Court gives victory to Walt Disney, upholding longer copyrights (http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/01/15/scotus.copyrights.ap/) - AP, 1/15/03

QuikQuote: The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld lengthier copyrights protecting the profits of songs, books and cartoon characters -- a huge victory for Disney and other companies.
The 7-2 ruling, while not unexpected, was a blow to Internet publishers and others who wanted to make old books available online and use the likenesses of a Mickey Mouse cartoon and other old creations without paying high royalties.

How sad. Corporate supression of dissenting artistic/intellectual works should be a crime.

Our society cannot flourish as it has without free access to historical intellectual property.

But I suppose that's the point...

What I would've like to have seen happen is a compromise solution (and I'm sure many will pick this apart - sigh...)

Allow the copyright periods to stand. When they expire, the material becomes Public Domain, with the following rules:

1. The original owner, their heirs or the company who owned it, may continue to use the material and profit from the material. This would allow those who "made it" to benefit from it.

2. Others may use the material, but may NOT profit from it. A fan site could use it, but a person using it in software or on a book they were selling could not. Someone could distribute the image for free, but not charge for it. A church choir or school could use a song in their productions without royalties, but an artist could not include it on their album or release it as a single. This provision would allow those who worked hard and created the material to benefit from it, while those who wanted to "leech" off of the work and make a quick buck could NOT.

3. "Fair and Reasonable Use" would apply. Mickey Mouse, for example, could not be used on an Adult Material web site, but could be used on a site about comic books or Disney history. (This would be the most difficult, as who would be responsible for defining what Reasonable Use is? But I think for the sake of the owners and the consumers, this would be most fair.)

As I said, I'm sure many can blow several holes in this theory, but I believe the underlying theory is sound. People who create something should be able to benefit it without an expiration period hanging over their head. For those who love the material, after that copyright period expires, they may use the material, just not profit from it. And no one could use material in a manner that would be detrimental to the image itself. No 1920's Mickey Mouse swigging a Budweiser, with almost naked girls sitting with him in a hot tub, smoking a cigarette, looking up and saying, "Aw, Whassup! Ha-hah!" in his famous high-pitched voice.

(Okay. I've put my fire suit on. Flame away folks.) ;)

Well, there's another 20 years that they'll be able to keep "Song of the South" bottled up. :rolleyes:

I'll just blow away a little bit of your theory here, since I am quite pressed for time ATM :)

Originally posted by marklodi
Allow the copyright periods to stand. When they expire, the material becomes Public Domain, with the following rules:

1. The original owner, their heirs or the company who owned it, may continue to use the material and profit from the material. This would allow those who "made it" to benefit from it.

They already CAN do this once it goes into PD. (of course, so can anyone else)

2. Others may use the material, but may NOT profit from it. A fan site could use it, but a person using it in software or on a book they were selling could not. Someone could distribute the image for free, but not charge for it. A church choir or school could use a song in their productions without royalties, but an artist could not include it on their album or release it as a single. This provision would allow those who worked hard and created the material to benefit from it, while those who wanted to "leech" off of the work and make a quick buck could NOT.

This concept is now ALREADY well established in Copyright Law under the heading "Fair Use". Look here. (http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/copypol2.htm)

Your concept of fair use and the how copyright law should work is more akin to the European version of Copyright Law in which authors have "moral rights" in their work. U.S. copyright law is not based on this concept -- moral rights can come into play contractually but are not embodied either in the Copyright Act or its case law.

Our Copyright Act is mandated by the Constitution when it says Congress is to promote "the progress of science and useful arts". It is supposed to spur creativity for the public at large (i.e. allow people to create derivative works, thus advancing art and science generally), not just hold a select few (i.e. the Walt Disney Company) in perpetual control of their creations.

You have to understand that as it stands the author will be long dead (by 70 years, in fact) before his work goes into PD. This isn't enough time to profit from the work? For Mickey Mouse (who doesn't have an "author" in the same sense as other works), isn't 95 years of copyright a bit excessive? The author won't EVER have any expiration "hanging over their head".

BTW the Walt Disney Company will always retain some sort of control over Mickey Mouse -- maybe not under the Copyright Act, but as a trademark. Trademarks never expire for as long as they're used and don't become generic. I don't have time to go into it right now, but I don't see "porno Mickey" happening ;)

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