Rich McIver Can Never Be Walt Disney (Or why modern copyright laws won’t stand Or Jessica Alba’s other job)

I really wish I knew how to have the comments written on this blog posted along side the post. That is where the action is and where some of the best ideas are.

Case in point:

Rich, one of the evil overlords of BizNicheMedia and Matt of the Blog Herald, both made interesting points about my rant against current copyright law and my use of Angelina Jolie pictures.

I'm sure other people took offense with what I said but didn't know exactly how to express it. Law is a touchy subject and I knew it would step on a few toes.

Especially when you are talking about copyright.

Here are some things you need to realize about copyright. It has been used by big corporations to screw the little guy for a while.

Walt Disney was able to get rich off of many of Nineteenth Century public domain works, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Pinocchio, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Alice in Wonderland, and The Jungle Book (released exactly one year after Kipling's copyrights expired).

But when the copyrights were about to expire on Mickey Mouse, the Disney corporation and other media companies decided to change the law.

What they did went against what we are supposed to stand for.

Dig this:

The Framers of our Constitution viewed inventions and expression not as "property", but as public goods to which exclusive rights may be granted purely as a means of incenting production. Thomas Jefferson expressed the then-dominant view with characteristic felicity in an 1813 letter:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me . . . .

Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.

Correspondence between Jefferson and Madison regarding the drafting of the Copyright Clause evidences the same concern: both men classify copyrights and patents as "monopolies" sufferable only for limited periods, and only for the purpose of incenting invention.

Now what does this have to do with Angelina Jolie/Time and You?

When I write something here, if it's decent it may be linked to.

The ideas may be used without ever giving credit.

And that's cool with me. Because I realize what a lot of people realize in their gut and what the framers of the constitution knew: Value is not in the actual product. (This may seem confusing but bear with me.)

Let's take for example, a song by the Beatles.

Now few things are as personal as a songwriters songs. The value of that song is tied to the singer. Does the original song lose value because I (with my horrible voice) decide to sing it? Does the original lose value because I press records of my horrible version and sell it? Of course not.

And it's the same with everything.

It's why Rolex is more than a watch and a Big Mac is more than a hamburger.

Value comes from the experience. Not the actual product itself. Thanks to the internet Everything is a commodity.

Walt Disney told somebody else's stories his way and built an empire. Does that make him a thief? The truth is, he couldn't do that under current copyright law.

Somebody is going to get smart and take everything I have ever written, spit it out in a video form being spoken by Jessica Alba and make a mint.

It's the packaging.

I doubt the internet decreased sales of People magazine. It probably raised them. Because no website can ever recreate the People magazine experience.

Here's the deal.

You came here with nothing and you're leaving here with nothing.

Everything you create belongs to the universe.

Your profit in this lifetime comes from your unique interpretation of it.

Value is different in a world where everybody knows (or has the ability to know) everything.

Until the law understands that, it's valueless.

Explore posts in the same categories: angelina jolie, BizNicheMedia, blog herald, blog networks, constitution, conversation, copyright, Copyrights and Trademarks, Economics, jessica alba, Rich McIver, The Beatles, The Law, walt disney, Walt Disney Studios