[Coco] Re: [Color Computer] Fw: Copyright

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 08 July 2005 21:37, Mike Pepe wrote:
>Gene Heskett wrote:
>> Absolutely.  Mickey was about to become PD, and Disney couldn't
>> allow that, so he bought every congress-critter he could and got
>> this abomination passed.
>
>I don't have a problem with Diznee keeping the mouse copyrighted.
> The mouse represents significant money to them and they actively
> use it.
>
I do have a problem with that, a big, write my congress-critters 
problem.  The founding fathers originally setup copyright to last 
IIRC 17 years, with an optional additional 17 years if the renewall 
fee was paid.  And it had to be actively registered in order to be 
granted the monopoly.  After that the material was to pass 
irrevocably into the public domain.  This kept us in fresh literary 
writings quite well.  It also allowed imitators to innovate without 
fear of being sued out of their homes if they wrote a similar work.

The key word is innovation.  Now, if anyone writes a story involving a 
mouse, Disney will exert sufficient pressure to quash the work, and 
another promiseing author of childrens books or such will be flipping 
burgers at McD's.

Ditto for patents, but thats another story.  In either case, the loss 
to society is the improvement or innovation freedom that the 
expiration of such monopolies allows.

Mickey Mouse should have reverted to the public domain 40 years ago.  
By maintaining the monopoly, Disney has grown to the status of a 
child throwing a legal temper tantrum over some perceived insult to 
their corporate ego.  In many board room scenes, one could not tell 
Disney from M$, either is grossly guilty of violating our antitrust 
laws.  They should have to be constantly improving the product in 
order to rate the market domination handed them on a silver platter 
by the likes of the Bono Act or GWB & M$.

>Unfortunately it looks like in the case of old computer magazines,
> the community will suffer.

Exactly my point.

>That's kind of annoying too, since ancient defunct magazines
> represent very little -if any- revenue for the copyright
> holder(s) as they are not actively used.
>
>Oh well.

Not an Oh Well to me.  Let your congress-critters know how you feel.  
And always finish your message to them noteing that you are a 
registered voter, you watch the roll calls printed and that you DO 
vote.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
99.35% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above
message by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.


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