1998-10-16
We were about to see the "Mickey's Day Care Centre". With a big picture of Mickey Mouse on the sign in the front yard. Yes, the day was coming.
But not yet. Right now, if you own a daycare, you can't call it the Mickey Mouse Day Care, and you can't put a picture of Pluto or Goofy on the sign. Mickey and his friends were copyrighted by Walt Disney way back when, and the copyright stays in force for fifty years. And The Disney Corporation has generally been quite ruthless about enforcing it's copyright, taking day cares, schools, and other institutions to court to force them to remove Donald and Mickey and Goofy from their advertisements or classroom walls and pay up.
Well, in 2003, Mickey is "Public Domain", which means anyone can use him.
Unless....
Let's say for a moment you're the Disney Corporation. The law says your copyright is going to expire. You make a lot of money off this copyright. So you go to the government, like any other citizen in this great country of ours, and say, "Please, can I keep my copyright?" The government says, "No, of course not. Ideas belong to everyone. Copyright, you see, is not about protecting your rights as an owner. It is merely designed to encourage innovation and creativity by giving a temporary period of protection. Your Mickey Mouse did not come from nowhere. Mr. Disney benefited from all the artists and innovators and creative persons who all contributed techniques and language and styles to our culture before him. Now, Mr. Mouse goes back where he belongs: to the greater body of culture."
"Well," says Disney, "would you change the law if I pay you some money?" And Congress says, "Money! You have Money! Why didn't you say so! Of course we can. We are a group of utterly corrupt and gutless wimps who always pass laws that favour the people who keep us in office by providing us with an endless supply of money to spend on election campaigns. Ask Archer, Daniels, Midland! Ask Jack Valenti! Ask anybody with money! It's true! And since you have a lot more money than all of the day care owners in the world, you win!" And so it was.
Disney's Political Action Committee (PAC's are created to bypass election laws that restrict the amount of money corporations can give a candidate, just so this sort of thing can't happen, ha ha) gave election money to 10 of the 13 sponsors of the new copyright bill.
The new copyright bill extends legal protection for an additional 20 years, from 50 (after the death of the creator) to 70.
Now in 2023, do you think, by any chance, we will see another extension of the copyright law? Why don't they just go for the gold: "in perpetuity"?
Maybe that would be too expensive for them.