RE: [dvd-discuss] Eldred v. Ashcroft Accepted forReviewbySCOTUS

[microlenz(at)earthlink.net]

WOOOOWWWWW....this is getting serious! If the copyright can be 
retroactively extended to Santa Claus then royalities have to paid for every 
shopping season for copyright infringment-some percentage of the sales 
that were generated as a consequence of the infringement. Well...there 
goes the GNP for the next century!  I couldn't care less about Mickey Mouse 
but Santa Claus? While as an adult I know there is no Tooth Fairy or Easter 
Bunny but no Santa Claus! Who could doubt that he exists on Christmas 
morning!

All    :-) and hehe     aside....that's a good observation. "Be careful what you 
ask for. You just might get it." Maybe Golan v Ashcroft may want to make 
that point about retroactive copyrights.

Date sent:      	Thu, 21 Feb 2002 22:21:16 -0500 (EST)
From:           	Scott A Crosby <crosby@qwes.math.cmu.edu>
To:             	Richard Hartman <hartman@onetouch.com>
Copies to:      	"'dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu'" <dvd-
discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu>
Subject:        	RE: [dvd-discuss] Eldred v. Ashcroft Accepted 
forReviewbySCOTUS
Send reply to:  	dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu

> On Thu, 21 Feb 2002, Richard Hartman wrote:
> 
> > Perversion it may be, and yet, it would cover the DisneyCo's
> > concerns re. "The Mouse" without having to go to the even
> > greater perversion of infinite extension of copyright, which
> > is what they have to pursue right now.
> >
> 
> Sure, They can trademark one or several images.. For example, the ears or
> a single sillouette, or whatever.
> 
> > Which then is the lesser of two evils?  Stretching trademark
> > protection over the image of a cartoon character who is very
> > strongly identified with the owning corporation, or playing
> > the "copyright lasts as long as we say it lasts" game?
> 
> Neither.. Walt Disney knew what he wsa getting into when he started
> playing the game. This is just changing the rules after the fact.
> 
> (BTW, what right does disney have *at all* to Mickey Mouse nowadays? Why
> must any 'solution' seem to require that there's some exception that
> allows Disney to control Mickey Mouse forever?
> 
> Why is Mickey Mouse infinitely more important than Santa Clause, seemingly
> even for us? Both are a fundamental part of our culture, except out
> culture never did get Mickey Mouse in 42 years, as promised.
> 
> (I'm trying to imagine Santa under the current copyright regime... He'd
> have been copyrighted until I was 4 years old. (I believe Thomas Nast died
> in 1906.)
> 
> 
> Scott
> 
>