> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Louis Proyect
>
>
> I can tell you one thing about Disney and copyright. I entered a boolean
> search on the two words in Nexis, which used the default 'within
> six month'
> time-frame, and it failed because it exceeded the limit of 1,000 hits.
> Something is definitely going on.
One reason Disney is the antichrist in the eyes of a lot of leftleaning
copyright activists is that is was the main engine for passage of the Bono
(as in Sonny) amendment which extended corporate copyrights from seventy
years to ninety years, conveniently just in time to preserve Disney's
copyright on Mickey Mouse, which premiered in the early 30s.
What pissed people off most is the bankruptcy of the arguments; a case can
intellectually be made for offering copyrights to new artists, even
lengthening the copyright period for new authors, in order to increase
incentives for artistic production. But extending copyrights on existing
works can have no incentive effects- the works are already created, the
artists usually dead, so it's a pure transfer of wealth from the public
domain to the estates and heirs of the original artists.
The Berkman Center at Harvard is mounting a challenge to the Disney-Bono law
on the grounds that the government is prohibited from giving away public
resources without compensation to that public. Most corporate welfare has
some bogus incentive justification, but the complete intellectual bankruptcy
of this law gives the lawyers involved some hope of prevailing. I
personally am dubious but am not familiar with the constitutional law they
are using.
-- Nathan Newman
