Disney’s Mickey Mouse and the copyright protection in the U.S.

Abstract

When Walt Disney created the character of the celebrated Mickey Mouse in 1928, he must have not predicted the impact it would create in the evolution of the Copyright Act 1909. The Act earlier provided for 28 years of copyright protection which could be further extended for another 28 years on expiry. Disney was not satisfied with just the 56 years of protection over its mascot and highest source of revenue. Closer to the expiry of its copyright protection, Disney lobbied with Congress to extend the Copyright protection to 75 years for all original works published after 1922. However, this was not the end of Disney’s attempt to have an infinite year of protection over its character. Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) in 1998 was passed which further increased the protection for another 20 years for corporates. This made Disney hold the copyright over its original Mickey Mouse character till January 1, 2024. Before the last extension of the duration in the Copyright Act in 1998, Walt Disney’s Chairman had paid a visit to the Senate Majority Leader to ensure that the bill would pass the Senate. This was the culmination of the extensive lobbying by Walt Disney in which they had spent $800,000 as contributions to political campaigns in the 1997-98 cycle and a sum of $1.5 Million in the previous year. These amounts are meager for the company as they risk losing billions of dollars in revenue if their characters fall into the public domain. Continuous attempts of Disney to keep protecting its creations for reaping infinite benefits out of it, makes it interesting whether Disney would again lobby to gain further extensions over Mickey Mouse. This paper is an attempt to study the efforts of Disney to protect its leading cash cow and the focus is to highlight how much percentage of the total revenue can be attributed to Mickey and the impact it will have if it falls into the public domain. It further analyses the justifications given by Congress to keep extending the copyright protection and efforts put in by Disney over lobbying for the same. Following this, the target would be to see the various fractions of the anti-lobbying community and their motive behind it.