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Hey there, autistic with a special interest in intellectual property law...

Chime in below if you'd like me to actually debunk the misinformation going around about Mickey Mouse's public domain status.

I'm low on energy so I'll save my rant until I know someone actually cares to learn what I know...

#copyright #trademark #MickeyMouse #PublicDomain

reshared this

in reply to Shiri Bailem

I'm always interested in debunks by people who know what they are talking about. Let us hear your take, please.
in reply to Ga Schu

@Ga Schu You can find it here: foggyminds.com/display/c6ef095…


I think I feel confident enough that people may actually read this now:

First of all is to throw out just about everything you've seen. Extremely few things are even mostly accurate, and the few I've seen of those bury the facts deep under fearmongering...

Public domain means you can use that version however you like... so long as you're not violating some other law (such as trademark) in the process. Copyright no longer applies and it's much the same as the works of Shakespeare, or the Brothers Grimm (which notably Disney used to build much of it's empire...)

Since Public Domain is as simple as it can get, that part is fairly clean and hard to distort... Trademark on the other hand goes way over many peoples' heads.

First, basic idea of trademark: it's specifically narrow in scope, does not prohibit others from using the trademarked property in general, only prohibits it's use in ways that would confuse people or would dilute the trademark.

Simply put, if a reasonable person would get confused looking at that usage of Mickey and could think it was something official from Disney... then it's a violation of their trademark.

Notably the trademark they have applies to the name Mickey Mouse (and names have no copyright) as well as the depiction of Mickey Mouse (in all versions, both copyrighted and public domain).

The reality is there's only really two things you can't do:
* Use Mickey in any way that's not clearly separate from Disney (and including things like a big bold "Unofficial" or "Not Licensed By Disney" or similar does cover that, just so long as they're not hidden).
* Use Mickey or a mouse reasonably confused for Mickey in your branding (this constitutes dilution, which means while people may not be confused it does make it so Mickey stops being associated with Disney)

Notable odd details not usually covered:
* If you make a significantly different version based on this version. (For instance if you were to re-animate Steamboat Willie with entirely new art.) You own the copyright on that version, though your copyright only extends so far as the significant contributions you've made or the exact depiction (ie. if someone tries to sell your rendition of Mickey without significant changes to it... ie. you can't grab someone's fan art and sell it, but you can make your own similar fan art and sell that)
* This actually applies to Disney's own copyright on Mickey as well, all later versions retain only the copyright on their significant contributions. For instance depicting Mickey in color is a grey area (pun intended), but precident says it is allowable as "adding color" is not considered to be a meaningful contribution to the work. (The Fantasia Mickey of course is a prime example of a meaningful contribution as that depiction is very distinctive).





Fidel Castro: This position of the Trotskyists is the same which all newspapers and publicity agencies of Yankee imperialism adopted in relation to the cause of Comrade Ernesto Guevara. All the imperialist press of the United States, its news agencies, the Cuban counter-revolutionaries' press, the bourgeois press throughout the continent and the rest of the world - in other words, this campaign of slanders and intrigues against revolutionary Cuba in connection with the case of Comrade Guevara - coincided with precision with all imperialist bourgeois sectors, all the slanderers and all the conspirators against the Cuban revolution, for there is no doubt that only reaction and imperialism is interested in discrediting the Cuban revolution and in destroying the confidence of the revolutionary movements in the Cuban revolution, in destroying the confidence of the Latin American peoples in the Cuban revolution, in destroying their faith. Therefore, they have not hesitated to use the dirtiest and most indecent weapons. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Fidel Castro: Even though at one time Trotskyism represented an erroneous position, but a position in the field of political ideas, Trotskyism became during the following years a vulgar instrument of imperialism and reaction. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Fidel Castro: Yon Sosa led the movement of a group of armed officers in the crushing of whom the mercenaries who later invaded Playa Girón participated. Through a businessman who took charge of the movement's political aspects, the Fourth International fixed it up so that that leader, who was ignorant of the profound problems of politics and of the history of revolutionary thought, would permit that agents of Trotskyism, about whom we do not have the slightest doubt that he is an agent of imperialism, to publish a newspaper which copies outright the program of the Fourth International. By doing this, the Fourth International committed a real crime against the revolutionary movement to isolate it from the rest of the people, to isolate it from the masses, when it contaminated it with the stupidities, the discredit, and the repugnant thing which Trotskyism today is in the field of politics. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Martin Luther King, Jr.: So today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness. It has brought about a system that takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. wordsmith.social/protestation/…




George Friedman: The primordial interest of the United States, over which for centuries we have fought wars– the First, the Second and Cold Wars– has been the relationship between Germany and Russia, because united there, they’re the only force that could threaten us. And to make sure that that doesn’t happen. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Ugh... I feel the dire urge to rant on topics that sadly I'd be lucky if 5 people even would read them, and I'm fighting emotional and physical exhaustion before I even start...

I'm so tired of people gaslighting left and right online... not remotely willing to learn basic details and instead repeating something that's already spent 12 rounds in a game of telephone... and that non-sense spreading like wildfire while basic fucking facts get ignored...

So very tired...



Lenin: Prompted by fear of revolution, the old state power, which is independent of the people and is a power over the people, promises the people that it will ensure their freedom. But its promises remain unfulfilled; they cannot be fulfilled. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


James Connolly: If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic, your efforts would be in vain. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Lenin: There are moments in history when a desperate struggle of the masses, even for a hopeless cause, is essential for the further schooling of these masses and their training for the next struggle. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Kim Il Sung: Our ideal is to build a society where everyone is well fed, well clothed, and lives a long life, a society where everybody is progressive and works devotedly, a society where all people live united in harmony as one big family. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Michael Parenti: To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people. wordsmith.social/protestation/…



Lenin: Practice is higher than (theoretical) knowledge, for it has not only the dignity of universality, but also of immediate actuality. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Stalin: Only in the highest phase of communism will people, working in accordance with their capacity, receive recompense therefor in accordance with their needs: "From each according to his capacity, to each according to his needs." wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Stalin: All that Marxism declares is that until classes have been completely abolished, and until work has been transformed from being a means of maintaining existence, into a prime necessity of life, into voluntary labour performed for the benefit of society, people will continue to be paid for their labour in accordance with the amount of labour performed. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Stalin: The October Revolution is neither the continuation nor the culmination of the Great French Revolution. The purpose of the French Revolution was to put an end to feudalism and establish capitalism. The aim of the October Revolution is to put an end to capitalism and to establish socialism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Lenin: We shall not achieve socialism without a struggle. But we are ready to fight, we have started it and we shall finish it with the aid of the apparatus called the Soviets. wordsmith.social/protestation/…



Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya: Solidarity among the male and female workers, a general cause, general goals, a general path to that goal - that is the solution to the "woman" question in the working-class environment. wordsmith.social/protestation/…



Kim Jong-il: Introducing individualism into socialism, which is based entirely on collectivism, is tantamount to taking poison. wordsmith.social/protestation/…



Lenin: There is a good Latin proverb which says: “It is natural for all men to err; but only a fool persists in his error. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Lenin: A Marxist must take cognisance of real life, of the true facts of reality, and not cling to a theory of yesterday, which, like all theories, at best only outlines the main and the general, only comes near to embracing life in all its complexity. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Kim Il Sung: It can be said that the life of a revolutionary begins by going among the masses and that it is over when he parts from them. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Lenin: Deafened by liberal catch-phrases, people in our country are apt to overlook the actual class stand of the liberal party’s real bosses. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Lenin: The proletariat’s struggle against the bourgeoisie, which finds expression in a variety of forms ever richer in content, inevitably becomes a political struggle directed towards the conquest of political power by the proletariat (“the dictatorship of the proletariat”). wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Just a reminder: You're not shitposting, it's Neo-Dadaistic Art



The server has been updated.


Friendica 2023.12 released

We are very happy to announce the availability of the new stable release of Friendica “Yellow Archangel” 2023.12. Finally wrapping up the changes since May – the highlights of this release are

  • the bluesky connector has been made bi-directional,
  • moderation reports can now be send by users and reviewed by the node admins,
  • user defined groups are now called Circles and forum accounts are now Group accounts, and last but not least
  • users now have a better control over their network streams with the new Channels feature.

Note that the minimal PHP version for Friendica was raised to PHP 7.4 with this release.

For details, please the CHANGELOG file in the repository.

What is Friendica


Friendica is a decentralized communications platform, you can use to host your own social media server that integrates with independent social networking platforms (like the Fediverse or Diaspora*) but also some commercial ones like Tumblr.

How to Update

Updating from old Friendica versions


If you are updating from an older version than the 2022.12 release, please first update your Friendica instance to that version as it contained some breaking changes.

Pre-Update Procedures


Ensure that the last backup of your Friendica installation was done recently.

Using Git


Updating from the git repositories should only involve a pull from the Friendica core repository and addons repository, regardless of the branch (stable or develop) you are using. Remember to update the dependencies with composer as well. So, assuming that you are on the stable branch, the commands to update your installation to the 2023.12 release would be
cd friendica
git pull
bin/composer.phar install --no-dev
cd addon
git pull
If you want to use a different branch than the stable one, you need to fetch and checkout the branch before your perform the git pull.

Pulling in the dependencies with composer will show some deprecation warning, we will be working on that in the upcoming release.

Using the Archive Files


If you had downloaded the source files in an archive file (tar.gz) please download the current version of the archive from friendica-full-2023.12.tar.gz (sha256) and friendica-addons 2023.12.tar.gz (sha256)) and unpack it on your local computer.

As many files got deleted or moved around, please upload the unpacked files to a new directory on your server (say friendica_new) and copy over your existing configuration (config/local.config.php and config/addon.config.php) and .htaccess files. Afterwards rename your current Friendica directory (e.g. friendica) to friendica_old and friendica_new to friendica.

The files of the dependencies are included in the archive (make sure you are using the friendica-full-2023.12 archive), so you don’t have to worry about them.

Post Update Tasks


The database update should be applied automatically, but sometimes it gets stuck. If you encounter this, please initiate the DB update manually from the command line by running the script
bin/console dbstructure update
from the base of your Friendica installation. If the output contains any error message, please let us know using the channels mentioned below.

Please note, that some of the changes to the database structure will take some time to be applied, depending on the size of your Friendica database.

Known Issues


Following the release of Friendica 2023.12 the following issues were reported:

  • S3 addon unusable [13760]


How to Contribute


If you want to contribute to the project, you don’t need to have coding experience. There are a number of tasks listed in the issue tracker with the label “Junior Jobs” we think are good for new contributors. But you are by no means limited to these – if you find a solution to a problem (even a new one) please make a pull request at github or let us know in the development forum.

Contribution to Friendica is also not limited to coding. Any contribution to the documentation, the translation or advertisement materials is welcome or reporting a problem. You don’t need to deal with Git(Hub) or Transifex if you don’t like to. Just get in touch with us and we will get the materials to the appropriate places.

Thanks everyone who helped making this release possible, and especially to all the new contributors to Friendica, and have fun!


friendi.ca/2023/12/24/friendic…




Holy shit... (yes this is real, it only applies to federal charges because that's all he can pardon)

whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/p…



DDOSed by... facebook chat?


Apparently some facebook interface decided to DDOS the site a little over an hour ago.

It's not overwhelming the network, just an absolutely ridiculous number of requests.

I've solved it by instituting a global rate limit. It should be high enough to not affect anyone actually using the server.

Basic gist is that any more than 10 requests a second gets a 429 error (Too Many Requests, like all error codes with this site it'll give you a cute cat picture specific to that error). This is purely per second, so if you see that error at any point the time it takes you to refresh again the limit will already be reset.