If you’ve ever wondered what makes Michael Eisner break out into a cold sweat, consider that someday Mickey Mouse will slip into the public domain, as all works of art must one day do under United States copyright law. And when that day comes, you or I will be able to take Mickey, and all his anthropomorphic pals, and do with them as we see fit.

America’s favorite rodent was set to go public in 2003, having made his first bow (in Steamboat Willy) in 1928. But multi-media conglomerates aren’t shy about fighting for what they want, and Disney fought to keep the mouse in-house. The result was 1998s Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (named after the late Democrat from California), that bumped up the period of copyright protection from 75 to 95 years. For copyrights held by individuals, as opposed to by companies like Disney, the period is extended to life plus 70 years.

Eldred vs. Ashcroft, a suit challenging the Bono law that spent the last couple years knocking around the Federal Courts, was accepted on February 19th by the United States Supreme Court, and placed on the docket for fall. The handful of media outlets that covered it noted that the decision—from a conservative court, under a corporate-friendly administration—was more than a little surprising. Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times said "The consequences could be enormous, both for those with stakes in copyrights that are running out and for the growing community of people—represented by the plaintiffs in this case—trying to use the Internet to expand the boundaries of the public domain."

And not just those fanboys making new cuts of Episode One on their iMacs, either; the plaintiff in all this is Eric Eldred of East Derry, New Hampshire, who puts digitized versions of classic literature online at his Web site, Eldritch Press. Eldred’s attorney (and Harvard professor, and all-around cybernerd) Lawrence Lessig turns up in Greenhouse’s piece and in the Associated Press (AP) article on the same topic. "Lawrence Lessig, attorney for the challengers, said the latest 20-year extension approved by Congress in 1998 is ill-timed and unconstitutional," wrote Gina Holland for AP. "Just at the time that the Internet is enabling a much broader range of individuals to draw upon and develop this creative work without restraint, extensions of copyright law are closing off this medium to a broad swath of common culture."

Needless to say, there is little worry about anyone ripping off the prose stylings of Lawrence Lessig. Among arts publications, Variety was unusual in devoting space to the story, albeit in their own inimitable welcome-to-the-1940s style, referring to the Supreme Court as "the robes" and so forth. But Variety’s novelistic lead ("in 1998, Mouse House topper Michael Eisner trudged up Capitol Hill, personally lobbying for a new law extending copyrights…") reminds us how much cash went into congressional pockets for the Bono Bill to be passed in the first place.

The best account, though, was in a March 2000 article (still available online, though naturally copyrighted) for Reason, written by Jesse Walker and titled "Copy Catfight," which quotes David Post from Temple University: "'There is no better example I can imagine, literally, of Congress caving in to small, highly focused special interests. There is no conceivable public benefit from the additional 20 years [of copyright protection]. Zero.’" Those highly focused special interests, Walker notes, included not only Disney, but also the Motion Picture Association of American, the heirs of George and Ira Gershwin, and an aging hippie named Bob Dylan.

Walker’s Reason article also pointed out—smirkingly but accurately—that Dylan has made great use of the public domain in his work, i.e. restructuring the folk classic "Scarborough Fair" into "Girl From the North Country." Disney, of course, has greatly swelled its fortune off of the public domain status of everything from Tarzan to Mulan. They also made Hunchback of Notre Dame without having to ask Victor Hugo; neither did Chicago puppeteers Redmoon.

So where should you come down on this issue, which will likely be heard by "the robes" come fall? Is it true, as plaintiff Eldred was quoted in The Chronicle of Higher Education, that "if the big publishers and media giants have their way, then basically they’ll turn our culture into a pay-per-view event"? Or are Disney (et. al.) simply expanding the Constitutionally mandated artistic incentive that copyrights ensure?

Or, put another way—will you as an artist have any more incentive to create, knowing you’ll get royalties for 70 years instead of 50, after you’re dead?

LOOK OUT BELOW…

Simon Deonarian is either one of the world’s great chuckleheads or a promotional genius. At the Thursday, Feb. 14 preview performance of War and Peace at the Metropolitan Opera, Deonarian, one of over 200 supernumery (that’s opera-talk for "extra") managed to tumble off stage and land in the orchestra pit. Don’t worry—the kid’s fine. In fact, he’s more than fine, what with getting a rush of column inches on the front of the New York Times Arts section a few days later, with headshot, under the headline "An Extra’s Unscripted Tumble From the Stage is Roiling the Met." Ralph Blumenthal reported a whole story about the post-whoops controversy, including such pressing issues as whether the stage was safe, and whether Deonarian genuinely tripped or actually leapt off the stage in a fit of dramatic exuberance. To Blumenthal, the young actor vehemently denied any such overacting.

Nor was that the end of the post-fall publicity windfall. David Gates, reviewing War and Piece in Newsweek magazine, couldn’t help but revisit the whole incident. He added another detail to what must have been a hell of an opera. "At least neither of two New York Times pieces revisiting the production…mentioned the evening’s other contretemps," Gates wrote. Namely, "a peasant’s goat that seemed to pee during its few seconds onstage." Finally, the AP report on Deonarian saga appeared in Long Island’s Newsday on the 21st under the headline "Met Extra Accused of Overacting."

Mrs. Deonarian must be so proud.