The Public Domain Rule Applies to Everyone Except Disney

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(Newswire.net — February 5, 2016) — If you have the money, you have political influence and the power to tailor laws according to your interests. Well, not all laws, at least for now, but the copyright law has been frequently changed to protect the interests of the Disney corporation, writer Zachary Crockett wrote for Priceonomics.

Reportedly, when Disney first introduced Mickey Mouse in 1928, the copyright law protected the character for the next 56 years, during which the Disney corporation built an empire. The iconic mouse became Disney’s most valuable asset, worth billions, and Mickey becoming the public domain was off the table.

In 1979, a new law extended Mickey’s copyright expiration from 1984 to 2003. With the new expiration date approaching, the law was changed once again extending Disney’s right to exclusively drain profit from Mickey and his companions until 2023. 

It is not hard to imagine what will happen in several years. The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a model that allows mega-corporations to extend the protection of their interests in the entire planet, overriding the laws and constitutions of countries that join the ‘partnership of corporations.’

“Disney Political Action Committee (PAC) paid out a total of $149,612 in direct campaign contributions to 25 sponsors of the bill (12 in the Senate and 13 in the House), 19 received money from Disney’s CEO Michael Eisner,” cited Crockett, from watchdog records, in his report, adding that “Eisner paid Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) $1,000 on the very same day that he signed on a co-sponsor.”

Given that it is an issue worth billions, Disney’s PAC spent ‘pocket money’ to gather sponsors to change the law. However, some politicians considered the move inappropriate and immoral. “The real incentive [was] for corporate owners that bought copyrights to lobby Congress for another 20 years of revenue,” Senator Hank Brown told the Washington Post in 2013, the only senator in the entire congressional committee that opposed the bill. “I thought it was a moral outrage. There wasn’t anyone speaking out for the public interest,” he said.

Despite being so protective of its own characters, the Disney corporation however has no problem using another author’s creations to generate profit. More than 50 of Disney’s films are based on characters that are public domain. Alice in Wonderland, created by Lewis Carroll in 1865, has earned Disney $1.02 billion. Aladdin $504 million, Beauty and the Beast $425 million, Frozen (2013) based on the novel “Ice Queen” by Hans Christian Anderson generated a $810.3 million profit for Disney, and the list goes on and on. The game is easy to play and win all the time if you keep changing the rules to accommodate your interests. It is not moral though and it is certainly unfair to other players, but in a world dominated by mega-corporations, no one really cares.