
How Mickey Mouse Evades the Public Domain - nthitz
http://priceonomics.com/how-mickey-mouse-evades-the-public-domain/
======
acabal
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.

~~~
oldmanjay
I'm sort of embarrassed to contemplate how much emotional energy goes into
casting copyright arguments in such overwrought terms. Locking culture away
from us? My god, the violence!

~~~
baldfat
It is a big thing if you step back and think what should have become Public
Domain this year.
[https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2016/pre-1976](https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2016/pre-1976)

Nothing has entered Public Domain until 2019 IF it isn't extended.

Good case of how it sucks: Sherlock Holmes. Half the stuff is copyrighted and
the earlier stuff is Public Domain. So we only get half the stories and
nothing about an older Sherlock.

~~~
kuschku
By the way, this year in Germany "Mein Kampf" and Anne Frank’s diary entered
the public domain.

In the US, it’s a bit more complicated, and they’re still illegal to copy,
despite being out of copyright in the country of the copyright holder.

------
beloch
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.

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.

~~~
anon4
Doesn't the last section say that trademark law can be used for pretty much
exactly that, in effect?

~~~
rmc
Yes, trademark is much longer. But it also has a lot of caveats. Namely you
can lost trademarks.

------
xerophyte12932
This is a good illustration for why I feel democracy is fundamentally broken.

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:

A) You use your own money. Which means you fall under "the financial elite".

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?

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

~~~
pjc50
_you have to spend tons of money_

This was what campaign finance reform was supposed to be about. It can be done
differently: in the UK, the parties are not allowed to buy TV advertising!
Instead there are a few fixed, free slots for the parties.

The Scottish Independence referendum had a spend limit of a few million £ for
each side. Much less than a lot of California ballot propositions:
[http://time.com/3532419/ballot-measures-
corporations/](http://time.com/3532419/ballot-measures-corporations/)

~~~
knodi123
parties not allowed to buy tv advertising? That would take about 5 minutes to
work around. just have a big party official retire, and become the head of a
public organization which carefully avoids colluding with the party, while
funnelling private donations into privately funded ads which merely explain
why one candidate is better than the other.

~~~
pjc50
This doesn't happen in the UK, because the advertising standards body would
spot it. I have never seen a paid political ad on UK television. They
occasionally appear in newspapers.

The UK press doesn't pretend to be independent though, and is very big on
telling voters who to support.

------
kogus
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:

 _...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)._

If that's true, then why does Disney care whether the copyright expires?

~~~
jerf
If they start losing copyright, they start losing back catalog. I doubt
there's a huge demand for the 1920s Steamboat Willie [1], but in 2032 they'll
lose Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and in 2035, Pinnochio.

Of course, that's an awfully long ways off by a time-value-of-money analysis
at the rates a modern company would normally use, so the other thing to look
at and be... outraged? perturbed? surprised?... at is _just how goddamned
cheap_ Congress has historically been. Did you notice this line:

"In one instance, Eisner paid Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) $1,000
on the very same day that he signed on as a co-sponsor."

I mean, I presume that's not necessarily their only _cough_ "donation" to the
Senate Majority Leader, but one presumes that the Majority Leader ought to
command a price premium, too, and for $1000 to be a notable donation to talk
about, well, holy cow. I'd bet Disney wouldn't pay $10 billion as a lump sum
in 2023 to extend copyright again... but we're not talking _anywhere near_
that sort of money to get copyright extended. If they can do it for <$10
million, the cost/benefit is a no-brainer.

Remember, the value to Disney only has to exceed their expected costs. If
their expected costs for a copyright extension is an accounting rounding
error, of course they're going to try to extend it.

[1]: Which, if you've never seen it before, I recommend giving it a view:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBgghnQF6E4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBgghnQF6E4)
The past is a foreign country!

~~~
gene-h
Well if congress is really that cheap, perhaps someone should make a
kickstarter to buy back our government.

~~~
tamana
Lessig tried: Mayday PAC

~~~
danieltillett
I think it is time to try again.

~~~
brianclements
I think it's time to never stop trying.

------
BrianEatWorld
I wonder if a solution would be a payment to extend copyright.

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.

~~~
acomjean
I've thought the same thing. This seems like a simple way to deal with it. And
since most created works don't make money, even fewer after X years this would
seem to do the most "public" good while allowing Disney to keep Mickey.

This is especially true for software games where you can't even get the
hardware, thus software sales are essentially 0. A lot of the older games will
just get forgotten while the copyright runs out. Some get remade and sold and
have no problem with that.

Companies won't like it though, because some will forget to register and loose
out on potential profits.

------
xmodem
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.

Let Disney have indefinite copyright on mickey mouse. But let's not lose the
last century of our history.

~~~
digikata
I think it's simplest to tax copyrighted intellectual property like other
property such as real estate. If you want to maintain it beyond some standard
copyright term. (and make that term shorter than it is today)

So if one wants to continue to hold some copyrighted material out of the
public domain for longer than the original term, sign up on a form to list the
property. The gov't audits the value of that property and takes some small
percentage of that value.

~~~
cheepin
This is an interesting solution that I haven't heard before. It certainly
seems to solve some of the problems with current copyright, but how do you
evaluate the value of a copyrighted work? Off the top of my head, taxing
recent past sales of it won't work because a rights holder can just sit on a
work keeping it from public domain for free (status quo), and estimating some
sort of earning potential doesn't seem great either.

~~~
rmc
An easy formula is just based on the age of the work. So you get (say) 20
years for free, but after that you have to pay more. Disney wants Mickey
Mouse? They'd have to pay millions per year. If it's not worth it to them,
they can just not pay it.

~~~
IanCal
I'm a fan of this, it seems easier to apply and harder to hide how much you
say you're profiting from it. It also represents the trade with the public for
protection. The longer it's out of the public domain, the more you have to pay
the public.

You could have this increase as a percentage each year, allowing a slow ramp
up and _much_ higher fees for something that's been kept for 100 years.

------
BMorearty
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.

------
GlobalFrog
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.

~~~
EGreg
You mean like this?

[https://mobile.mmedia.me/lb/ar/analysisar/%d9%81%d8%b1%d9%81...](https://mobile.mmedia.me/lb/ar/analysisar/%d9%81%d8%b1%d9%81%d9%88%d8%b1_%d8%b4%d9%87%d9%8a%d8%af_)

------
yvdriess
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.
([http://www.kimbawlion.com/kimbawlion/rant2.htm](http://www.kimbawlion.com/kimbawlion/rant2.htm))

------
MichaelBurge
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."

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.

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).

~~~
cookiecaper
Because we don't want Disney to be able to keep Mickey Mouse forever, and
because the Constitution mandates that copyrights be for a "limited time", so
an indefinite renewal scheme would require a Constitutional amendment.

~~~
MichaelBurge
Addendum: Copyright extensions have a maximum term of 10 trillion years.

Now their time is limited. I bet Disney would be happy with this compromise.

~~~
cookiecaper
The late Jack Valenti, former head of the MPAA, actually suggested that
copyright terms last for "forever minus one day". Lawrence Lessig argued a
case before the Supreme Court
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft))
trying to get the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act overturned, but lost 7 to
2.

------
deciplex
> _While_ it is impossible to say for certain whether or not Disney’s efforts
> directly impacted politics, _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._

Of course it's possible to say that: "Disney’s efforts directly impacted
politics". There, I said it.

~~~
Qwertious
Perhaps that bill would have happened even if Disney hadn't been lobbying. A
lot of people don't give a second thought to "intellectual property".

------
prof_hobart
>There can be little doubt that anyone seeing the image of Mickey Mouse (or
even his silhouette), immediately thinks of Disney.

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.

For example, this
([http://www.independent.ie/regionals/droghedaindependent/news...](http://www.independent.ie/regionals/droghedaindependent/news/mickey-
mouse-solution-slammed-30557836.html)) 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.

------
rogeryu
Copyright law changes should not apply to work already created.

------
rdlecler1
Why do we think IP should expire but physical property ought to be retained.

~~~
halviti
Ideas and concepts have the ability to benefit society as a whole. Physical
property benefits very few.

Also after a certain period of time, it becomes a bit of a stretch to suggest
that nobody else would have thought of that same idea over a long enough time
frame.

Now of course, I'm not really speaking to Mickey Mouse, so much as I am
scientific breakthroughs and good ideas that improve on old concepts, but it's
all IP.

~~~
rdlecler1
Physical property benefits very few if you and your offspring are allowed to
squat on it for eternity as scarcity drives up its value. If you had limits on
it, maybe that peppery goes back to auction bringing more properly into supply
for more communal use.

------
enobrev
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.

~~~
nemothekid
I look forward to corporations buying lifetime copyrights en-masse.

~~~
enobrev
That's the compromise. Disney gets "The Mouse" for the entirety of its
existence as a legal entity, and six more works. And that's it. After that,
they'll need to start being thrify with their copyright or release things into
the public domain to add new works.

~~~
nemothekid
I think you are missing my point. Essentially Disney will start buying _your_
lifetime copyrights. Given that there are 300MM Americans, I'd imagine if
every American got 2 lifetime copyrights, the market for transferring those
copyrights wouldn't be terribly expensive. Disney could probably buy 100
lifetime copyrights for the cost of the legal work they do today.

~~~
pferde
It would be tied to lifetime of the particular Americans. I imagine
assassination black market would flourish. :)

------
cobbzilla
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.

BUT, iirc, there was some grumbling along the lines of "if they try this
again, Lessig's argument will carry more weight".

so it will be interesting to see what happens next time around.

------
Pxtl
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?

------
cowardlydragon
Why not simply make an escalating cost/tax over time to maintain the
copyright? I'm in favor of exponents :-)

Governments love taxes, so this would be another tax...

That way companies don't squat on "long tail" copyrights and squelch
creativity.

------
forgingahead
_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.”_

THAT is his conclusion? What about radio, TV, increased film production, and
finally the internet and other sources of distraction for people?

~~~
KayEss
You're positing that there are less books from the 1990s available because
less books were written then than in the 1800s?

~~~
dpark
To be fair, it also sounds like an unfair comparison. A century vs a decade.
And how many duplicates in the out of copyright works? The public doesn't
really benefit from 100 different editions of Sherlock Holmes's early
adventures that differ only in how the cover is rendered and whether the
"publisher" charges 99 cents or a 1.03 dollars.

Edit: Oops, late 1800s vs 1990s is not add unbalanced as a century vs a
decade. The dupes are still a big issue if he didn't handle those.

~~~
Cogito
To clarify, because it may not be clear without looking at the accompanying
graphic in the article, 1800s in this case refers to the decade, not the
century.

That is, more books in the years 1800-1809 than 1990-1999.

------
peter303
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.

------
goodcanadian
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.

~~~
joshstrange
This is covered in the article:

> Ultimately, none of this may matter: Even if Mickey’s copyright does expire
> in 2023, Disney has no less than 19 trademarks on the words “Mickey Mouse”
> (ranging from television shows and cartoon strips to theme parks and
> videogames) that could shield him from public use.

It goes on to talk a little more about it as well.

------
Lanari
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?

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... =

------
scotty79
> Disney Political Action Committee (PAC) paid out a total of $149,612 in
> direct campaign contributions to those considering the bill.

> Eisner paid Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) $1,000 on the very same
> day that he signed on as a co-sponsor.

Wow. Not only you can buy law. But you can do it on the cheap. Lobbying is
great. Go USA!

------
Animats
It's time to propose the Copyright Harmonization Act. Same terms as TRIPS - 50
years after first publication. USTR prohibited from promoting longer terms.

Anyone at Google want to get behind this?

------
tagrun
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?

------
microcolonel
Ideally all of the extensions would be thrown out, if they were found to be
ridiculous enough before the supreme court.

Fat chance of that, though.

