I'm not sure which is more embarrassing: today's ludicrous copyright terms that automatically lock away culture from all of us for potentially over a century, or the fact that legislation that spans centuries can be bought for a mere $149,612. The article claims Trent Lot got a piddling $1,000 (well, publicly at least) for getting on board. That's less money than Disney generates for itself per second of its existence.
The really disgusting thing is that the U.S. then turns around and tries to force it's insane copyright laws on other countries under the guise of trade agreements like TPP. It seems inevitable that, eventually, the birth of Mikey Mouse will divide what is public domain from what is not around the entire globe for all time.<p>Of course, the U.S. could instead do something sensible like create a "Mickey Mouse law". e.g. For ongoing fees of a fairly large size, companies can retain a copyright indefinitely. Set the fees to a little less than the amount Disney spends on lobbyists and graft and everybody wins. Disney keeps the rights to Mickey and saves money. Things not named Mickey Mouse start entering the public domain again.
This is a good illustration for why I feel democracy is fundamentally broken.<p>Democracy requires a large number of people to agree on on party/person and to reach these people and to convince them to vote for your candidate, you have to spend tons of money. Either:<p>A) You use your own money. Which means you fall under "the financial elite".<p>B) You take money from financial elites, which means you will owe them and pay back in some form. Why else would they give you their precious money?<p>Thus the power remains restricted to the the financial elite. The elected candidate represents the elites more than the common person because while the common person just gave the candidate a singular vote, the investor gave the candidate much needed money that helped gather all those votes
Copyright applies to all creative works. Changing those laws to protect a handful of valuable properties is a global solution to a local problem. According to the article:<p><i>...Disney has ingrained Mickey Mouse so deeply in its corporate identity that the character is essentially afforded legal protection for eternity, so long as Disney protects him (trademarks last indefinitely, so long as they are renewed).</i><p>If that's true, then why does Disney care whether the copyright expires?
I wonder if a solution would be a payment to extend copyright.<p>I think the strongest argument in the article is about the disappearance of works, but, as pointed out, this doesn't really apply to Mickey Mouse. Instead of having a universal expiration, which is causing some works to die, have a shorter expiration but then allow those who are still monetizing their works to pay a portion to extend it. This would provide a less grey market alternative to lobbying and perhaps the revenue generated could be put back into the arts.
Maybe there's some sort of middle ground here. Perhaps copyright extensions should be able to be applied for on a per-work basis, and to succeed, you have to demonstrate that you're still profiting from the work.<p>Let Disney have indefinite copyright on mickey mouse. But let's not lose the last century of our history.
In 1979, when I was 13, I audited a college-level cartooning course in San Francisco by Dan O'Neil, the underground cartoonist mentioned in the article. Little did I know Disney had sued him. But I do clearly remember him teaching the class tips on how to draw Mickey Mouse, and talking about the Mouse Liberation Front. I guess he was trying to increase the ranks of cartoonists who could fight Disney by parodying Mickey.
I wonder whether the extensions are US only ? I understand that Disney has the capacity to protect their trademarks all over the world, but I guess that there has to be several countries where derivative works from the existing locally expired copyrights can already be created. So, in such countries, wouldn't it be possible to use the exact same characters to create new works (comics for example) if you name it differently ?
And the corollary of that is how the copyrights/trademarks issues are handled by the various treaties negociated now (TAFTA, TPP, MEFTA, FTAA, TTIP). To be really effective worldwide, copyright extensions are to be validated everywhere otherwise, it would be of limited effect. So it would be interesting to know the extent of lobbying of powerhouses like Disney in those treaties negociations and their requests and proposals there.
The article points out that the majority of the Disney movies are based on public works. It may be interesting to note the controversy around the 'concidental similarities' between The Lion King and Kimba the White Lion. (<a href="http://www.kimbawlion.com/kimbawlion/rant2.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.kimbawlion.com/kimbawlion/rant2.htm</a>)
How about: "Copyright is for 7 years. Extensions can be granted for additional 7 year periods indefinitely, but must be requested by the copyright holder. There is a modest fee(say, $100) to file an extension."<p>That way Disney gets to keep Mickey Mouse, things that are abandoned or neglected get released into the public domain, and the fee stops people from just throwing everything into some software that reapplies indefinitely without thinking.<p>It could be tweaking by increasing the period(maybe 14 years would be better), by changing the fee(maybe $5 or free is better), or by changing the initial period(maybe 20 years for the first period, and it renews for 10).
> <i>While</i> it is impossible to say for certain whether or not Disney’s efforts directly impacted politics, <i>the results heavily worked out in their favor: the bill quietly and unanimously passed in the House and Senate with no public hearings, no debate, no notice to the public, and no roll call.</i><p>Of course it's possible to say that: "Disney’s efforts directly impacted politics". There, I said it.
>There can be little doubt that anyone seeing the image of Mickey Mouse (or even his silhouette), immediately thinks of Disney.<p>Image probably, but the phrase "Mickey Mouse" has acquired a fairly common meaning (at least in the UK and Ireland, don't know about the rest of the world) outside of the character - roughly meaning something like simplistic, shoddy or cheap.<p>For example, this (<a href="http://www.independent.ie/regionals/droghedaindependent/news/mickey-mouse-solution-slammed-30557836.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.independent.ie/regionals/droghedaindependent/news...</a>) article talking about a plan as a "'Mickey Mouse' solution to a much bigger traffic problem in the Dublin Road area." I suspect that few people over here would immediately think about Disney when they read this article.
How about this... Everyone gets two copyrights for their lifetime x 2. Five copyrights for their lifetime. Ten for 20 years, Fifty for 10 years, Everything else expires after, say, 2 years. So you get to protect your most important works, but the rest of us get to take a crack at the things you couldn't quite get right.
when Lessig argued Eldred v Ashcroft before the Supreme Court, the argument went something like: the Constitution states that copyrights are to be granted for a "limited time"; if Congress can pass an unlimited number of finite extensions to the copyright period, this flouts the original meaning and is unconstitutional. alas, the majority bought into the government's argument that this most recent extension was (again) to bring US law in "harmonization" with EU law, and was so permitted.<p>BUT, iirc, there was some grumbling along the lines of "if they try this again, Lessig's argument will carry more weight".<p>so it will be interesting to see what happens next time around.
I noticed that the Frozen DVD includes a Mickey short featuring old early Mickey animation reconstructed. I wonder if that was made to show current use of the classic "steamboat mickey" style of the character for trademark reasons?
Why not simply make an escalating cost/tax over time to maintain the copyright? I'm in favor of exponents :-)<p>Governments love taxes, so this would be another tax...<p>That way companies don't squat on "long tail" copyrights and squelch creativity.
<i>Heald crawled through more than 2,000 books on Amazon.com, and found that there were more books available from the late 1800s than there were from the 1990s. His conclusion: “Copyright protections had squashed the market for books from the middle of the 20th century, keeping those titles off shelves and out of the hands of the reading public.”</i><p>THAT is his conclusion? What about radio, TV, increased film production, and finally the internet and other sources of distraction for people?
This causes a large gray area in Google Books. There are large number of books still under extended copyright, but no copyright owner can be found. Google has been to court several times by opponents who also want to make money off of distributing grey books. One part of me wants to see 100% of the world's books online, not the 15% or so now. Another part of me wants to be done in as a finacially fair way as possible.
Something that I've never understood: Even if steamboat Willie were to enter the public domain, couldn't Disney effectively maintain control of its characters through trademark law? The fact that Mickey mouse is a Disney trademark should prevent most new uses of the character even if it doesn't prevent the copying of old shows.
How is on USA companies cooperating with each others (Microsoft and Apple on 90s vs. Sun is the example in my head) is illegal, while the government cooperating with a company is fine?<p>USA doing kind of like China, trying to make it the easier it is for companies to prophet from the people even if it's something supposed to be owned by the people... =
> Disney Political Action Committee (PAC) paid out a total of $149,612 in direct campaign contributions to those considering the bill.<p>> Eisner paid Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) $1,000 on the very same day that he signed on as a co-sponsor.<p>Wow. Not only you can buy law. But you can do it on the cheap. Lobbying is great. Go USA!
It's time to propose the Copyright Harmonization Act. Same terms as TRIPS - 50 years after first publication. USTR prohibited from promoting longer terms.<p>Anyone at Google want to get behind this?
This made me wonder, is there a country where lobbying (or somehow influencing law-making with money/land/position/etc) is illegal and seen akin to bribe?