“Tarzan,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Pinocchio,” “Alice in Wonderland, “Cinderella” and “The Sword and the Stone” are just a few of the Walt Disney Co.’s cartoon classics. These popular movies continue to be major money makers for Disney and are mainly responsible for the immensity of the Disney empire. These movies have become a part of our culture and national identity.
Did Disney think up these stories? No, the company took stories already in the public domain, added a talking parrot and threw in a song or two.
The Disney movies are different from the original texts. Victor Hugo’s Quasimodo was a far deeper character than any “Disneyfied” morality tale could ever allow for. Yet it is within Disney’s rights to modify and adapt the story any way they want. But how would Disney react to interpretations or adaptations of Mickey? If you tried to reinterpret “Fantasia” you would be up to your ears in lawsuits faster than you could say “Never-Never Land.”
The books these movies were based on were originally copyrighted by their authors, and it would have been illegal to use and adapt the stories without the permission of the author.
Yet, Disney was able to use these stories without paying for them. After a certain period, copyrights on books and other creations expire. After that time, these creative works are considered part of the “public domain,” and anyone can use, adapt and interpret them without permission. The role of copyright, as it is enshrined in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, is “to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
Today, copyrights hold for 70 years after the death of the author and 95 years for copyrights held by corporations. After this time, the work goes to public domain. This explains why so many different publishers sell the works of Shakespeare. It’s a pretty good system — authors get to profit from and control their work (and thereby give artists incentive to continue to create) and in time the work becomes public so people can incorporate old work into new things without worries of copyright infringement.
In 1998, after extensive lobbying from Hollywood, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended copyrights by another 20 years. The act was recently challenged in the Supreme Court by Eric Eldred, who had tried to make Robert Frost’s poetry available on the Web under the assumption that the copyright on the material published in 1923 had expired by 1998. His appeal was denied and now copyrights might be extended continually.
You might think a company like Disney, which has benefited so much from expired copyrights, would support Eldred. But the situation is reversed. The copyrights Walt Disney had on early versions of Mickey Mouse and other cartoons were due to expire in 2004. If the law was overturned, Disney would lose the copyright on Mickey.
Disney (and society) was provided with the opportunity to benefit from public domain laws, but now that opportunity is in jeopardy if copyrights become held in perpetuity.
Keeping copyrights for so long benefits few. Society does not benefit from having Michael Jackson own the copyright on all Beatles songs. It is important that copyrights expire at some point. The Supreme Court ruling allowing Congress to extend copyrights for another 20 years opens the door for a series of never-ending extensions. Does anyone really think that Disney will be ready to part with Mickey 20 years down the road?
Just as we allow drug companies to keep the patent on their drugs only long enough to recoup costs and make a profit before we open up the market to generic versions, so should it follow with copyrights.
Some things should not be copyrighted any longer. AOL Time Warner owns the copyright to “Happy Birthday” — and will through at least 2021 — so at your next birthday, unless you want to pay the royalties, don’t sing it in public.
Jess Piskor
Michigan Daily (U. Michigan)
