Copy fight: The right to copy (use), not copy (cheat)

<-- In Their Own Words: The copyrighted raise their voice to explain their predicament.



I have an artist friend named Jim whose ever-smiling face becomes a stony grimace at the mention of the name Disney. This change of face is followed by a diatribe on Disney's marketing of its animated films, particularly the television advertisements warning of the last chance to buy a Disney "classic" before it goes back in the vault for seven more years. Jim finds this bewildering and stupid and as an artist can't or won't accept the economics of manipulating supply and demand. Disney's pugnacious proprietorship of its product is legendary, outdistancing even Mattel's protective patriarchy of Barbie in its extremes; this is the corporation that managed an act of Congress to change copyright law, extending protection from 50 years after the owner's death to 70, just as Mickey and friends were about to celebrate their emancipation on the 50th anniversary of Walt's demise.

I have no problem with Disney's parental angst over little Mickey and his friends leaving home to make their way in the world, nor with the company's attempts to keep that from happening; I've never liked the little beast, and I shudder to think of a future ubiquitous with cheap Mickey Mouse memorabilia. They created it, let them keep it (and keep the kid off the streets). On the other hand, Disney has made a ****load of money appropriating cultural artifacts such as folk lore and fairy tales, as well as an author's original works that have passed into the public domain, adapting and animating them into "Disney films". Snow White and Cinderella, to name two, are stories that were told in many different cultures going back hundreds of years; The Little Mermaid, is a story by Hans Christian Anderson that is now public domain. Once appropriated, Disney acts aggressively and vigorously to retain as much control and ownership as possible over what is essentially intellectual property owned by you and me. Expecting Disney to recognize that it has drunk far more than its fair share from the community well, though, is, fittingly, living in a fairy tale.

To be fair, Disney, as one of the most recognized brands in the world, is the most obvious example of the increasing corporate ownership and control of the culture and its intellectual and artistic products. It is one of a handful of giant media corporations that own most of the commercial media production and distribution in the country. What that means for you and me is that quite literally, they control our, the public's, access to entertainment, information and knowledge. If as the saying goes, knowledge is power, then the big media conglomerates have it in spades, and you don't; that can change, though.

A significant aspect of Internet technology is that, for the most part, it is accessible to everyone, providing the individual with potent tools with which to participate democratically in culture. This allows those of like mind, previously isolated by geography or ideas and opinions contrary to the dominant class' interest, to connect, communicate and organize. Currently, resistance to the big media corporations' domination of our creative culture is loosely organizing around what is referred to as the Free Culture movement. The movement, related to the free software and open source movements, takes its name from the the book by Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig and is associated with the organization, Creative Commons, which offers a more flexible alternative to copyright licensing. College students, in particular, have taken on the cause, forming the organization Students for Free Culture with over 30 chapters on college campuses across the United States.

Get empowered: express yourself, get involved.