If this bill becomes law, it means that Congress now has the power to target specific individuals and companies with legislative acts.
That is quite literally facism.
That is quite literally facism.
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.
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.