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A US Senator is attempting to pass a bill that would change copyright law and cause Disney to immediately lose Mickey Mouse as well as a number of their other classic IPs.
Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri wishes to pass a law that would reduce Disney’s copyright protections from 95 years to 56 years retroactively. If passed, this would mean that Disney would lose its copyrights for much of its older work and IPs including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and many more.
According to Deadline, Hawley says he wishes to end “handouts” to “woke corporations” like Disney.
“The age of Republican handouts to Big Business is over. Thanks to special copyright protections from Congress, woke corporations like Disney have earned billions while increasingly pandering to woke activists. It’s time to take away Disney’s special privileges and open up a new era of creativity and innovation.”
This would revert copyright laws back to the 1909 US Copyright Act which allowed copyright protection to last for 28 years plus a 28 year extension, 56 years in total. In modern times, this has been further lengthened to 95 years. The reason for this length is in part due to companies like Disney lobbying for the laws to be extended so that they may keep their intellectual properties.
The most recent of these extensions is the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act which allows additional works made after January 1st, 1978 to have copyright protection for 95 years from when they were first published.
Even with the current law, Disney’s copyright protection for the first Mickey Mouse cartoon ‘Steamboat Willie’ is due to end on January 1st, 2024. Many believe that the company will once again lobby for some kind of extension to be passed.
Many believe that Hawley’s bill will not be passed. A company like Disney likely has more than enough lawyers and resources to ensure that. Deadline has also pointed out that there are members of the senate heavily involved in copyright protection and the entertainment industry.
“Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who chairs the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on intellectual property, and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), its ranking member, are both viewed as big boosters of the entertainment industry when it comes to fighting piracy and bolstering copyright protections. Both were honored by the Motion Picture Association in March.”
Journalist Sarah Jeong further writes on The Verge that Hawley’s bill is a “joke” that was likely only created to showboat and stir up controversy.
“This is not a radical rethinking of copyright. It is regression as a meme, a fart in the wind, an empty and cynical gesture meant for a future fundraising email. All because Disney is the latest punching bag for a Republican party whose rabid homophobia would not look out of place in 1909.”
