We need new cultural myths

As it stands, the common references everyone knows all come from media franchises firmly under the control of giant faceless megacorps.

To tell a new story about culture's heros and villains without permission from the House of Mouse could land you in prison.

The root problem is the absurd length of copyright protection for published works.

Here's a proposal: all the best authors come together to create new fantasy, sci-fi, superhero, and action hero worlds and then release the characters, worlds, weapons, magic, etc into the public domain. To kick things off, these authors commit to write a collection of short stories within these worlds and using these characters.

The potential result: knowing they have a pool of quality, modern public domain material to work from, producers create adaptations for screen, which jumpstarts the myths into the broader public consciousness.