Disney has made a fortune modernizing classic fairy tales. The reason that such tales have lasted so long in our shared culture is that people have been free to evolve them into their own works. Who gave Disney permission to create stories based on the Brothers Grimm or Arabian Nights?
Imagine a culture years from now, where every piece of culture has been locked down by a corporation. What kind of stagnation would exist? Would only the authorized storytellers be allowed to participate in authorized creation?
Disney is fighting to extend copyright perpetually. They want to be making money from Mickey Mouse a 1000 years from now. The original artists will be long gone, but no one will be able to build upon Mickey as Disney has built upon ancient tales.
Read some Cory Doctorow for a better explanation of this. Makers is especially good.
Your examples of stories they derived movies from were in the public domain specifically because their creators were dead and no corporation owned the rights to them. So what if they are still making money off of something they are actively using? You actually believe our culutre is negatively affected by this? I bet you would't feel the same way if you were forced to relinquish your own wildly successful IP due to some span of time elapsing. That whole bit about a future where all parts of our culture are "locked down" by corporations is utter nonsense.
That's my point though. Society shouldn't own IP just because it is old and we got used to it. We should protect the IP's rightful owners until the rightful owners are gone from this Earth. You're acting as if you're defending our children's children's children by wanting Mickey Mouse forced into the public domain. This isn't a matter of 'evil megacorps' robbing our children of something precious.
Imagine a culture years from now, where every piece of culture has been locked down by a corporation. What kind of stagnation would exist? Would only the authorized storytellers be allowed to participate in authorized creation?
Disney is fighting to extend copyright perpetually. They want to be making money from Mickey Mouse a 1000 years from now. The original artists will be long gone, but no one will be able to build upon Mickey as Disney has built upon ancient tales.
Read some Cory Doctorow for a better explanation of this. Makers is especially good.