Dan Gillmor's got a great editorial in this morning's Seattle Times explaining what the 1998 Bono copyright extension means to consumers, and why the Supremes' agreement to hear a Constituional appeal is a beacon of hope for us all.
…Disney and its collaborators are stealing our heritage. As several critics have noted, anyone using the image of Santa Claus as a fat man with a beard and red suit would have had to pay royalties during much of the last century if the Bono law had been in effect when a cartoonist dreamed up that caricature in the 1880s. This is absurd….
Another peculiar rationale for the Bono law was to make U.S. copyright terms match their European counterparts. By that logic, the United States should bring all its laws in line with the worst statutes around the world. Heck, they don't have free speech in China, so we might as well do away with it here.
