Disney Hypocrisy

Disney Hypocrisy

In 1928, a cartoon was made titled ‘Steamboat Willie’ by the Walt Disney Co. staring a certain mouse named Mickey. In the intervening years, the good people at Walt Disney made more money on Mickey than that steamboat would be able to carry. Mickey became the logo for Walt Disney, the bearer of all things good about the company.

In 2003, however, something very bad was about to happen to Mickey, according to Disney: he was set to enter the public domain. In essence, Disney’s trademark on Mickey Mouse was going to expire. This would allow, say, DreamWorks or Pixar to make a movie using Mickey Mouse. Disney would have no control over the character they created. Worse, a few years after the Mickey trademark would be lost, other trademarks would also expire, including Goofy, Donald Duck, and Pluto.

To protect themselves, Disney and a cadre of other content creators including the music business, Hollywood, and other came before congress in 1998 and got a law passed, the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act. This would move the trademark expiration out at lest another twenty-five years. So all was well in the land of Mouse.

Oh, one little problem: what about the public domain? Trademark law was set up to reward content creators with a set number of years to profit from their creations, but also allow these creations to pass into the public domain for the greater good of the society in future generations.

Let’s be clear: no one at Disney right now had any hand in creating Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto, or Goofy. No one. But these people feel that they have a right to be the only company to profit from these creations. You may or may not agree with that. After all, why would Disney be if they lost all their creations to the public domain? How would they make money then?

Walt Disney Co. is the master of hypocrisy. At the same time they are trying, and succeeding, their own creations from passing into the public domain, they are in turn using creations already in the public domain to further their own business ends and make money.

Beauty and the Beast
Cinderella
Sleeping Beauty
Aladdin
Snow White
Huck Finn
Alice in Wonderland
Daniel Boone
Davy Crockett
Fantasia
Santa Claus
Tarzan
King Authur
Mark Twain
Pocahontas
The Three Musketeers
Zorro

How many millions, or billions, has Disney made off these creations that they had no hand in creating? The trademark laws absolutely affords them the right to use these public domain characters to make new movies, books, music, and other works which benefit the public in either entertainment or educational ways.

So if Disney can use the public domain, why is it so bad for their own creations to enter the same public domain for the betterment of society? What makes Mickey Mouse any different than Cinderella? Donald Duck different or better than Snow White? Why can Disney make money off Aladdin, but Dream Works cannot make money from Pluto?

The founding fathers of the United States of America, including Jefferson and Madison, viewed copyrights and patents as “monopolies” sufferable only for limited periods, and only for the purpose of incenting invention.

I believe that the Sonny Bono Trademark Extension Act will be ruled unconstitutional, and that these old Disney characters should be allowed into the public domain, if for no other reason than Disney taking advantage of existing public domain property while attempting to disallow their own characters from doing the same by changing the rules for only their benefit.

Fair is fair, even if Disney does not like it. Perhaps if these characters are made public domain, it will force Disney into creating new characters as popular and profitable, something they have failed miserably at over the last decade. If you take Pixar out of the equation, Disney has created almost nothing original or compelling on their own. The Pixar creations, conversely, are all original and compelling works.

I welcome your comments below.