Locking up ideas as property is just as much a form of censorship as suppressing them. That is why the original 1790 copyright law created a term of only 14 years, renewable only once if the author was still living. It was compliant with the copyright clause of the constitution, which states: “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”
There is nothing in there about compensation, or frivolous entertainment. The copyright extensions Disney lobbyists bribe into being every time Steamboat Willie is about to revert back to the public domain have made the copyright clause meaningless. Walt Disney is dead. He cannot be encouraged to keep creating through copyright. Also, when he ripped off Oswald the Lucky Rabbit to make Mickey Mouse, his former employer, Universal, did not sue because it was understood and accepted at the time that cartoons were frivolous entertainment, not science and the useful arts.
