Disney is perfect within their rights under the law to sue the company involved. Nor are they unreasonable to do so.
The real problem, in my opinion, is the enormous length of copyright protection now in place. The Constitution authorizes Congress to grant authors exclusive use of their works <i>for a limited time.</i> Congress seems to have interpreted "limited time" to mean "anything short of infinity." Which means that copyright could be extended until the Earth is roasted to a cinder by the aging Sun and it would still technically be a "limited time."
I don't know what the right limit is. My gut tells me life of author plus seventy years is ludicrous. Intellectual property of all kind from the World War II era should all be in the public domain at this point -- but it isn't.
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Disney is perfect within their rights under the law to sue the company involved. Nor are they unreasonable to do so.
The real problem, in my opinion, is the enormous length of copyright protection now in place. The Constitution authorizes Congress to grant authors exclusive use of their works <i>for a limited time.</i> Congress seems to have interpreted "limited time" to mean "anything short of infinity." Which means that copyright could be extended until the Earth is roasted to a cinder by the aging Sun and it would still technically be a "limited time."
I don't know what the right limit is. My gut tells me life of author plus seventy years is ludicrous. Intellectual property of all kind from the World War II era should all be in the public domain at this point -- but it isn't.