GOP sides with Mickey Mouse on copyright reform

The Washington Examiner ^ | December 5, 2012 | Tim Carney

[seacapn]

Illegally downloading a couple dozen songs can earn you a million-dollar fine. Setting some Robert Frost verses to music can make you a criminal. Software or hardware that could possibly be used to copy DVDs -- illegal. And thanks to congressional action every couple of decades, Disney still holds a copyright over Mickey Mouse, whom Walt first created nearly a century ago.

The law and law enforcement around copyright has moved far beyond its purpose of promoting arts and sciences and has become a textbook case of collusion between big business and big government.

If Republicans took on this issue, they could make a play for younger voters while fighting for free enterprise. But that would require standing up to big movie studios and record labels -- and that's not really how Republicans roll, as a GOP memo on copyright reform painfully showed.

...

Republicans are surprisingly close to the entertainment industry. For instance, Mitch Glazier, as a Republican House Judiciary Committee staffer in the late 1990s, played a key role in drafting GOP bills expanding copyright before cashing out to the industry. He now runs the Recording Industry Association of America, a $4 million-a-year lobby operation that fights for more government protection of record labels.

[wizkid]

The child molesters at Disney just love the GOP:



disney subliminal sex messages

Disney Pedophiles

From the Huffington Post (sorry no linky to Zsa Zsa Arianna Gabor's site):

In the case of News Corp., Time Warner, Comcast, and the Walt Disney Co., donations made to Obama were roughly ten times the amount than donations made to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

For example, the Walt Disney Co.'s Bob Iger donated $30,800 to the DNC Services Corporation; $25,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee; and $5,000 to Obama's campaign.

I say (pardon my language) F 'em all.

Glen Reynolds at Instapundit is right. It's time we start hitting the child molesting, Democrat media where it hurts.

Aint gonna happen though:

GOP Scared Stiff by Copyright Paper

[Perhaps Today]

The copyright laws have become so absurd over the years. I’m in favor of overhauling the entire system. For one anything that is out of print should go into the public domain. With music, movies, art I would go with 20 years unless it goes out of print first. With software and video games 5 years. There’s no reason for things like MS-DOS to still be under copyright. No one is harmed if it’s downloaded, same with older video games. A prime music example for me is Bob Seger, 6 out his first 7 albums are long out of print along with his Detroit/Ann Arbor area singles circa 1966-67. To me if he wont reissue, his loss. Those are traded online quite a bit anyhow. Yes copyright absurdity is a pet peeve of mine.

[John Doe #1]

Boy have you got it right. ATT put my copyrighted photos on a disc in 1989 & I have not been able to get justice.They did not have a lic. from me to do this.

[Neidermeyer]

How stupid are our politicians ,,, the rest of the world laughs at their ridiculous laws while those laws are used only against our people.

[Nowhere Man]

Mickey Mouse SHOULD be public domain by now for crying out loud, part of the expiration of copyrights was to foster innovation by releasing old ideas into the public for free usage as well as make the producers of the expired stuff incentive to continue to be creative...

I found a cartoon on YouTube that was made by the Third Reich or maybe Vichy France in 1943/44 that depicted three B-17's each flown by Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Popeye and you had Goofy and Felix the Cat as gunners. It was about a French family listening to London on the radio (the announcer "looked Jewish" as per the Nazi stereotype of the period) saying the Allies are coming. The bombs fall on the house, killing the family and leaving the radio behind and then you see the Grim Reaper laughing. I'm surprised Disney, along with Max Fleischer, did not go after someone on this, then again, we were at war with them anyhoo.

Nimbus Libere-1943/44

It was so absurd, I had a good laugh.

[Nowhere Man]

More like Charlie Brown where Lucy promises not to yank the football but like Charlie Brown, the GOP gets fooled by the Rats.

[trebb]

The answer - unfortunately - seems to be payoffs and corruption among GOP elected officials and staffers.

Welcome to reality - "our side" is just as corrupt as their side...

[Wonder Warthog]

"Trademarks last forever, as long as they are actively used and protected by the owner. Even if Steamboat Willie had mercifully been allowed to lapse into the Public Domain, you still wouldn't be able to make your own cartoon with Mickey Mouse in it. You would be able to share the cartoon Steamboat Willie with anyone on the planet you wanted to."

Which basically says that trademark law also needs to be revised. If an item is both copyrighted AND trademarked, then the trademark should end with the copyright.