resistor
First Post
I think of it like this: We are our cultural heritage. The myths, fairy tales, lullabies, etc that our parents teach us as children don't belong to any particular person or company, but are a shared basis that defines who we are as a culture.
Copyright law is in contrast to that; it gives artists and creators temporary monopolies on their works, so that they can make money from them. When that copyright expires, the works enter the public domain, and can be used by anyone for any purpose. This is why classics like Shakepeare can be printed by lots of different companies, and why classic songs can be performed without having to pay dues.
The problem is that modern copyright law has extended ownership terms for creative works to an incredible degree (currently life + 90 years). This creates absurd situations, like the copyright status of the Happy Birthday song. There's nothing that's more part of our shared culture than that, yet it still belongs to a company that charges money for public performances of it. Where do we draw the line where the need to preserve short-term profits is less important than the need to preserve our own culture?
Disney is an easy target to pick on, as they've been behind a lot of the lobbying to extent copyright terms to prevent their early movies from entering the public domain:
My grandparents saw Snow White in a movie theater on one of their first dates. When it finally enters the public domain and becomes "public culture" (in 2032), my future children might be able to see it on their first dates.
