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Links: Simpsons Started with Copyright Troubles
Posted by Steven Wu on Thursday, April 24 @ 11:41:34 EDT Copyright
In celebration of the 300th episode of the Simpsons, the Observer is running an article on 300 reasons we love the Simpsons. Most relevant to this site is reason 39:
39 The sweet irony that the most profitable and arguably the greatest TV series ever came about because of the greed of copyright lawyers. Creator Matt Groening planned to recycle characters from a newspaper strip but was told this would involve mortgaging his soul to the studio. Forced to invent some instant unknowns, he drew a new family on a pad.
 
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Re: Simpsons Started with Copyright Troubles (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Friday, April 25 @ 01:10:12 EDT
The only irony here is that this is a counterexample to the constant refrain online that copyright is bad and impairs creativity and freedom. It is only because of copyright, in this case, that Groening was motivated to rise to new heights of creative effort. The success of The Simpsons demonstrates that there is no end to human creativity.

The real question is, if The Simpsons weren't protected by copyright, so that anyone who wanted to could sell a new Simpsons cartoon or Simpsons merchandise, would Groening have worked as hard to make his creation a success? He has been well and justly rewarded for his efforts, but without the protection of copyright he wouldn't see most of those rewards.


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