Free The Mouse!

Mickey Mouse turned 75 this week and would have passed into the public domain had Eric Eldred and Lawrence Lessig gotten their way.

Today, movies and television are the main distributors of culture in America. Mickey Mouse been a major player in four generations of cultural immersion, but he differs fundamentally with the characters of old. He doesn't grow.

Centuries ago, folk tales and myths were passed from one generation to the next, mutating as they moved from village to village, from century to century. Storytelling was vital to social survival.

Disney is a prime example of this phenomenon. Almost all of their major animated movies are based on fairy tales from around the world. But they don't accord the same freedom to those who watch their own movies. Disney can take liberties with Grimm's Snow White and retell it, but you can't take liberties with Disney's Snow White and retell it.

Thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, copyrights now last for 70 years after the life of the author, or 95 years after creation for corporate-created works. Without the Act, Peter Pan entered the public domain in 1987. With the Act, it won't hit until 2007. Somehow, I don't think it makes a difference to J. M. Barrie.

So sing Happy Birthday to the Mouse. Oh wait. You can't until 2030.

Picture Pun Here

My photo gallery is all kinds of updated. At the top you'll find new albums for misc. October and November shots, smoke from the Overland Fire near Jamestown, Pie Night/lunar eclipse, and (soon) some neat shots of the Halloween frost. Buried in the school album are pictures from last night's ΤΒΠ creativity projects meeting. I don't usually use a flash, out of politeness, so some of the latter pictures are fuzzy. Especially near the end, after the lights in the front of the room were turned out.

As usual, the albums haven't been edited (some of the pictures aren't very good), nor have the photos been titled. Feel free to suggest action on either front.