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Disney Wins, Eldred (and everyone else) Loses

hondo77 writes "In a 7-2 decision, The Supreme Court gave Disney what they wanted. Story just broke, no details yet." They're talking about the Eldred case, recently argued before the Supreme Court and mentioned on Slashdot many times. The upshot is that no works produced in the United States after the 1920's will ever go out of copyright. Opinions: Majority opinion, Stevens' dissent, Breyer's dissent.

39 of 1,073 comments (clear)

  1. Probably "correct" legally by MPolo · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Unfortunately, the Constitution left this point quite vague. It does say a "limited" time, but doesn't indicate anything about how long that might be. Since every extension is going to set a (theoretical) expiration date, the multimedia conglomerates can always argue that the law is constitutional.

    This is awful for fair use, obviously. We've got to somehow get Congressmen elected who can see the folly of the current path, and who are immune to the ideal-destroying effects of large campaign donations. Doesn't look like we'll be reading Faulkner on line anytime soon...

    1. Re:Probably "correct" legally by Simon+Brooke · · Score: 5, Interesting
      I believe the worlds oldest company would be Stora (From Falun, Sweden), which was founded about 1000 years ago, I also believe you'll find very few people that have reached 1000 years.
      Stora dates back to at least 1288. I think there are some companies in the Netherlands which are fourteenth century in date. It would not surprise me if there were companies in the far east which were older.

      The Aberdeen Shore Porters Society was founded in 1498 and is still trading - and, indeed, is still in the same business it was in 500 years ago, which says something for consistency. It is reputedly the oldest company in Britain.

      There are four companies in the United States, even, which date back to before independence.

      Point is, Companies/Corporations don't have a limited lifespan, they can live for nearly forever and keep trying to change legislation for a very very long time, that's one reason I think that businesses should not be considered to be individuals/humans/persons.

      Absolutely agreed.

      --
      I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
    2. Re:Probably "correct" legally by automandc · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Authors and inventors, which I interpret to mean the actual author or inventor, not the great-grandchildren of the author or inventor, or future sharholders in a corporation that descended from the author or inventor or purchased the rights from the author or inventor.

      Yes and No. You are not misinterpreting it in the sense that the right initially attaches to an individual (the author/inventor). The question is whether that right should be alienable, i.e. can it be sold. Some rights in society are deemed to be inalienable, like Jefferson supposedly touted on about in the Declaration of Independence. For instance, you have a right not to be murdered, but you cannot sell someone the right to murder you. Other rights are alienable. You have the right to own land and quietly enjoy it, but you can sell that right to a buyer.

      So, you are correct in thinking that the Constitution authorizes Congress to grant certain rights to individuals; however, the Constitution does not require that those rights be inalienable, and in fact, to do so would make no sense in the context of what the framers were trying to accomplish. An author has a right to his work, but even Jefferson et al. knew that he would have to license (i.e. sell) that right to a publisher to have it actually provide benefit to society.

      The Constitution generally provides for the creation of alienable rights. Congress can make no law abridging the freedom of speech (meaning you have a right to speak your mind), but you can sign a contract with a private party agreeing to say only certain things, or refrain from saying other things (e.g. a confidentiality agreement).

      --
      I'm a lawyer with excellent karma. Something's gotta be wrong.
  2. Re:Suprise!? by Gerry+Gleason · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yes. The arguments were strong and the discussion about how it went looked promissing. We'll have to wait for the actual decision to see the details. Hopefully, they worded their decision in a way that would discourage Congress from extending the term again (and again, and again ...).

  3. Active Use Copyrights? by stealie72 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Has anyone ever explored a sort of "salvage use" copyright? In other words, I don't have a huge problem with Disney wanting to control a copyright on Mickey, because they're still actively using him in their business.

    But what about something like the Katzenjammer Kids (for a comic from about the same time as the first mickey shorts) that aren't being actively used by anyone. No real reason for something like that to not be in the public domain.

    In other words, don't extend copyright for everything, but give extensions for things that are still being actively used (and no, I don't have the time to work out a legal definition of "actively used").

    --
    I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem
  4. Clarence Thomas book deal reached with HarperColli by DAldredge · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What happend to conflict of interest?

    "Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will receive more than $1 million for his memoirs from publisher HarperCollins.

    Multiple publishers vied for the rights to Thomas' autobiography, which he started writing in 2001, but Thomas liked the package offered by the New York-based HarperCollins, including the editor assigned to work with him, people in the publishing industry with knowledge of the deal said Thursday.

    The amount of the deal was not revealed, except that it was in seven figures. "

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ ne ws/archive/2003/01/09/financial1022EST0075.DTL&typ e=books

  5. It's a lost battle, but... by aengblom · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The upshot is that no works produced in the United States after the 1920's will ever go out of copyright.

    Some wrongs can not be resolved by the courts. I think the most poignant quote during the hearing of the case was from Sandra Day O'Connor.
    "I can find a lot of fault with what Congress did," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said. "This flies directly in the face of what the framers of the Constitution had in mind. But is it unconstitutional?"
    Time to educate the public--and change Congress's mind. Hard, but not impossible.

    P.S. Washington Post has an AP article up and some links to background on the case.
    --


    So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
  6. Re:Why don't they... by Fjord · · Score: 5, Interesting

    right to own what they produced

    No they don't. Or at least not in the case of intellectual property. If we are talking a physical item, then yes, ownership makes sense. But the fact is that all works are derivative works, derived from the input that society gives the artist. All of society help an author write a book, a painter paint a painting, a musican write a song.

    We give them a short term monopoly on their work as a repayment for coming up with it, but then it should get turned over to the society that helped make it happen.

    That is the reason for the public domain, and to me, it's a damn good one. This decision really pisses me off.

    --
    -no broken link
  7. Re:EVER?! by DAldredge · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Book Deals. That is what happened.

    http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=%22supreme+c ou rt%22+%22book+deal%22&btnG=Search+News

  8. It's time to get retro by tacocat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I know it sounds so 60's, or was it 70's or 80's? I don't know but the point is that it's high time we took this to the streets.

    Don't discuss this on the level of some tech-geek thing. People glaze over and go stupid real fast.

    This needs to be presented plain and simple. Disney is stealing from the past and locking it up for themselves (Grimm for example).

    It's time to actively boycott Mickey Mouse. Does anyone know where I can get a bumper sticker with a Mickey Mouse outline and a bit red circle+slash?

  9. Re:Why expire? by Cosmicbandito · · Score: 4, Interesting
    We need Mickey because we've paid for him. For years and years, the American tax payer has given Disney a monopoly on Mickey. Disney has made billions off of him. The taxpayer funded the copyright office, which enforced the laws that protected Disney's monopoly. Now, its the publics turn. In exchange for those years of protection and the chance to make billions off their little mouse, Disney is supposed to turn him over to the public.

    We need access to things like Mickey because everything in our culture and our knowledge is based on something that came before. Look at Disney's movies. All are based on some old fairytale or myth, or are an adaptation of a book. Imagine if those works had never become "public domain". Disney would never have created any of those movies! Copyright is a double-edged sword. If you are a strong supporter of long copyright terms, you'd best check that the things you create your works from are not based on public domain works.


    The constitution states that copyright was created "to promote science and the useful arts". Giving a creator a limited monopoly on their creation does just that. But when the creator is long dead and the evil, bloated corporation that he founded is still sucking every dime they can from the same old characters, it hardly seems that "science and the useful arts" are getting anything back.

    We need Mickey because along with him, we'll get a vast catalog of early films, books songs, and other works. IF we don't get them soon, they will disappear altogether. And once they're gone, they're gone for good.

    Copyright is supposed to have a limited term. Almost 100 years can hardly be construed as "limited".

  10. Re:Why don't they... by Mac+Degger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Exactly the point: you grew up your whole life with mickey mouse, as did your father. As did your granddad. Their whole life has had micky mouse in it. How could anything they/you do or make or create not be tinted (in some tiny way) by that fact? This is not some actual thing (like Coca Cola) we're talking about, this is a cultural nicon, like the flag of a nation, the great literature you've read.

    And it's even worse because Disney got to steal from the cultural works of their fathers and grandfathers, but if you decide to do something based on "the little mermaid', there is a chance you could get sued. Or what if your grandkid decides to do some derivative work off 'Lilo and stitch'? He could get sued. Now that's just plain wrong...aka "we can do it, but you can't".

    --
    -- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
  11. Happened to music already. by dmaxwell · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's absolutely impossible to write music without paying off various American guilds for the rights to your own works. Western music is based on twelve-note scale (counting sharps and flats here...). There's already a court case that says a unique sequence of four notes is sufficient to claim that a given work is derivative of another. The entertainment cartels in this country have eternal rights (thanks supremes!) to enough works to have a copyright on EVERY possible sequence of four notes. That means every new song written is legally a derivative work of another. Lyrics aren't quite as bad but the set of all possible lyrics in English is strewn with mines too.

    There are limits to how much corruption an economy can effectively function with. We have widespread corruption built into the foundations of both legislation and court law making the current winners in our system forever protected until the system collapses. Expect the 21st century to be interesting....in the Chinese curse sense.

  12. What about music artists? by FunkyRat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Would I be right in assuming that this basically means that all composers who sign contracts with U.S. companies are now no more than indentured servants who will never be able to own the rights to their own creations unless they become rich enough to buy back the copyright on their work from the record companies? I realize that it was basically this way before, but now it seems the record companies have unlimited control.

    Would any artist in their right mind ever sign with a U.S. label again? Why not just find a label in a country with much saner copyright laws, say... Canada? Seriously, if enough artists get pissed and just bypass American media corporations altogether, this could be the beginning of the downfall of the U.S. corporations control of the music industry. This idea could work for other types of artists as well, such as screenwriters.

    Then again, musicians could just self-publish their work and retain their copyright fromt he beginning.

    Is this idea naive? Yes. Is it unrealistic? Yes. Could it ever work? Probably not, but I'm not quite so jaded as to give up hope.

  13. Re:Why expire -- public domain is good. by gimpboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    well in the us, the constitution gives authors control over their works for a "limited time". the reasoning being that people will make money off of these works for a "limited time" and contribute more art to society. eventually copyrights would expire and the work would go into the public domain. by removing this "limited time" (artists life + 70 year effectivly does this), this removes the incentive for the corporation and socitey doesnt benifit.

    think of what life would be like if works would have never gone into the public domain: there would be no free access to the works like shakespeare, poe, bible, bach, beethoven, puccini. as a consequence disney wouldnt have been able to make things like snow white, the jungle book, peter pan, etc. people take these things for granted, but a world where nothing enters the public domain would be a very depressing one.

    another issue has nothing to do with mickey. many works are essentially abandoned. they are sitting on bookshelves not being read and will disappear. eldred wants to take many old works, transcribe them into digitial form, and make them available to a new generation of readers. these works are making no money for the copyright holders, and in many cases the copyright holders are unknown. under the current copyright laws, these will never enter the public domain -- all this to protect mickey.

    i'm sorry but a corporations desire to earn money does not trump the constitution in my opinion. it's sad the justices dont think in the same manner.

    --
    -- john
  14. No, seriously, explain this! by jvmatthe · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From the majority opinion:

    there is no cause to suspect that a purpose to evade the "limited Times" prescription prompted Congress to adopt the CTEA

    Now, from a Lessig interview:

    when Mary Bono introduced the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, she said we should perhaps consider -- because her lawyers told her perpetual terms would be illegal under the Constitution -- we should consider forever minus a day.
  15. Re:Why does everything have to be free?? by MikeBabcock · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I'm only responding to your subject; not your posting:

    Not everything has to be free. However, the original point of Copyright, as I understand it was to allow owners of Copyrights to temporarily hold exclusive rights on the distribution of their creations for the sake of profit, then allow it to fall into the public domain _for the greater good_.

    It is better for everyone if all media is free.

    However, media isn't produced (in our very money-centric society) for free, so giving those who create media money to create it gives us more media. Those media should eventually be free, however. Not free at a cost to the creator (that is, it should not be the onus of the creator to give the product away), but free in that all people with access to that media can reproduce it and redistribute it freely (and I would of course argue, with credit given to the author(s)).

    That is how a society becomes educated; I have a significant problem with RMS sometimes, but search for his essay on the future of people going to university and not being allowed to share books.

    Also, consider reading Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (free online book; also available in dead tree version) for some of that author's thoughts on a future where money is replaced by respect.

    Links:

    Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

    GNU Philosophy

    --
    - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
  16. Re:Why don't they... by Gorbie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "And it's even worse because Disney got to steal from the cultural works of their fathers and grandfathers"

    Did they? I mean, really? Is there a history of mickey mouse book out there that I am missing that details how disney gave birth to the mouse through someone else's idea?

    That sounds sarcastic, but it's not. I would like someone to come out with the information and prove this arguement, because otherwise it's baseless.

  17. Re:The first thing this makes me think is... by 1010011010 · · Score: 4, Interesting


    What's wrong with 14 years of copyright protection? Why is "lifetime of creator plus 90 years" a good thing?

    --
    Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
  18. Slashdot Challenge 2003 by nanojath · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Yeah, okay - so some people agree with me and I get to have my comment float to the top for a few hours. The question now, is - can we do any better? So here is a challenge. I challenge y'all to copy the following, change it however you want (I'll whomp up a quick open source license, ummm... okey dokey, free my mind... okay, the following text as protected by copyright (I command you to visualize a little c in a circle) copyright Jonathan Hamlow 2002 all rights reserved and so forth - is all completely open to reuse, revision, and any use whatsoever by anyone although at the point you alter it I lay no claim to it... have at it).


    TO BE USED TO INNUNDATE SLASHDOT EDITORS WITH REQUESTS FOR POSTING TO ASK SLASHDOT


    Why can't we accomplish anything? The Slashdot community is fair sized and to me seems more intelligent than most. So why is the biggest and best thing we can accomplish shutting down any misbegotten website that has the misfortune to put up something interesting without having industrial-strength bandwidth?


    What would your top issues be if you could REALLY organize this and other online communities? A candidate for president? Maybe a mutual fund - we could work out several dozen tech stocks that we think deserve support and agree to put in money, grit our teeth, and keep it there for the longer haul - say three years? What else? How would YOU organize the support? What would the system be for input, dissent, advice, decisionmaking? Would we ever be able to agreee on a sufficiently common groung? If we really put our better than average minds to it, could we actually DO something?


    Okay, so get posting. For my part, I will post this myself, and if it actually gets up there I will participate in the discussion, and participate in anything that comes of it. Go on, why not? Waste another five minutes, it's just work. Stop talking and give anarchy by collective agreement a try...

    --

    It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries

  19. Re:Death of culture. by stevel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Heaven forbid anyone should maybe get off their lazy ass and write a new fucking 'happy birthday' song and use that instead of complaining and whining. Sheesh."

    Mike Jittlov ended up doing exactly this for his movie The Wizard of Speed and Time. (I feel fortunate in owning a laserdisc copy of this wonderful film - only 6000 were made before it got yanked off the market due to copyright disagreements.)

    Originally, Jittlov had a scene where a group of people were singing the classic Happy Birthday song, but he then found he'd have to pay significant royalties on it, so he wrote his own "Merry Birthday" song and used that instead. It's actually quite good!

    Some restaurant chains have their own compositions as well for when the servers come out to wish a guest a happy birthday in song.

    Spider Robinson's Melancholy Elephants, referenced by others here, beautifully expresses a downside to extending copyrights to infinity.

  20. Re:The first thing this makes me think is... by pla · · Score: 5, Interesting

    stealing' from those bastards is not a crime.

    No kidding, eh? I know this decision has made *MY* respect for copyrights, our entire judicial system, and the government in general, go way up. Golly. Better "plug that analog hole", aka our eyes, by chipping our brains right away, Fritz, 'cuz my opinion of your "rights" just hit bottom. Time to start violating copyrights to material I don't even *want*, just for the sake of civil disobedience.


    As an independent artist I can tell you that copyrights are the only thing that can protect us from people taking advantage of our work.

    And as a recent article about the dojinshi phenomena in Japan shows, that doesn't quite hold true.

    However, I *do* respect you, and thank you for producing works that I (or others, if not me) might enjoy. Seriously, no sarcasm intended.

    However...

    Those copyrights don't *NEED* to protect you after you die. Current copyright terms *will* last longer than any of us will, unless science "cures" death in the next few years. The idea of "to the author's death plus 70 years" seems quite adequate to me.

    As for your "legacy"... Face it - If your work doesn't make you wealthy in this life, it won't do so in the next. At most, someday your kids might make a few bucks selling the distillation of your life for some company to use in a commercial. Yay, the thought makes *me* want to go out and create.


    I think a lot of people have missed the big *philosophical* issue involved here. Corporate America has us so brainwashed to believe in their "rights" that we don't even realize the true nature of such rights. Many of us think it MORALLY wrong to "steal" 80-year-old copyrighted material. Yet, the US constitution *only* allows copyrights "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

    For THAT reason, all Americans should feel outrage at this decision. The supreme court has sold us out. Unlimited extensions ala the Sunny Bono act do not equal "limited" copyright terms as allowed in the constitution.

    I'll skip getting into the obvious rant about erosion of fair-use rights as well.


    Well, at least you Europeans don't need to worry about your artistic heritage vanishing into the past because something ceased to exist (think nitrate film) because it became unprofitable before its copyright expired. Perhaps when (if) the US gets some sanity back, you'll lend us a copy so we can enjoy the past as well?

  21. Re:What has happened to the USA? by radicalsubversiv · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It is, as Mary Lease (a Kansas Populist) said in 1890:

    "Wall street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street and for Wall Street."

    Take hope, however. In time, most of the Populist reforms were enacted. Which leads me to another quote, better known, from Mother Jones:

    "Don't mourn, organize!"

  22. Re:Why does everything have to be free?? by Pemdas · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The world is not Linux. The world is not free. Why is it automatically assumed by members of this site that everything should be free?

    This is part of the problem. In the minds of most people today, there's little to no delineation between intellectual property and physical property.

    I believe that the framers (and most people, when they think about it) would not acknowledge a natural right to restrict others from using an idea just because you had it first. That the right to intellectual property is a fundamental, or natural right, is just what Disney, AOL/TW, and just about every other media company on earth would like you to believe.

    In reality, the entire point of copyright (and, for that matter, patent law) is to provide incentives to expand the pool of public knowledge. It's a comprimise to provide incentives to be creative, not an acknowledgement of perpetual ownership of an idea just because you had it first.

    Disney Corp wants to keep control of it's very identifiable mascot, Mickey Mouse. And why shouldn't they? What would Walt Disney think if some 40 years after his death, somebody with a computer and an internet connection was making porn cartoons with the characters he created? And nobody could do anything about it.

    You're right. No one could do anything about it. But that's part of the bargain! Disney was granted a time period with some exclusive rights to their work. They used that time to (greatly!) profit. At the end of the term, anyone is free to do anything they want with your original creation, within the wide bounds of free speach.

    If you want to create something, create something original. Don't depend on the work somebody else did decades ago to be your only creative outlet. It's still legal to get inspiration from other works. And until they take that right away from us, use it. There are still original ideas being created every day.

    Under this reasoning, Ford should be paying big time royalties to the estate of Thrack, the homo erectus who invented the wheel. Having unbounded intellectual property rights would not only seriously degrade the quality of life of the average person, it also is dangerously close to creating thought-crime

  23. Re:Why don't they... by Cutriss · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's not about the mouse.

    "The Little Mermaid" was written by Hans Christian Andersen. Disney took the story, mangled it a bit, didn't credit the original author, and now protects it like a rabid bulldog. Same with "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". Written by Victor Hugo. He's not credited either. "Pocahontas" was a (more or less) true story. "Mulan" is based on a Chinese legend. "Atlantis" is an adaptation of "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" (and draws many compelling comparisons to "Nadia: Secret of Blue Water"). "The Lion King" was a direct ripoff of "Kimba, The White Lion", an original work done by Osamu Tezuka. "Cinderella", "Snow White", "Beauty and the Beast" and "Sleeping Beauty" are all widely known faerie tales.

    Disney most certainly got to "steal from the cultural works of their fathers and grandfathers".

    --
    "Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
  24. Re:*Sigh* Read between the lines by blamanj · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Even more irony. Walt Disney was trying to capitalize on the success of Felix the Cat. He and Ub Iwerks (his star aninimator and the real artist behind the designs) created Oswald the Rabbit, a near-look alike to Felix.

    By 1928, Oswald was a hit, but Walt clashed with his corporate masters when he asked for more pay, they booted him and hired other animators (eventually Walter Lantz) to produce Oswald cartoons.

    Disney (and Iwerks) bailed from Universal Studios and created a cartoon replacement for Oswald. Since cats and rabbits had been done, they created Mickey (ne Mortimer) Mouse.

    So not only is Mickey a copy of a copy, he sprang from a designer/corporate dispute!

  25. Copyright Cartel by TheTomcat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What REALLY pisses me off about Disney's cartel-esque use of Copyright is when they take something off the market (put it into "the Disney Vault") to increase demand.

    Copyright was supposed to spurr innovation. They are abusing their intellectual property rights by controlling access to IP in much the same way DeBeers controls access to Diamonds.

    The only innovation I see is in marketing.. evil evil marketing.

    S

  26. Somewhat scary use of precedents... by unicorn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you actually read through the finding, you'll discover something interesting.

    Seemingly a large part of the reason that this law is being upheld as legal, is that Congress has extended copyright terms before, successfully.

    So it would seem, that we're being victimized in this case, because in 1790 nobody successfully fought the terms of the original copyright law, being enacted to cover both existing, and new creations.

    --
    "Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
  27. Re:Copyright expiration is part of the business by blakestah · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Excuse me, but when the money was invested in these movies in the 1920's, 1930's, etc., it was done with full knowledge that eventually the copyright would expire and revenue from these works would dwindle.

    Look, the justices know the law. Their comments during the arguments phase made it abundantly clear that they understand it is ridiculous from a POV of constitutional law to retroactively extend copyrights.

    But they also live in this world. The economy is weak and not so stable right now, and if they rule against the Bono Act, they also rule against previous copyright extensions, which makes several decades of copyrighted work public domain. This would be a colossal economic hit to the major media companies, and to the US economy. This was also something they noted during arguments.

    So they noted it was stupid and passed the buck back to Congress. They lack spines and/or didn't want to do things to make the Bush administration's life tougher by causing the value of the large media companies to take an instant hit.

  28. Re:EVER?! by Parsec · · Score: 3, Interesting

    just my idealism (read: youth)

    I've always wondered why idealism and youth were so closely associated... and why people have weird ideas about what a "grown up" is (boring).

    Grab one of Disney's "family" movies and watch for concepts they are pushing. These ideas are being pushed into your brain from a very young age. Are they really worth anything? Are they even harmless? (I would have to argue that they aren't.)

  29. Re:This is GOOD news for content creators...sure! by jandrese · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That will work great unless you want to have your work actually published. Publishers these days require that you sign over any copyright on your work to them, and they aren't going to release anything into the public domain before they are forced to.

    sometimes not even then. There are stories of movie studios burning prints of the films that are about to enter the Public domain to prevent them from competing with their current releases. Not that anybody will have to do that anymore, film stock will be long gone before the copyright expires now.

    --

    I read the internet for the articles.
  30. Re:Not the end - if we don't let it be the end by _xeno_ · · Score: 3, Interesting
    You can't try again. There is no try again. The United States has this idea of precident. The Supreme Court has ruled (correctly, if I might editorialize) that the current Copyright laws are not unconsitutional. Any further case you tried to make would immediately stop at the lowest court level based on the Supreme Court ruling. Basically, once there has been a ruling, it lasts forever and can never be changed, except when superceded by law.

    (The only quasi-exception I can think of is Plessy v. Fergesson later being overturned by Brown v. Board of Education, but that wasn't really an overturning - the court held that separate but equal was still legal, but that the present situation was not equal and that it could not likely be made equal, and therefore that if equality could not be guarenteed then separation by races could not continue. Hence the ruling was basically overridden but not overturned.)

    The only way to change copyright is to have copyright law change. Vote in people who are willing to change the law. The Supreme Court turned up the ruling everyone with half a brain expected - that current copyright law is constitutional. And it will remain constitutional even if it is continuously lengthened with a limited time. Limited time is quite clear - a definitive time, not infinite. So if it becomes life + 120 years, that's still limited.

    This is the end of pursing this through the courts (which is the wrong way to do it). You can only continue it by trying to change copyright law. So what're you waiting for? Go for it!

    --
    You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
  31. Trying to keep the KKK bedsheets hidden in cellar by Etrigan_696 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Another reason Disney CAN'T lose their copyrights quite a few people are unaware of is alot more immediately more important to the Disney corporation: They can be quickly ruined by things they published in the 20s 30s and 40s.

    Here's a fairly tame example of Disney's fears. They produced piles upon piles of literature that - while not meant to be degrading at the time - would be a serious embarassment if they were made widely known today.
    My grandfather has a few of the Donald Duck comics he used to get at his gas station in 1940s Dayton, Ohio. In these, Donald refers to various and sundry brown people as "porch monkeys" and "cotton pickin tar babies" - let alone the dozens of people of color portrayed in pitiful stereotype. Native Americans, negros, hispanics, etc. etc. all shown as lazy, drunken, slobs or as murderous psychopaths.

    The least of Disney's worries is their animated/live action film "Song of the South" - which they have pulled from shelves. This movie actually celebrated the rich culture of blacks in the 19th century south and in treated the subject with respect.
    With the works I'm talking about, there was no respect present. Such as that shown in the example - the stereotyped character was put on display as an oddity.

    that, I think, is Disney's major motivation for keeping an iron grip on copyright.

  32. Quote of the day by ajs · · Score: 4, Interesting
    By failing to protect the public interest in free access to the products of the inventive and artistic genius -- indeed, by virtually ignoring the central purpose of the Copyright/Patent Clause [in the Constitution] -- the Court has quitclaimed to Congress its principal responsibility in this area of the law."
    Justice Stevens, J., dissenting
    "Eldred v. Ashcroft"

    Need more be said?
  33. Screw retro... Let's get midevil! by Pont · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, in a tech way.

    I say we assassinate Mickey Mouse.

    Make a Mickey Mouse and the 7 dwarves porno cartoon.

    Make a Mickey Mouse ultra-violent video game.

    Spread stickers with pictures of Mickey smoking a roach with Walt.

    And on each of them put "In response to the Sony Bono Copyright Extension act. Have nice day."

  34. Re:Noble effort, but wrong branch of government. by _xeno_ · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Thank you - I'm glad to know that someone else basically completely agrees with my opinions on this matter. From the start, I've thought that this case was a waste of time that could better be spent trying to mobilize people to lobby for changes to the law.

    The law is constitutional - that is now a fact thanks to this ruling. I've thought since the beginning that this was the wrong way to go about things. Pushing this case through reminds me of school children playing a game - a small group finds the rules to be unfair, and instead of trying to find a solution with rest of the children, they instead run to the teacher and complain that the rules are unfair and that the teacher should strike them down. Hmm - that was a bad analogy. Ah well.

    What we need to do - if we truly believe that copyright law is an injustice - is to organize rallies and get the word out! If a bunch of Farscape fans could run ads to push for the show, then I would hope that people who believe strongly against copyright could push this issue in time for the 2004 Presidential elections. Get the public outraged. Educate them on the issues and hope that some will decide that this issue is indeed important to them.

    I highly doubt that most people either understand copyright or see it as anything wrong. We live in a world of perpetual copyright - people honestly believe that it is right for someone to have a monopoly on their works for all eternity. Asking the Supreme Court to change this is the wrong way to do it. We need to get the laws changed. If copyright can be retroactively extended, then it can be retroactively reduced. Stop trying to get the Supreme Court to overrule the will of Congress, and make this an issue that people have an opinion on!

    C'mon - if people could organize protests against Dmitry being jailed, I really hope we could organize on the issue of copyright. If people can lead a case against copyright, I would hope that they can lead a group of people towards getting people to have an opinion. Let's see if we can get the law changed through the lawmakers and not go crying to the nine "teachers" that the law is unfair.

    --
    You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
  35. Not all bad news. by praksys · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As far as I could tell the majority had the weight of precedent on their side, although they completely passed up the chance to actually say anything about what the "limited time" clause means (which is most definitely their job). Anyway I think these points have been made by others already. I just wanted to point out one glimmer of good news that shows through in all of this.

    The court rejected the argument that an extention of copyright terms would violate 1st Amendment rights, and they gave a pretty good argument for doing so (briefly, if a copyright does not restrain free speach now, then it will not restrain free speech just by sticking around a bit longer). However (and this is the good bit) they explicitly said that copyright legislation is subject to 1st Amendment restraints, and strongly suggested that fair use rights are required in order meet these constraints. This is increadibly good news, and bodes well for future rulings over the DMCA.

  36. Evolution by Simon+Garlick · · Score: 5, Interesting

    OUR EVOLVING CONSTITUTION
    Imagine that you live in Plum Creek, a fictitious, medium size town somewhere in the United States. It has two high schools, East High and West High. The rivalry between the two schools' football teams has been a major feature of local culture for decades. Last year, a boy living next door to your home was playing on the West High team. He invited you to attend the season finale, the game against East High. It began with the usual rules; however, East High couldn't seem to move the ball. The team had big, strong players but they were slow, and they had no passing game.

    The referees reacted by announcing some rule changes. From now on, a team only needed thirty-nine and one half inches for a first down. And it had five attempts rather than four, but only if it didn't try a pass play. Any forward pass would end a series of downs.

    People sitting near you in the stands were quite upset about the changes. They were aware that two of the three referees were uncles, and the third a next door neighbor, of East High players. A committee elected by all the high school coaches in the state had hired the referees. But they had long term contracts, and it was almost impossible to get rid of one who was biased, corrupt, or incompetent.

    Many years ago, the coaches committee had also written a rule book, and all the coaches had then voted to adopt it. It stated that no rule could be changed without the written approval of three-fourths of the coaches. It also said, "A first down requires an advance of ten yards or more in no more than four plays." It didn't say anything about special limits on pass plays.

    When irate fans complained about the clearly fraudulent rule changes, the referees brushed them off. "You don't understand the rule book," they said, "it's a living document which evolves to meet the needs of changing times. And we have the authority to guide that evolution."

    You have just read a rough description of modern U. S. Supreme Court jurisprudence.

    (copied from http://ttokarnak.home.att.net/Evolution.html)

  37. Re:I disagree. by HunterD · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Let's say if we charge 1M dollars per year for every copyright that they wish to extend. Every copyright that they extend would cost them a lot of money and they'd be damn sure that they're getting their money's worth on them. They would NOT just keep on extending all of them, on the off chance that one of them might be worth a little something, because they would not pay off.

    But that's not his point. The point is that every 20 years Disney is gonna call up their totally owned senators and representatives, give them a couple hundred thousand in campaign contributions, and next thing you know, copyright is extended for another 20 years.

    Remember, here in the United States, you don't have to register works to get copyright protection - so they don't have to do anything - they can just sit on the library of 'owned' works, and when in 500 years, for some reason the Uncle Remus stuff becomes acceptable again (ok, not likely) - they can whip it back out. As a result, nothing of our culture's history becomes owned by our culture....ever again...from 1923 on.

    Yes - registering copyrights again would greatly assist here. But the reality is that you don't have to, and likely never will again.

    --
    - The unexamined life is not worth leading -