Mickey Mouse-ABC Goes to DC and Walks "The Path to 9/11" for Perpetual Copyright and Cable Access

[McCamy Taylor]

I have written about CBS and CNN, but they were not the only corporate news network that lead our nation to war in 2002-3, pretending that Saddam had something to do with 9/11 and that he had WMDs when the UN said he didn't and McClatchy newspapers said he didn't and members of Congress with an ounce of sense said he didn't. CBS and CNN were not the only news channels that cheered on the Swift Boat Vets in 2004 and sat on their Ohio exit polls later that winter. Mickey Mouse and company joined in the fun via ABC News. Why? What did the Republicans have to offer the House of Mouse?

With the death of Walt Disney, the creative mind behind the Mouse empire, Disney had only one thing going for it----copyright laws. It had all those characters that Uncle Walt had created. Mickey, Donald, Pluto, Daffy. It had the old classic movies, which it could recycle every few years to a new crop of children. With the advent of VHS and DVD technology, it would sell tickets and copies of its movies and the spin off programming from those movies and the merchandising and fill its cable channel with television shows based upon characters that it owned the copyrights to. The only problem was that copyrights were not forever. The exclusive rights to Mickey were ready to expire early in the 21st century. What was Disney to do?

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20020305_sprigman.html

Back in 1998, representatives of the Walt Disney Company came to Washington looking for help. Disney's copyright on Mickey Mouse, who made his screen debut in the 1928 cartoon short "Steamboat Willie," was due to expire in 2003, and Disney's rights to Pluto, Goofy and Donald Duck were to expire a few years later.

Rather than allow Mickey and friends to enter the public domain, Disney and its friends - a group of Hollywood studios, music labels, and PACs representing content owners - told Congress that they wanted an extension bill passed.

Prompted perhaps by the Disney group's lavish donations of campaign cash - more than $6.3 million in 1997-98, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics - Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

The CTEA extended the term of protection by 20 years for works copyrighted after January 1, 1923. Works copyrighted by individuals since 1978 got "life plus 70" rather than the existing "life plus 50". Works made by or for corporations (referred to as "works made for hire") got 95 years. Works copyrighted before 1978 were shielded for 95 years, regardless of how they were produced.

As the article goes on to relate, forces opposed to what amounted to essentially perpetual copyright (since Congress would presumably keep extending copyrights every time they were about to expire) and retroactive copyrights of materials that no one even claimed any more were mounting a vigorous Supreme Court challenge that had a chance of succeeding. That meant that companies like Disney, which had already invested heavily in getting the legislation passed, needed an administration and an attorney general who would go to bat for them before the Supreme Court. Unfortunately for Disney Al "Information Superhighway" Gore was probably not going to be that man. In 1995, Gore was quoted about a different copyright extension bill

http://govt.eserver.org/new-copyright-law.txt

‘Just last week, Vice-President Al Gore said "we can't have the
creation of an Information Rich and Information Poor."’

I am sure everyone here remembers how Disney's ABC played along with "Gore is a liar".

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5920188/the_press_vs_al_gore

'ABC's George Stephanopoulos lamented that the vice president had "revealed his Pinocchio problem"' according to the classic Rolling Stone article about media bias. Stephanopoulos has been having fun with "Edwards is a phony" this campaign season.

If Gore was not the friend of perpetual copyright, then maybe Bush was. John Ashcroft successfully defended CTEA before the Supreme Court. However, Disney's political troubles were not over. In 2005, legislation was introduced that would restore fair use rules which had been weakened by 1998 legislation. Fair use allowed consumers to copy music, films etc. to view or listen to at home. The 1998 legislation made it a crime to bypass copy protection for fair use purposes. The 2005 legislation would strip those criminal penalties. You can read more about the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act at the two sites below.

http://anepc.com/blog102705.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCRA

This kind of a bill was a step backwards for Disney, which is always in the forefront when it comes to slapping copy protection on its product. (Presumably they have figured out that parents might copy the video or DVD and show the kids the copy over and over in order to keep the original pristine as a collectible. By making this fair use impossible, you have to buy two!) Obviously, a Democratic controlled Congress could do some serious harm to the Mouse.

Even Republicans could cause trouble, under guise of controlling smut. John McCain and Ted "A bridge to nowhere" Stevens were working on something called "a la carte" cable that would have allowed consumers to pick and choose which cable channels they would buy. Disney absolutely, positively did not want anything to do with this! Back in the days when they were a la carte, their market share of cable was atrocious. Business only started to pick up when people were forced to have the wretched little Mouse and his friends in their home.

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.tv/browse_thread/thread/a50e78072c97f29b/172f002d2f6a7ecf

Disney Channel urges you to oppose any legislative or regulatory
effort to create a la carte cable or satellite programming regulation.
Disney Channel is the premier destination for childrens' and family
viewing and has a unique perspective on the issue of "a la carte"
programming. Disney Channel was launched as an a la carte service, but
was unable to develop successfully until it migrated to being carried
by cable and satellite on the expanded basic tier of programming.

Disney Channel's Oripinal Launch as an A La Carte Channel Was
Unsuccessful.* Disney Channel originally launched in 1983 as an a la
carte service. During this time, Disney Channel's availability was
limited to only those kids and families who could afford to pay the
additional $10 to $16 monthly fee. Notwithstanding even the strength
of the Disney brand, penetration hovered on average in the 9-10%
range.

<snip>

Disney Channel's Migration to Expanded Basic Succeeded and Resulted
in Higher Oualitv and More Diverse Programming.* By the end of 2000,
Disney Channel was offered only as an expanded basic service. <snip> This investment in programming has resonated with Disney
Channel's audience in the form of higher ratings as Disney Channel has
tripled its ratings for kids 6-1 1 since it was an a la carte service
in 1995.

Tripled ratings! Three times as many children know who Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, the Lion King, Snow White and all the rest are. That means more merchandising opportunities, more films sold, more box office receipts for the spin offs and an ever growing Disney empire, since television is the entertainment center around which most children live their lives. There is no way Disney would want to go back to what it had before.

Unfortunately for Disney, the Republican controlled Senate was talking about doing just that. And the Bush FCC, which had no power to regulate cable, but which did have the power to make recommendations, was hinting that it was going to recommend a la carte cable. And then, something happened to make the FCC Chairman change his mind.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28496-2005Apr5.html

Cable companies worried about a regulatory clampdown on their industry met the new Federal Communications Commission chairman today and got good news.

"I prefer markets and competition to regulation whenever possible," FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin told the annual cable industry convention here. "Competition first, then regulation."

<snip>

Martin favors establishing a "family tier" system for cable that would allow families to purchase a package of child-friendly channels, such as the Disney Channel and Viacom Inc.'s Nickelodeon, and avoid saltier offerings.

"That's one of several tools" available to the cable industry, Martin said in an interview. He said the cable industry has an "opportunity to step up to the plate and address these issues" to head off regulation.

Martin spoke briefly with Robert A. Iger, co-chief executive of the Walt Disney Co., at Tuesday's show.

What exactly did Martin and Iger talk about? Oh, to have been a fly on the wall. One thing I do know is this. The FCC broke the good news (for Disney) in April 2005. By July 2005, ABC had started production on a piece of anti-Clinton, anti-Democratic, pro-Republican propaganda so atrocious that it has its own wiki entry, "The Path to 9/11"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Path_to_9/11

Coincidence? The piece was timed for the 2006 Congressional elections---and designed to be an opening jab in the fight against Hillary Clinton, whom everyone knew would be a Democratic contender for president. It was an embarrassing work that no network would produce, unless it had something to gain. And Disney, which had been valued at over $50 billion in 2004 when Comcast tried to buy it, had a lot to gain simply by keeping Republicans in positions of power in Congress and the White House. The elephant had been very, very good for the mouse.

The Bush administration has continued to court the mouse. In 2007, Alberto Gonzales tried to get Congress interested in something called the Intellectual Property Protection Act.

http://bostonnow.com/community/blogs/rek2/2007/05/17/intellectual-property-protection-act-of-2007/

This proposed legislation is a result of Hollywood’s lobbying, serving their special interests at the expense of the public good. As we have seen, thanks to the recent events like the Digg revolt, the public have turned against DRM. The illegal hex code that can be used to remove the DRM from HD-DVD can now be found on over a million web pages.

Big Media describe DRM as Digital Rights Management. However, since its purpose is to restrict you the user, it is more accurate to describe DRM as Digital Restrictions Management. DRM Technology can restricts users’ access to movies, music, literature and software, indeed all forms of digital data. Unfree software implementing DRM technology is simply a prison in which users can be put to deprive them of the rights that the law would otherwise allow them. This is Hollywood’s attempt to scare us all into accepting DRM. Now is the time to take action!

<snip>

As you know, Disney is a leading supporter of DRM in video and movies and a proponent of the permanent extension of copyright, sometimes called the “Mickey Mouse Act”. Disney is founding members of AACSLA, the organization that license the HD-DVD DRM scheme. They are a driving force behind the MPAA and one of the main instigators of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) - that makes circumventing a DRM scheme a crime.

Here is what the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007 would really do. Read this link. It is scary. Life in prison. Homeland Security wiretapping your phone, confiscating your computer. All to keep the Mouse's profit shares up.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Intellectual_Property_Protection_Act_of_2007

If I were ABC News, I would be the administration's rat for hire, too. A $50 billion empire made of celluloid, pixels and electrons is a fragile thing that needs all the protection it can buy.