Eldred v. Ashcroft
M-I-C… See? We got Mickey's copyright extended!
K-E-Y… Why? Because we're greedy!
M-O-U… You? Who cares about you??
The constitutional mandate for US law which provides copyright protection is intended to encourage the sciences. That is, to help promulgate information in society.
The logic is that, if we don't protect an author's work, then there will be no incentive to publish and society will never receive the benefit of the publication. Since publication is the means by which information is promulgated in society, we need to encourage it. The assumption here is that without financial incentive there is no incentive. While this assumption is not always true since many works are disseminated for reasons other than financial gain (religious texts, educational broadcasting, etc.), it is an excellent generalization. So, we protect an author's work to provide a financial incentive for him/her to enrich the information to which society has access.
On the other hand, this protection of an author's work is limited (a time limited monopoly) because there is sufficient financial reward by a limited monopoly to encourage publication, any further protection doesn't provided a benefit to society so society has no motive to provide it. The term of protection has recently been extended from the author's life plus 50 years to the author's life plus 70 years. One well known expert on this matter has observed that such a term can conceivably restrict a work for 150 years in the case of a 16 year old boy who writes a popular novel and then lives to be 96. Of course, the time value of money causes makes any extension on the copyright term to provide a diminishing marginal return on the incentive to create. That is, the first ten years of the copyright terms provide more present value than do the next ten or the ten after that, etc. I won't do the math for you but, assuming 4% inflation, each 20 year extension is only worth about 45% of the previous twenty years in present day dollars. The result is that increasing the copyright term from 50 years to 70 years increases the expected return to the creator by less than 9% and increasing it from 130 years to 150 years increases the expected return to the creator by about one third of one percent!!
Eldred v. Ashcroft was a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed the power of Congress to extend the term of copyright protection. In 1998, Disney sought additional protection from Congress to keep Mickey Mouse, who debuted in 1928, from entering the public domain in 2003. Congress responded with the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) which extended protection from life plus 50 years to life plus 70 years. This effectively tacked on 20 years to Disney's copyright on Mickey Mouse.
While there are some people who will respond that such action is OK since "Disney owns Mickey", I argue that the public got robbed. Walt Disney saw sufficient reward in publicly releasing "Steamboat Willy" back in 1928. In return, the public gave him his due, a life plus 50 year monopoly on Mickey. Why now should we pony up more protection? I argue the public is being asked to give more protection and is getting absolutely nothing in return. Adding to the irony here is that Disney forged a media empire on the back of public domain media. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, most of the music in Fantasia, etc. are all Disney staples and were all used FREE because the original creations were all part of the public domain such that Disney, or anyone else, could use them as they saw fit. Disney took from the public domain to make these beloved works and is now trying to avoid its obligations to contribute to the public domain.
CTEA was a crock and the public should be angry about the disregard it shows for the public good.
K-E-Y… Why? Because we're greedy!
M-O-U… You? Who cares about you??
The constitutional mandate for US law which provides copyright protection is intended to encourage the sciences. That is, to help promulgate information in society.
The logic is that, if we don't protect an author's work, then there will be no incentive to publish and society will never receive the benefit of the publication. Since publication is the means by which information is promulgated in society, we need to encourage it. The assumption here is that without financial incentive there is no incentive. While this assumption is not always true since many works are disseminated for reasons other than financial gain (religious texts, educational broadcasting, etc.), it is an excellent generalization. So, we protect an author's work to provide a financial incentive for him/her to enrich the information to which society has access.
On the other hand, this protection of an author's work is limited (a time limited monopoly) because there is sufficient financial reward by a limited monopoly to encourage publication, any further protection doesn't provided a benefit to society so society has no motive to provide it. The term of protection has recently been extended from the author's life plus 50 years to the author's life plus 70 years. One well known expert on this matter has observed that such a term can conceivably restrict a work for 150 years in the case of a 16 year old boy who writes a popular novel and then lives to be 96. Of course, the time value of money causes makes any extension on the copyright term to provide a diminishing marginal return on the incentive to create. That is, the first ten years of the copyright terms provide more present value than do the next ten or the ten after that, etc. I won't do the math for you but, assuming 4% inflation, each 20 year extension is only worth about 45% of the previous twenty years in present day dollars. The result is that increasing the copyright term from 50 years to 70 years increases the expected return to the creator by less than 9% and increasing it from 130 years to 150 years increases the expected return to the creator by about one third of one percent!!
Eldred v. Ashcroft was a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed the power of Congress to extend the term of copyright protection. In 1998, Disney sought additional protection from Congress to keep Mickey Mouse, who debuted in 1928, from entering the public domain in 2003. Congress responded with the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) which extended protection from life plus 50 years to life plus 70 years. This effectively tacked on 20 years to Disney's copyright on Mickey Mouse.
While there are some people who will respond that such action is OK since "Disney owns Mickey", I argue that the public got robbed. Walt Disney saw sufficient reward in publicly releasing "Steamboat Willy" back in 1928. In return, the public gave him his due, a life plus 50 year monopoly on Mickey. Why now should we pony up more protection? I argue the public is being asked to give more protection and is getting absolutely nothing in return. Adding to the irony here is that Disney forged a media empire on the back of public domain media. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, most of the music in Fantasia, etc. are all Disney staples and were all used FREE because the original creations were all part of the public domain such that Disney, or anyone else, could use them as they saw fit. Disney took from the public domain to make these beloved works and is now trying to avoid its obligations to contribute to the public domain.
CTEA was a crock and the public should be angry about the disregard it shows for the public good.
posted by Minotaur at 6:38 AM
1 Comments:
Hear! Hear!
I love Mickey Mouse too -- as do millions of people young and old -- but this is ridiculous If old Walt could see what they have done with his creations, I am sure he would be spinning in his grave. You said it in your second line; GREED! Sure the shareholders have a right to expect to make money on their investments, but how about creating some new ideas and letting the old ones fade into general use.
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