She did speak one bit of truth…
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The most obnoxious part is conflating copyroght/trademark abuse with wokeness. I mean, the supremacy of private property and corporate unfetteredness are Republican party values, while doing the minimum woke signalling to satisfy your progressive base is a Democratic party value… Are Qnutters really so numb they can’t even feel a bait and switch within the space of a aingle tweet anymore?
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brings to mind, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
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Put me down for a case.
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She probably confused it with Truth Social, where nobody is expected to be literate. 
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Oh man, that Slo-mo Guys gif makes me realize how long ago that Coke+Mentos became a thing…
They look so…different, as if time had somehow passed so quickly…
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This right here. You can be sure that if Disney were on board with the Republican culture wars she would be more than happy to extend the copyright term as long as they wanted.
The only principle she and the rest of the Trumpian wing of the party (which is increasingly most of them) stand for is “are you for us or agin’ us.”
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It’s funny people think the GOP is pro-business. Companies want stable enforcement of laws, and this is not it.
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Copyright cases often do not break down along party or conventional liberal/conservative lines. Liberal icon Ginsberg wrote the opinion in Eldred v. Ashcroft, saying that Congress had the power to retroactively extend copyright. Contrast that to Republican nominee to the court O’Conner who wrote the opinion in Feist v. Rural Telephone, establishing that at least SOME creativity must be present for copyrightability.
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QBert is out-Palin’ing Palin and out Bachmann’ing Bachmann. Every time one might think the nadir of politics has been reached, they always go lower.
Also: “woke” is the new “political correctness” when it comes to the GQP turning something into utter meaninglessness.
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O’Conner was positively liberal by today’s GQP standards.
AFAIK, Congress doesn’t approve individual copyrights, but instead passes the laws governing copyrights. When it comes time to extend copyrights, it’s not just Disney they are going to piss off, but a whole lot of companies and people that have a vested interest in extending and prolonging copyright protection.
But this is hollow posturing. In 1998 copyright was extended to 120 years, or the life of the author plus 70 years. Mickey Mouse first appeared in 1928, so her threat is pretty empty until 2048. The House of Mouse has 26 years to prepare for that battle, and since they own half the entertainment universe, they have both the cultural and financial resources to literally lay siege to the GQP to get their copyright extended if needed.
Of course, her intended audience doesn’t understand copyright law. They just see her sticking it to the mouse.
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I have never known a liberal who didn’t believe that “life + 70 years” was too long to keep a copyright from preventing the item’s entry into the public domain. Most who are behind that concept are corporations, not creators.
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Mickey Mouse is up for public domain in 2024. At least the Steamboat Willie version.
White glove Mickey is up in 2025 but as this article explains there are still plenty of copyrights protecting the Mickey of today.
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She probably assumes (correctly) that her audience stopped paying attention to everything after “…the woke Disney lobbyists…” part of the statement.
She has given them their target, that’s all she cares about.
I’m now at the point that as soon as a talking head uses the term “woke” I switch off as they obviously have nothing of interest to say.
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Thanks, this is a great article. It does a great job explaining why Disney is probably not quaking at her threat.
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Sort of, but I think she mistakenly thinks congress extended the IP rights of Disney alone, and can withhold the same, not realizing that the copyright extensions were for all corporate copyrights and that she’s shooting all copyright maximalist IP extension in the foot even though she would probably would be totally for it, if she could understand it.
On the Mickey front, I dont think we’ll ever get that from Disney.
However, they can’t claim all their characters as trademarks… Well they can try.
the Sony Bono act extended the term of published* works to 95 years. Unpublished works had their copyright extended to 120 years.
*if all of the legal requirements to get copyright had been complied with. In general this means that the author had filed for copyright, proper notice was included, and a renewal had been applied for when and if required. Some of this is because before the 1978 copyright law, federal copyright protection began upon publication rather than creation.
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I would argue that most conservatives believe the same thing.
Yes. Copyright maximalism is largely a neo-liberal corporate concern. And the day when the main difference between the parties or liberal/conservative factions are along economic policy are long gone. The money people have largely corrupted the politicians of both parties while not largely not raising the ire of most voters. Most people think that life +70 is absurd if it is explained to them, but most people don’t know or care much about copyright terms. And what they don’t know or think about, won’t affect their votes. So copyright maximalism, both in duration and coverage keeps getting worse and worse.
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Who does Boebert think she is? Sonny Bono?
