>And I'm not usually supporting big company using public goods
Do you mind if I ask why? I don't see why the size of the entity should matter one bit when it comes to the public domain and human history, nor why some other entity should, even in principle, get a permanent monopoly on artistic expression they played zero role in (or for that matter their polity played zero role in). The physical objects themselves of history are of course by definition limited and necessarily require custodianship and care. But the ideas and imagery they expressed centuries or millennia ago should have long since passed to all of humanity, all of us from the smallest to the largest. It being locked down retroactively is even worse. It's not as if a "big company" using the public domain in any way diminishes anyone else's ability to do so nor the original work.
I can answer this without even reading past your 2nd sentence. Because large entities are dicks. They'll take this public work for their own uses, and then attack anyone else using it as if they own the exclusive rights. And if they're large enough, they'll essentially steal whatever the work is from the public by using the law and their stable of bulldog lawyers to go after any other entity using the image they feel they own.
> It's not as if a "big company" using the public domain in any way diminishes anyone else's ability to do so nor the original work.
Not OP, but big companies tend to abuse public goods after they use them. Think of all the DMCA takedown notices that these companies made for people playing classical music.
This is strange conflicted space for me. Were this the case, Disney would have had to produce nothing but original work, which would probably benefit us today but would leave us without the eventual cultural heritage that they produced (if it can ever be pulled from their claws). I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that public domain is very much like other idealogical freedoms I was raised to believe in, which is to say beautiful conceptually but possibly messy and requiring potentially painful sacrifices on the part of individuals if consistency with the ideal is the goal.
Thing is, Disney has profited immensely from public domain, and then they have done everything in their power to restrict public domain as much as possible.
Works have to be released into the public domain, or there will be nothing but licensed regurgitation of the same things.
Indeed Disney is a great example. It is because of them and their greediness that copyright protection was extended so past reasonable duration in US and other countries...
Do you mind if I ask why? I don't see why the size of the entity should matter one bit when it comes to the public domain and human history, nor why some other entity should, even in principle, get a permanent monopoly on artistic expression they played zero role in (or for that matter their polity played zero role in). The physical objects themselves of history are of course by definition limited and necessarily require custodianship and care. But the ideas and imagery they expressed centuries or millennia ago should have long since passed to all of humanity, all of us from the smallest to the largest. It being locked down retroactively is even worse. It's not as if a "big company" using the public domain in any way diminishes anyone else's ability to do so nor the original work.