When reading these articles, I continue to be amazed at how many euphemisms there are for "I want stuff for free".
How long until Mickey Mouse becomes public domain?
Imagine a culture years from now, where every piece of culture has been locked down by a corporation. What kind of stagnation would exist? Would only the authorized storytellers be allowed to participate in authorized creation?
Disney is fighting to extend copyright perpetually. They want to be making money from Mickey Mouse a 1000 years from now. The original artists will be long gone, but no one will be able to build upon Mickey as Disney has built upon ancient tales.
Read some Cory Doctorow for a better explanation of this. Makers is especially good.
This monopoly on such cultural goods prevents the creation of derivedworks and reduce the value to the population of these goods.
They can have their copyright, but for a reasonable time.
How so?
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/lessig_nyed.html
http://www.ted.com/themes/tales_of_invention.html
and stratospark's excellent response a couple messages back
In fact, I might have incentive to specifically avoid creating a new character, because Mickey has recognition.
If we plan on extending copyright forever, we will end up with a pretty crowded characterspace in a couple decades. Are you sure you'll be able to come up with something that's completely original a couple decades from now? Is it sane?
However, the right to make derivative works should last longer, especially for characters. A good author makes a character seem like someone real to the reader or viewer. He establishes a personality for that character, and I don't have a problem with not allowing others to make stories with that character that are inconsistent with the personality established by the original author.