[DoctorOW]

It makes for more creative challenges. If someone has a good idea for a Mario game, they could do it. If Nintendo wants to create something unique, they'd have to take more risks and create something new. We're talking one new character every few decades.

[bitwize]

I got into this discussion with coworkers about the loss of copyright for Steamboat Willie. They were all like "Now anybody can make Mickey Mouse cartoons!" Not so fast. The name and likeness of Mickey Mouse are also trademarked, and Disney can hold onto them forever.

It's the same with Mario. Even if the copyright on Super Mario Bros. expired today, Nintendo could claim trademark protection on the names and likenesses of Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Bowser, the Koopas, etc. Even the theme music. This has already been done. The "Tetris theme" is a public domain Russian folk song called Коробейники -- but The Tetris Company LLC owns a trademark on this song in the video game market.

Tetris is one of the most jealously guarded IPs in the world. Every aspect of Tetris is protected with copyrights and trademarks -- the board dimensions, the pieces, everything. Writing a game that plays like Tetris without a Tetris license is a good way to get sued and found liable. It's entirely possible for Nintendo to lock down protection of the Mario IP in virtual perpetuity in similar fashion, making copyright expiry moot for all but the most unimportant elements (say, the particular shapes of the clouds and horsetail plants in Super Mario Bros.).

[staticman2]

Trademark isn't intended to be a backdoor to extend copyright law.

Obviously someone calling for copyright expiration is calling for a sane interpretation (or reinterpretation, if you will) of trademark law.

Even under current law whether you can make a Micky Mouse cartoon probably has more to do with which judge your litigation is in front of than anything else.

[Wowfunhappy]

Exactly. I don't have an issue with Nintendo maintaining the exclusive ability to create new Mario games because it encourages Nintendo to ensure maintain a certain level of quality. Nintendo wants consumers to associate "Mario" with "quality", so they will only release high-quality Mario games.

We can debate whether Nintendo upholds that standard—I thought some of the Mario Party games were pretty atrocious—but at least the incentive exists.

[bitwize]

If it's a good idea for a Mario game, it's probably a good idea for a game that does not use the Mario IP.

I suddenly realized, when working on my mobile platform game, that adult me was developing the Mario game 12-year-old me always wanted to make. It just didn't have Mario in it or use the mechanics like specific power-ups unique to that series. But the platforming itself and, it turns out, things like how level layouts are stored, were pretty similar to Mario.

Kid me would be stoked for that bit of my future.

[autoexec]

Sometimes it's the character itself that makes the difference though. Especially in cases where you're dealing with satire involving a figure from our shared culture, but also in the case of works where the artist is drawing from the history of the character and fictional universe they exist in. Sometimes the artist can't just swap out the IP with a generic character and still have the effect they were going for.

[qtzfz]

You know what makes for more creative challenges? Not being able to use someone else's character.

[Taywee]

The same applies whether it's somebody else's or your own. Is it significantly more creative to continually milk a character you made 40 years ago? How about a character your company made before you even started working there?

[flangola7]

Culturally, Mario doesn't belong to any one person or organization. The idea of ideas being property is strange and alien.

[bitwize]

There are indigenous tribes who assign ownership of stories and songs to particular people/families. Retelling them without ownership or permission warrants punishment.

The idea of ideas being property is as human as anything.

[earthling8118]

The only thing that is human about corporations is the people that make them up. There's a several order of magnitude gap between a few people/families in tribes compared to them.

[bitwize]

The original claim didn't mention anything about corporations.

The idea of ideas being property is, itself, as old as the idea of property.

[RunSet]

My intuition says the notion of property being property had to predate the notion of ideas being property.