Comment by bumper_crop
2 years ago
Copyright lasting 1XX years probably has a substantial amount to do with it. If you are a media company, and you already spent the marketing budget building up the idea of Avengers, or Mario, or whatever pop culture icon you are selling, making a sequel means you get to lean on it. Should your company spend lots of extra money advertising your new video game, or just a little reminding people the next Call of Duty is coming out in a month?
Alternatively, flip this around. Would Disney spend so much on Marvel movies if other studios could make movies about the same super heroes? No way! Why should Disney let the other studios ride on their coat tails? They would need to make all new stories and heroes.
Disney has held their copyrights for over 100 years, but this phenomenon seems to be one of the last decade. I don’t think it is the cause, but you might be right that fixing © would help.
Minor nit, the Walt Disney Corporation was founded October 16, 1923 and US copyright has anything published in 1926 or earlier in the public domain.
I rather doubt, though, that the fact that The Great Gatsby just entered the public domain this year has anything to do with the concentration of the market in the hands of a declining number of producers.