Disney Copyrights Targeted in Bill Proposed by Sen. Josh Hawley
hollywoodreporter.com
hollywoodreporter.com
> Hawley, employing DeSantis’ playbook, said in a statement, "Thanks to special copyright protections from Congress, woke corporations like Disney have earned billions while increasingly pandering to woke activists."
Is it okay for the government to enact targeted legislation to punish the exercise of legitimate political speech? I'm very wary of the precedent that's set by this. When the ends justify the means, the entire constitution goes out the window.
Or does this law somehow only apply to Disney and no other copyright holding entity?
I am no "mouthpiece of the woke" but I thought the actual "woke" wanted lesser copyright years? And he's trying to deliver that.
The best thing here is for the "woke" to loudly cheer him on in this - thus supporting what they want AND confusing the fanbase he thought he was targeting.
They’ve been using politics to increase their bottom line for decades.
It's not. This may be fresh legal ground, but it could be argued that it's a 1st amendment violation, if the law can be shown to be in retaliation* to speech, even if the law itself complies with the 1st amendment. (Mind that these are distinct questions: Is it OK, and is it legal. And even though I've answered that it's not okay, I still welcome the move. It's less not okay than perpetual copyright.)
But I think accepting that argument would be even more perilous. If the motivation of legislators can be used to overturn otherwise constitutional laws, you're in a big mess. E.g. you could argue that an algorithmic transparency law violates the 1st amendment if it was motivated by Musk's purchase of Twitter.
The other question is, does this set some kind of precedent - not legal, but of political norms. I'm not sure, but quite possibly yes. While there are plenty of examples of government harming or helping various entities depending on how in-favor they are, there may be a difference in kind here.
*Extremely mild retaliation - I would be surprised if more than 1% of Disney's revenue can be attributed to works older than 50 years.
Edit: Apparently the bill is more narrowly drafted than I thought, and would only apply to two companies in total. Laws this narrow supposedly have precedent to being illegal, according to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31334339
But it's an interesting question if to consider what the legal case would be if the law was a general reduction of copyright to ~50 years, for everyone.
I think that quote from my original post is pretty damning in that regard. He's openly declaring this as an attack on their bottom line because of clearly protected speech that he finds odious.
> But it's an interesting question if to consider what the legal case would be if the law was a general reduction of copyright to ~50 years, for everyone.
See, that's something I'd get behind!
But in this case it only seems to be in progress because one party got mad at Disney and is now just looking for ways to hurt Disney’s interests in revenge.
If a the school bully beats up a kid who torments you for a terribly unfair reason… should you root for them?
It would be pearl-clutchingly terrible if 50+1% of the country/state thought a cabal of (gays, nazis, woke commies, abortionists, pedophiles, etc.) were in the NSA using surveillance tech + weak encryption to accomplish their goals
That is quite literally facism.
This law under discussion would only apply to Disney, and could only ever apply to Disney.
However, only Disney has copyrights which would be expired by this law due to the retroactive termination of copyright periods and extensions.
Of course it's not. Governments make legislation to deal with specific organisations or individuals all the time; it's pretty normal. I would go so far to say this is "quite literally" the entire job of the legislative branch: respond to problems as they develop with new laws.
This specific act and pissing match with Disney is of course petty beyond belief, but that's a different matter.
Here is the actual text of the bill:
https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2022-05/Co...
As written, it could only apply to 2 companies, Universal and Disney (as those are the only 2 companies that both are in the movie production business and also operate theme parks), and both Universal and Disney are (or at least last month were) over $150 billion in market cap. A bill that narrowly drafted has been held to be a bill of attainder in almost every circuit in the U.S. (A bill of attainder does not need to be limited to a single target; what makes it illegal is that it is narrowly drawn and attempts to legislatively punish a person or entity for otherwise legal acts.)
The punishment part is that the bill would retroactively limit copyright extensions for just those two companies 1 28-year term, and Disney copyrights would expire automatically upon passage of the law for everything dating back to at least Fantasia. Note that retroactive termination of copyright law is not permitted by our existing copyright laws, nor is it permitted by international treaties to which we are signatories.
Or, in other words, it's unconstitutional multiple ways, and is a blatant attempt to exert fascistic coercion over a business with different ideological concerns than the author.
Plus, who knows if it will be well drafted and all that. The article suggests it would be retroactive, which is rarely a sign of fair legislation, IMHO; of course, the same was true of the term extension, but I don't think that necessarily justifies making the change back in the same way; especially for works that were created with an originally long copyright term.
The Republicans used to be the party of big business but that stopped being true around 2016. They’re now squarely populist which is why you’ve noticed a change in behavior. However, it’s not that anti-woke is more important than big business it’s that big business isn’t a constituency of the populists in the first place.
As much as I'd like to stick it to them, it's not enough to stick it to ONLY Disney, and it's certainly not good if it helps a national traitor like Josh Hawley.
The Disney Lobby is partially responsible for this - and something really does need to be done about it.
But let's not pretend that this is anything but sabre-rattling by the Republican - they have no interest in sane copyright limits.
You know, "woke" has really become the new "commie". It doesn't refer to an ideology anymore, it's just a buzzword that has to be placed in as many sentences as possible to remind your base of all the awful people out there who want to destroy everything that is good and holy.
(That aside, I don't have much sympathy for Disney. They had no business commenting on that Florida law, no matter how much shit their progressive fans and creators gave them.)
The Republican party has spent the past couple of decades arguing that corporations have free speech, and expanding what "speech" means in that case. Does that only apply when they say Republican things?