https://lessig.medium.com/steamboat-willie-reborn-in-peace-c65924ed7908
"Today, Congress allowed
Steamboat Willie — the origin cartoon for Mickey
Mouse — to pass into the public domain. Eric Eldred helped make this happen,
when, 25 years ago, he challenged Congress’s practice of extending the terms of
existing copyright. By 1999, Congress had done that 11 times in the previous 40
years.
Eldred’s challenge was grounded in the text of the Constitution — which gives
Congress the power to secure the monopoly right of copyright for “limited
times” only — and it drew together an extraordinary diversity of support,
including the Free Software Foundation, Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, and 17
economists, including Kenneth Arrow, Ronald Coase, and Milton Friedman (who
said he’d join the brief only if the words “no brainer” were used to describe
the argument).
The Supreme Court rejected that challenge 7–2 (Justices Stevens and Breyer each
had fantastic dissents). But Eldred’s fight triggered a movement (including
Creative Commons) to resist this plundering of the public domain in the name of
extending the benefits to a lucky few. Because the real cost of perpetual term
extension is the 99% of creative work that, unlike
Steamboat Willie, has no
clear owner, and so rots and decays and is forgotten because archives,
libraries, publishers, and (re)creators can’t risk using it without clearing it
in advance."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
