like Minnie Mouse. I'm not gonna lie. Minnie Mouse is one of my favorite characters as a child, ironically. Next. So it's Winnie the pooh. So. But yeah, this is where.
[00:32:16] Speaker B: This is where just deciding that, I.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: Wanted to know why Pokemon and did.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: You were so similar, why they got away with being so similar without somebody suing the other. Since Nintendo. Nintendo has deep pockets. Nintendo owns Pokemon.
[00:32:32] Speaker A: That's true. That's true. And Nintendo's like Disney. They will. They have no problem. They have no problem but with enforcing their copyright.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: And they don't. They've never sued Monster Rancher. And granted, Monster Rancher was a weird side off anime that didn't make it big. Digimon made it kind of big.
[00:32:48] Speaker A: Digimon did. That one is one I recognize, but.
[00:32:52] Speaker B: There are so many others. I had notes written down somewhere. You know, there's, let's see. MonColle knights, monster collector knights. That was another one. Oh, and then there was the whole yokai. That was a big praise for a while where it was because they had a little watch, a little plastic watch that they were able to sell the kids. A yokai watch. Yokai is Japanese for spirit or ghost.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: And so you collected Yokai using watch.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: There's a lot of collecting games, I notice.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: And they all seem to have, especially the Japanese ones, are all linked with a product.
Well, that makes sense. And that's an axe, and it is an app. Oh. But that was the other thing I wanted to tell you. Oh. So I said, I said ages ago, way back in the beginning of all of this, shattered today, that America's finally getting on the bandwagon.
Part of my research, I stumbled across an article from the St. Louis Post.
[00:33:56] Speaker A: Uh huh.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: Okay. Apparently, back in February of this year, 2024, McDonald's, the company started working with an anime company to try and go ahead and make a series of short animes, okay. To sell McDonald's and to revamp certain McDonald's, like 30 McDonald's stores throughout the world, they're calling it McDonald's. So you flip the golden arches upside down. Everything else is the same.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: Okay, I have to admit, that's kind of brilliant.
[00:34:30] Speaker B: And here's the thing. The reason they're doing that is because it already appeared in an anime. As such, there's this awesome, ridiculously stupid anime that I. Absolutely. That's been out for a few years now called the devil's part timer, and he works for McDonald's.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: Actually, that's a wise call on McDonald's park, because once stuff's out there, especially now with the Internet, nothing ever. Nothing ever leaves the Internet. Don't believe the trash bin on your computer. Everything on the Internet stays.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:02] Speaker A: Someone has found it. Someone has screenshotted it. It will come back, I promise. Screenshot it. I'm a writer. I can make up words.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Well, there's also the fact that there's the way back engine and a few other places that actually go out and archive everything that appears on the Internet. Anyways.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: That is true.
[00:35:18] Speaker B: Intensely.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: That is true. But because of that, this is something that's not going to go away. Like, it's a wiser move for McDonald's to go, rather than trying to shove this under the rug and make it disappear.
Why don't we just make these people a deal and use it?
[00:35:33] Speaker B: But I don't know that they're necessarily working with the same anime group. But I do know that I had encountered the McDonald's, and then I started watching. So, of course we know that our. We know that our phones and computers and everything listen to us. So I keep getting weird things like I'll be playing a stupid game on my phone, and all of a sudden I'll be talking to you, and then all of a sudden I'll get this thing, this clue pop up about what we're trying. Like, the hell. I already had this puzzle open. What are you doing?
[00:36:02] Speaker A: I am looking forward to how much Anna May, how much anime advertising I'm now gonna get on Facebook because my phone sits right next to it. So.
[00:36:11] Speaker B: So, yeah, I was watching Devil's part timer on Hulu because it just got Hulu. This is not product placement, folks. I just share what. Where I find things. That's all.
[00:36:22] Speaker A: It's pop culture.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: It's pop culture. So I finally got to. Because Netflix, it never worked on Netflix. I kept trying to watch it on Netflix and it just wouldn't stream, right? So I'm streaming. So it works now. It'll work now. But that's a whole long nightmare with the hardware at my house. So we're good.
[00:36:39] Speaker A: That's fair. That's fair.
[00:36:41] Speaker B: So I'm finally watching it. I see he's working at McDonald's. I'm cracking up because I worked at McDonald's when I was in college. You know, I just. It's hysterically because it's pretty darn accurate except for how well they treat their employees. But that's.
[00:36:54] Speaker A: Besides, I worked at McDonald's in high school. Now I'm kind of curious to go watch it.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: But this is this weird one off anime. It's not this major thing. But then I start getting. Because I have commercials. I get these commercials for McDonald's, but it's the McDonald's commercial.
[00:37:10] Speaker A: I'm like, fuck, there are McDonald's commercials. Seriously? Is it. Are they. Are they advertising the series?
[00:37:18] Speaker B: No, no, they're advertising McDonald's. I was like, duh.
Well, okay, so this is after McDonald. Well, I didn't realize all this was going on with McDonald's doing the animes and all of that. So now everything. All of it makes sense because this is when these commercials showed up as after McDonald's got to live with this. Probably mid March this year, they were gone.
[00:37:42] Speaker A: Oh. So it was a short run thing.
[00:37:43] Speaker B: It was a short run. They did like five episodes. Five or six episodes. Short run thing. Come to find out, managed to miss this one. I'm kind of glad because I don't do KFC. I don't actually do McDonald's anymore either. Really bad for my health. But KFC apparently has an anime.
Has done anime commercials too. Or not commercials, but anime shorts to sell their product too. Like really?
[00:38:08] Speaker A: Really?
[00:38:09] Speaker B: I know, right?
[00:38:10] Speaker A: Okay. Things like this should not surprise us as Gen Xers with the amount of marketing they threw at us on Saturday morning cartoons. But yeah, that one kind of surprises me.
[00:38:23] Speaker B: It really surprised me because all of the. Well, the thing is, these fast food companies have their marketing brand in America that we're so used to, and they don't really change. They just took their brand international.
So we almost never get the international effect back here.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: Oh, that makes sense.
[00:38:40] Speaker B: And that's part of what happened. So I do know that St. Louis is supposed to have a McDonald's, and so is Austin. The other news article I found was in an Austin, Texas newspaper. Interesting. So. And they remodeled the McDonald's and they remodeled the McDonald's in that location to reflect McDonald's. So, yeah, if you're out in. If you're out in those areas, you know about it. Hey, drop us along because, man, that's kind of cool. I'd kind of like to go.
[00:39:07] Speaker A: Just to go to.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: Just to go to McDonald's.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: Because that's exactly what McDonald's needed to do.
[00:39:12] Speaker B: Diversify to get a hold of the anime crowd.
[00:39:15] Speaker A: Right. I really hate to tell them, but the anime crowd was probably already going.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: To McDonald's, it meant.
[00:39:22] Speaker A: Although I've noticed with a lot of Gen Z kids, they aren't as big on fast food. So that actually might be a wise move on their part.
[00:39:32] Speaker B: It's hard to say.
[00:39:34] Speaker A: And I can actually, you know, I can actually see. I can. I can really see the difference between Japanese marketing and the us marketing, how different it was. Because I remember in the eighties when, when we had. When we were watching He man and she Ra and, and Transformers and Voltron and all of those, they were absolutely shows created by Hasbro to push their marketing toys, to push the toys, to push the games. In the US, we did the opposite. I remember Star wars came first and then came the merchandise. Yep.
[00:40:13] Speaker B: Yep. Alone. There was even the whole joke with, with Mel Brooks and his, his dark helmet crap. What was the name of the movie now?
[00:40:26] Speaker A: Spaceballs.
[00:40:26] Speaker B: Spaceballs. The whole joke in Spaceballs throughout the whole friggin' movie is merchandising. Merchandising. Merchandising.
[00:40:32] Speaker A: That is true.
[00:40:34] Speaker B: But the storyline comes first and then we get the merchandising tossed in partway.
[00:40:39] Speaker A: Through the storyline and we don't even get that necessarily, especially earlier on. We might now, but.
But yeah, I mean, you have the movie or the tv show and then you have the toys. You do the opposite of what they.
[00:40:55] Speaker B: Do, which I find is really fascinating because that means what happened, what seemed to have happened is the toys came out, the anime came out, and the anime was so popular, they brought the anime to America and tested it out. The anime hit big in America and they went, oh, well, let's do tribal toys.
[00:41:15] Speaker A: I'm not surprised.
[00:41:17] Speaker B: That wouldn't surprise me.
[00:41:18] Speaker A: With thanks to. Thanks to Disney and Warner brothers, who got this ball rolling with the newsreels in the 19, at least twenties and thirties and forties. It set people in the US up for liking cartoons. I mean, we were raised on them. Saturday morning cartoons were like, for cartoons, right? It was the highlight of our weekend. It was the hard highlight of our week. It was the one time I didn't.
[00:41:48] Speaker B: Have to watch or golf.
[00:41:52] Speaker A: I didn't have that problem.
I didn't have a father growing up, so I didn't have that problem. Although I did have that when my grandparents house.
But. But, yeah, Saturday morning was the opportunity when our parents would let us.
[00:42:08] Speaker B: Let us control the tv.
[00:42:10] Speaker A: Yes, yes, exactly. The picture bowl of cereal and you could pop yourself down in front of.
[00:42:16] Speaker B: The tv and you got to be in charge of.
[00:42:18] Speaker A: You got to be in charge. Well, my sister got to be in charge. She was older.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: I did not grow up with a sister sibling in the house.
[00:42:26] Speaker A: You didn't have that problem. Although I can't say that I did love my sister, but, yeah, I mean, it was the one time really in the week where we were in control of the tv. True. And, you know, that must have been a thing. That was very true in our generation in general, because bored of adhd, advertisers.
[00:42:41] Speaker B: Take advantage of that.
[00:42:43] Speaker A: And I can see why the Japanese market went.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: They like cartoons.
[00:42:48] Speaker A: Let's try the anime. Oh, they like the anime. We'll sell the toys. No, that totally makes sense in our country. And we passed that love on to our children and on to our younger siblings because a lot of millennials are younger siblings and, you know, because aren't we basically the people who created the cartoon network?
[00:43:09] Speaker B: Probably we created, Nickelodeon was created for us. We created Cartoon network because, well, I.
[00:43:15] Speaker A: Don't know I'd have to go research those.
[00:43:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd have to double check dates on when Cartoon network came about. But I know Nickelodeon was created for us.
[00:43:24] Speaker A: Nickelodeon was created for us. I think, I think Cartoon Network came in the nineties, which means it is possible that older Gen Xers and Jen Jones would have been, um, would have been creating Cartoon network.
[00:43:37] Speaker B: October 1, 1992 is the first beginning of type of network.
[00:43:41] Speaker A: Okay. So, yeah, that could very well have some, that would definitely be generation zones and older generators.
[00:43:47] Speaker B: When we were so, we were so much the animation kids that pbs. Oh, yeah, schoolhouse rock. I mean, come on.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: Oh, yes.
[00:43:57] Speaker B: I love, I still love school house.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: Rock.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: Song, folks, if you ever want to get a jingle stuck in your head and you're interested about anything, American history, American government, go check out grammar. Grammar. English grammar. Check out schoolhouse rock online. It's on YouTube now. And oh, my goodness, you. It gets stuck in the head. It gets, it gets stuck.
[00:44:22] Speaker A: I remember in college, I don't remember which band did it, but one band actually released an album of alternative rock covers. It's a schoolhouse rock song. And all of my friends in college were so excited. We loved it.
[00:44:40] Speaker B: Well, yeah, because it's, you know, it's not mindless fun. It's mindful fun.
[00:44:46] Speaker A: It is. It is.
[00:44:47] Speaker B: And we are the really weird kids that thought mindful fun was a good thing.
[00:44:51] Speaker A: I mean, to be fair, we were the generation that tested out the concept of electric company and Mister Rogers and, you know, those kinds of concepts where it was a little more learning based than a little more learning based than entertainment based.
[00:45:09] Speaker B: Right.
[00:45:09] Speaker A: So.
[00:45:10] Speaker B: But it was still entertaining. It was. We finally tested out the concept of learning through entertainment. I mean, and started pushing it as we since adulthood. And it's now become a nice part of life coaching. It's subdivided.
[00:45:24] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Well, they've discovered gamification works very well, and yet they've been educated.
[00:45:29] Speaker B: They figured out that you learn the most in the first five years of your life and what are you doing in the first five years of life?
[00:45:35] Speaker A: Playing.
[00:45:35] Speaker B: Exactly. So why wouldn't this work that out? There's tons more to say about anime. There always is, because it's all a world. There is a whole subculture throughout the world, not just in America, but throughout the world related to anime. There's cosplay, there's conventions, there's writers, there's animators, there's absolutely.
And anime is strictly for the record. Anime is strictly the animated visual audio stuff.
[00:46:10] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:46:11] Speaker B: That doesn't include the manga, which is, which is the print, which is a whole nother world that's part of the subculture.
[00:46:20] Speaker A: And I think we have to say.
[00:46:22] Speaker B: Thank you to Japan for the culture of kawaii.
[00:46:25] Speaker A: I don't know what that is. Kawaii.
[00:46:27] Speaker B: Make sure you say the extra e. Kuai. Kawaii is cute. It's cuteness.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: Oh, my God, I love that.
[00:46:34] Speaker B: Here's the problem, kwai.
[00:46:36] Speaker A: Uh huh.
[00:46:37] Speaker B: Is horror.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: Hence the reason why you need the.
[00:46:41] Speaker B: Extra sound is critical. Two eyes equals cube. One eye equals.
[00:46:47] Speaker A: While their language is more subtle than.
[00:46:49] Speaker B: Ours, their food's more subtle. Their language is more subtle than their language. Because Japan is very much a culture that values art.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: They do everything it is.
[00:46:59] Speaker B: And that is reflected in the manga, the anime, and the prevalence of all of this. And it's kind of breaking my heart, some of what I was seeing online, that they're having some real struggles keeping animate out of Japan.
[00:47:14] Speaker A: Really?
Well, I'm sorry.
[00:47:16] Speaker B: Finding the funding and everything they need to keep the production companies going is turning out to be. I wonder why possibly the small business issue could be. I didn't get into any digging on that. I just, it's scraped the surface. And as I was scraping through, saw that there's. I checked out the Japanese government site at one point talking about when they were talking about copyright and such while I was looking through. And that was one of the conversations that they're having in a big land with them is be continuing this particular art.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: You know, I wouldn't be surprised if a pandemic was a big play in that big factor in that issue. Here in the United States, the pandemic hit small business hard. I know quite a few of them that, I mean, it's becoming pretty common to hear, oh, what about such and so business? Yeah, they didn't survive the pandemic.
[00:48:08] Speaker B: That could very well be.
[00:48:09] Speaker A: And I could see that being a problem over in Japan as well.
[00:48:12] Speaker B: Well, it was a world exactly.
[00:48:14] Speaker A: Because it hit everybody.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: The problem, too is anime is you've got actors, you've got voice, you got voice actors, you've got animators, you've got writers, you've got draw artists, you've got a whole spectrum involved in making it.
[00:48:28] Speaker A: And they ran into the same problem that Hollywood did.
[00:48:30] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:48:31] Speaker A: It's really, really, really hard to work together when you can't be in the same room.
Hello, Sabrina.
[00:48:40] Speaker B: Well, and you have your take on it too.
[00:48:42] Speaker A: Yeah, Sabrina decided, Sabrina's one of my cats. She decided to come in and say hello.
[00:48:46] Speaker B: Hey, she's being friendly. To me, I'm not gonna pick that. But, yeah, it does come down to what started out as a fairly straightforward, simple question. Turned out to be insanely complicated for the answer because it comes down to the intersection of game and story and product there with secondary product of the animation. It gets so many moving parts that it becomes really complicated.
[00:49:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I can see that.
[00:49:16] Speaker B: So, no, it's not as simple as, yeah, you can just go sue because there's just too many moving parts to figure out who to sue for. What.
[00:49:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:24] Speaker B: And where does it stop being. Where does it become a unique idea? Which piece is the unique idea?
[00:49:30] Speaker A: That is true, because there's.
[00:49:32] Speaker B: Because that's what intellectual copyright is about, is what piece is the unique idea.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: Exactly. And there are story archetypes and there's.
[00:49:40] Speaker B: There's an entire game system dedicated to this.
[00:49:44] Speaker A: I mean, there's only so many story archetypes in the world and eventually you're just hitting on one type or another.
[00:49:53] Speaker B: Yep. I mean, anime even has such limited archetypes that there's this wonderful role playing game. BESM, big eyes, small mouth. It's a Ghibli reference, which is. Ghibli is a certain type of anime, blah, blah, blah. Okay. But they have templates as part of building your character that are the standard templates of the characters. And one of them is a monster collector, which is exactly, basically pet monster trainer.
[00:50:24] Speaker A: Pokemon.
[00:50:24] Speaker B: Pokemon, yeah. You know, you've got, you've got your shadow warrior.
Wonder what that is.
[00:50:33] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:50:34] Speaker B: You know, you've got your demon hunter. There's an entire anime that's just called Demon hunter.
[00:50:38] Speaker A: Demon hunter. You know, he's a demon hunter. I believe there's demon slayer. There's several.
[00:50:43] Speaker B: Yep. And the fun thing is anime does tend to like the religious things too. So you've got an exorcist type.
[00:50:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Because they look at, they look at, they look at ghosts. Very different than.
[00:50:56] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:50:57] Speaker A: Than western culture does.
Eastern culture looks very differently.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: Yes. Which is absolutely wonderful to encounter and.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: Which is a rabbit hole I haven't gone down yet. Oh, and then it'll happen eventually.
[00:51:12] Speaker B: And then the original anime that came to America, the first anime we saw in America, the archetype poet, hot rod speed racer.
[00:51:20] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I love Speed Racer.
[00:51:22] Speaker B: Speed Racer was the first anime to come to me.
[00:51:24] Speaker A: Yes, it was.
[00:51:25] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:51:26] Speaker A: Yes, it was.
[00:51:27] Speaker B: And it's. It's. It's a full on archetype. Because there are other.
[00:51:31] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Because there are others that are others.
[00:51:33] Speaker B: That are like that. Interestingly, there are only. There are a few. There are very few manga that have become anime that I have not seen duplicated personally.
[00:51:46] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:51:47] Speaker B: And they're the ones I really, really enjoy because they're so unique. And one of them is, like, Death Note concept.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: I feel like I've heard of that one. Yeah.
[00:51:55] Speaker B: They made a movie out of it too. It's become really popular anime and movie. But it started as a manga. And it's this really cool concept of the God of death one. There are several gods of death. They are demons.
[00:52:09] Speaker A: Right?
[00:52:10] Speaker B: Drops intentionally, accidentally drops his notebook. And kid picks it up. Kid can now see God of death and kid can now cause people to die.
He specifies a date and a time and the means of death, if he wishes. He has to have a name and think of their face and specify a date and a time to go with it.
[00:52:33] Speaker A: It's not a good thing for a human to have a hold of.
[00:52:35] Speaker B: Well, the kid. The kid, he's the child of the cop. So he sees the really bad guys consistently getting out on parole, things like that. Decides to be the good vigilante.
Yeah. And then he spiral. The thing is, the ones that don't tend to get massive duplication of iterations of them. This one is 13 volumes long, period. End of discussion. There is no further story.
[00:53:04] Speaker A: Good number.
[00:53:05] Speaker B: Exactly. But there is no further story. And the anime stuck very strictly to the manga which means it's a limited, condensed, beginning, middle, end story.
[00:53:17] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:53:18] Speaker B: It isn't that wide open. I gotta catch them all.
[00:53:21] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:53:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:53:22] Speaker A: So there is going to be a finite.
[00:53:26] Speaker B: Yes. So you don't end up with 20 gazillion versions of it. So it's not like Sailor Moon. Another major one. The magical world.
[00:53:35] Speaker A: Right? The magical girl.
[00:53:36] Speaker B: Yep. So you see these archetypes because they are. I'm referencing off the list in the game because they're in the game. Because, gee, anybody who starts following any anime, that's. That's what they are.
[00:53:50] Speaker A: That's what they are. Exactly.
[00:53:51] Speaker B: And when you have characters like the ones in Death Note that don't fit an archetype, that's the ones that I like to personally.
[00:53:58] Speaker A: You mentioned that, you know, cosplay has come out of anime. And one thing I've noticed with it is it causes sometimes. Sometimes it seems to cause cosplay to become hidden because so many people will cosplay the characters who are very. I hate to say the word normal, but very, very. How do I want to say this? That can easily blend in with a crowd because the clothing isn't fancy. It isn't an obvious costume.
[00:54:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:25] Speaker A: You really kind of look like you're walking around in jeans and a t shirt. The key. So I love it.
[00:54:32] Speaker B: But the key with that, too. Honestly, there is a reason for that because then you identify who the people that really get it.
[00:54:39] Speaker A: Oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. I helped my sister out last year. Her hometown had a Halloween walk where basically a bunch of businesses set up in. In one of the parks, Jackson Morrow park. And basically they set up along the walkway, and kids basically walked around this park and got candy from people. And the number of kids I saw in anime costumes, how cool, was fantastic. And I could always kind of tell because it didn't quite look like a costume. And that was what told me. This is a kid who either watches anime or sings the parents and probably both. Yep.
[00:55:20] Speaker B: Because, and like I said, part of that is that kind of cosplay is you have to be part of the cult part of that subculture to really recognize who that is. But it's also the way of saying I'm part of the subculture.
[00:55:33] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:55:34] Speaker B: It's that subtle. I can stand out in public and still advertise moment.
[00:55:39] Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly.
[00:55:41] Speaker B: And again, like you said earlier, Japanese setup.
[00:55:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is very subtle.
[00:55:46] Speaker B: And this is another very subtle.
[00:55:48] Speaker A: I do love it.
[00:55:49] Speaker B: I'm kind of surprised that you don't do more with Japanese poetry, to be honest.
[00:55:54] Speaker A: Haven't gotten there yet.
[00:55:56] Speaker B: Get there. Because it is all about the psychology.
[00:55:59] Speaker A: It's all like this.
[00:56:00] Speaker B: Okay. I know, because you don't encounter enough poetry as it is, but. And I'm not even talking haiku. There's more to Japanese poetry than just haiku.
[00:56:09] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. There's more. There's actually. And I don't remember the name of it. There is actually a version that part of it is haiku, and the other part of it just basically expands on the concept inside the haiku. And I do not feel like what.
[00:56:24] Speaker B: The name that is.
[00:56:25] Speaker A: I can ask a friend of mine and she can tell me that she's written them. But, yeah, it's a really. It's a really cool style of poetry. It's a really cool style of poetry. I'm poet also, by the way, in case you're wondering.
[00:56:38] Speaker B: You're a writer. That's poetry's writer.
[00:56:40] Speaker A: That's true. That's true. I never understood why we defined between writer and poet.
[00:56:45] Speaker B: I should read that. Yeah, we do.
[00:56:48] Speaker A: You'll hear a lot of people say, I am a writer and a poet.
[00:56:52] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:56:53] Speaker A: I actually have author poet on. On my author site.
[00:56:57] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:56:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:57:00] Speaker B: I don't make distinction, as you can tell.
[00:57:02] Speaker A: I can tell.
[00:57:06] Speaker B: As a reader. Oh, yeah. The other degree is in English. I have a master's in that one, too. But anyway, as a reader, it's all written word. Therefore, that is true writing, all by a writer. A poet is a writer. A writer. A fiction writer is a writer. Nonfiction writer. They're all writers.
[00:57:24] Speaker A: To be fair. To be fair, your degree was an English literature and mine was an English writing.
Well, that's fair. That's why I'm the writer exam.
That's why I'm the one who will probably be posting on. On Patreon and coffee. And. And if we start a blog, probably.
[00:57:44] Speaker B: On the blog, if she ever convinces me to do it, it'll be because we need to prove an argument, and that's what I do.
[00:57:51] Speaker A: Well, that's what she's good for. Now. That's just when I write it up and I send it to you, and you.
[00:57:56] Speaker B: And I edit.
[00:57:56] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:57:57] Speaker B: Everybody offer feedback. Yeah.
And say, did you think about. Yes, but like I said, because it branches so much into everything Japanese culture, this is all because of one question.
Why don't they sue?
[00:58:14] Speaker A: Why do we have Pokemon and Digimon? Exactly.
[00:58:17] Speaker B: And what does Disney have to do with it?
[00:58:18] Speaker A: Exactly.
How do they get away with so many duplicates?
[00:58:22] Speaker B: Well, and see, I knew that Disney was the big boys, and nobody ever duplicates Disney. So it's like, how do they get away with Disney? Because if anybody were to try that with Mickey Mouse in America, well, we.
[00:58:33] Speaker A: Already know Disney will go after them. Even if they're a small public library.
[00:58:36] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:58:37] Speaker A: And I don't like using the term bully with Disney, but I don't really want to anger the mouse, because, again, you don't mess with the mouse.
[00:58:44] Speaker B: But, you know, like I said, I respect the product. I understand. But at the same time, things are supposed to sunset for a reason, and they have overwhelmingly overused their influence to make sure that things don't sunset. And that's not fair and not right. Exactly. I very much appreciate Disney and what Disney has done with their Stanford LGBTQ. I think that's awesome. But when it comes to their product and allowing, you can't trademark something for life. I'm sorry.
[00:59:19] Speaker A: Well, and that was the original purpose of copyright. Was the original purpose of copyright was.
[00:59:26] Speaker B: Long enough to make money off of it.
[00:59:28] Speaker A: Long enough for the person who created it to make money off of it. And people not take money out of their pockets.
[00:59:34] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:59:35] Speaker A: While they are alive. Hence the reason why it started at 35 years, because we didn't live as long.
[00:59:41] Speaker B: We did. But that's a whole nother issue. That's a whole nother conversation.
[00:59:44] Speaker A: That's a whole nother. That's a whole other part.
[00:59:45] Speaker B: That's a whole nother conversation.
[00:59:47] Speaker A: That's a whole different episode. But when it made, to me, it made more sense when Disney moved it to 50 years because we do live longer. That, you know, stuff that I created in my twenties, you're still. It becomes imminent. I almost said it myself. Becomes public domain when I'm in my seventies and potentially still alive and need.
[01:00:07] Speaker B: To live off of it.
[01:00:08] Speaker A: Because I still need to live off of it.
[01:00:09] Speaker B: I'm retired and yeah, retired.
[01:00:11] Speaker A: What is this retired you talk about? We don't get to retire.
[01:00:15] Speaker B: No, that was our parents got to retire. That's right. I, again, another podcast, you're not wrong.
[01:00:21] Speaker A: But, you know, 50 made more sense because the stuff that I'm creating now in my fifties, I'm not gonna be around 50 years from now, right. Most likely I'm 90th percentile. Sure.
[01:00:34] Speaker B: They used to have a statement in there or death of.
[01:00:38] Speaker A: Oh, that's true. And that's.
[01:00:39] Speaker B: They got rid of that.
[01:00:40] Speaker A: And they got rid of that.
[01:00:42] Speaker B: It was 35 years or death of.
[01:00:44] Speaker A: And they got rid of that because of Disney, which put a lot of stuff back in imminent public. Bloody hell.
Put a lot of stuff back out of public domain. Public domain and back under copyright.
[01:00:58] Speaker B: Yep. Happy birthday.
[01:00:59] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. Because that's when happy birthday did that.
[01:01:01] Speaker B: That's when happy birthday. Yes, because it was public domain. Because the writer of Happy Birthday passed away and it went to public domain. And then the Disney changed the law and happy birthday, people said, and the family said, we get to have money from this. Give it back. Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. And so all of the restaurants that used to sing happy birthday to the.
[01:01:23] Speaker A: Kids stopped, had to change.
[01:01:25] Speaker B: They had to come up with their own song.
[01:01:26] Speaker A: And I can completely understand their viewpoint. As a creator. No, as a creator, I can understand if it is something that I or someone in my family created. I have a little less. I have a little less understanding for in my family. But if it's something I created and the time period had passed that I'm still around, then, yeah, having it back under my name is understandable.
[01:01:47] Speaker B: And that's if you're still around.
[01:01:49] Speaker A: And there's the problem.
[01:01:50] Speaker B: The person that created happy birthday wasn't.
[01:01:53] Speaker A: Still around, and the problem with when Disney changed the copyright law was they set up that concept of it can be the person or their spouse, state, family, read descendants and family. So, yeah, that's where that came from.
[01:02:12] Speaker B: I know. Depressing, isn't it? Isn't it, though?
Now, see, if you had kids, everything you've written, people will benefit from it. Right?
[01:02:23] Speaker A: Not a good enough reason to have children.
[01:02:27] Speaker B: It's fair.
There are many days, I cannot disagree with that. And I love my kids.
[01:02:33] Speaker A: No matter how much you love your children.
[01:02:34] Speaker B: I love my kids. I love my kids. I am the original mama bear when it comes to my kids. At the same time, there are many days that I'm the original mama bear that says, that's fair.
[01:02:43] Speaker A: I have a friend who has, their children are grown and we have been out in public and a baby has started crying and they have said, I'm so glad my children are grown. And I'm like, I can say that because, you know, it's one thing when it's yours.
[01:02:58] Speaker B: That was fundamentally, that's why I didn't become a school teacher, because I needed to be an adult that worked with adults that said, you don't want to be here. There's the door. Get out.
[01:03:08] Speaker A: You know, I think I ran into the same thing when I changed my major from education just to English. Shadowing in classes really made me realize I may like children. I don't like them enough to be around them 8 hours a day, which did eventually lead me to the realization that I love children. I don't love them enough to have them around 24/7 either.
And decided that the wisest choice I could make was if I don't love them enough to have them around twenty four seven, I shouldn't. So.
So I can understand that. But, yeah, had I had. I had kids, I probably would have been a lot more knowledgeable in the anime as well.
[01:03:50] Speaker B: Possibly, possibly, possibly. It all depends on what your kids decided they're into because I've had to keep up with my kids on other trends that I just wasn't interested in.
[01:04:01] Speaker A: Well, that's true. My oldest, one of my oldest nieces was never really into, never really got into anime. Absolutely loved all of the Disney shows, but. And by shows, I mean the ones that were like Hannah, those that were actually on. Yeah. It was so funny. She loved the sweet life of Zach and Cody. And when I was watching Riverdale, I kept thinking, why does the actor who plays doghead look so familiar? I finally went and looked him up on IMDb and sure enough, he was one of the guys who played on that show, and I'm like, that's why he looks familiar.
[01:04:32] Speaker B: And that's kind of disturbing. There are Disney actors and actresses.
[01:04:35] Speaker A: They are.
[01:04:36] Speaker B: There are a group of active mattresses that are Disney active mattresses.
[01:04:39] Speaker A: And until they became adults, and now they have branched out.
[01:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I was fortunate. My kids actually didn't get into the live action stuff.
I didn't get tortured with any of that.
[01:04:55] Speaker A: That's fair.
[01:04:56] Speaker B: Instead, I had to watch. Instead, I had to watch paw patrol and a whole bunch of other cartoons at dodgy.
[01:05:03] Speaker A: She was big into SpongeBob SquarePants.
[01:05:06] Speaker B: I put a limiter on what I would watch with my kids. SpongeBob. Well, no, there was a reason. There was a reason SpongeBob had too much random, random, mindless violence, even with his bestie, the squirrel. Random, mindless violence?
[01:05:20] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
[01:05:25] Speaker B: I said no SpongeBob in the house. Not because I thought SpongeBob was too stupid. Yeah, kind of was.
[01:05:31] Speaker A: But we were adults. We have. We have to realize we live in adult lives.
[01:05:35] Speaker B: But I looked at it more of, I have a young girl and a young boy, and I need them not beating up on each other, which means the modeling in front of them needs to be them, not be. Not beating up on each other.
So I had them watch avatar the last second.
Granted, we were a taekwondo family, but.
[01:05:58] Speaker A: Still, I mean, there is that. So they can understand it in the context of these were martial arts, but still.
[01:06:04] Speaker B: So I had a much anti lesson.
[01:06:06] Speaker A: So instead of them learning how to beat up on each other through cartoons, you talk them through a martial art and said, is that what I'm hearing? No, I know it's not.
[01:06:16] Speaker B: It is because the cartoon was just random violence. The martial art is intentional, purposeful violence. Darn it.
And only when it's necessary.
[01:06:26] Speaker A: And at least with martial arts, you'd learn control. Exactly. Only what it's unlike, you know, my cousins and me and the newer kids, just basically torturing each other.
[01:06:35] Speaker B: That would be my husband and his family.
He was middle of five. They did that. I was raised as an only, so, you know, I didn't have any of that.
[01:06:45] Speaker A: I was the youngest of two children and five grandchildren. To be honest with you, my superpower was tattle-tailing.
It was not just a superpower. It was a defense mechanism.
[01:06:56] Speaker B: I'm not gonna lie, there are moments I always really wanted a sibling because then I wouldn't always be the one who got in trouble. Unfortunately, that just didn't happen.
[01:07:11] Speaker A: That is the benefit there was nobody.
[01:07:13] Speaker B: Else to get in trouble except for me. I couldn't even believe the dogs because it would be pretty sure that the dogs didn't open the refrigerator door. Like, no, I'm not wrong.
[01:07:22] Speaker A: I don't know. Have you met some of my sister's cats?
[01:07:24] Speaker B: That's cats, not dogs. There's a difference.
But I think that's about what we have for today.
We have wandered a very different.
[01:07:36] Speaker A: We'll see how much of this makes it into the final episode.
[01:07:40] Speaker B: We really hope you enjoyed the episode.
[01:07:42] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[01:07:43] Speaker B: And we would love to hear what you think. So we have a email address, spill the Tea podcast 224 because the zero got dropped out for whatever reason. So spill the
[email protected].
[01:07:58] Speaker A: Spill the Tea podcast 224 yeah, because if.
[01:08:04] Speaker B: You do spill the tea podcast, that's apparently somebody else's Gmail, they'd be really.
[01:08:08] Speaker A: Confused, which is gonna be fun. But quite honestly, if I do a search on I do a search on Spotify, I find a random search on Spotify, will actually find several podcasts this evening.
[01:08:18] Speaker B: Oh, yay.
[01:08:19] Speaker A: Meow.
[01:08:21] Speaker B: Well, that's gonna be fine.
[01:08:22] Speaker A: It can happen. So it is a thing. We would love to hear what you think. So, yep. Drop us a line at
[email protected]. we'll see if I get it right. We would also love your support, so please visit us at Patreon or buy us a coffee at buymecoffee.com/spilltheteepodcast.
[01:08:42] Speaker B: We hope you had some fun and chuckled with us because that's kind of the point.
[01:08:46] Speaker A: Have a good one, everybody. Take care and we'll be back.
