Copyright

After learning about the problems involved with and caused by copyright laws, I realize now how big an issue copyright is and has been for years. One of the big topics we discussed in class was the Sonny Bono Act of 1998, which helped the magical world of Disney by lengthening their copyright of Mickey Mouse and friends by an additional twenty years. However, in 2018 the same problem will ensue again, and Disney will want more power over its rights to their long-lived characters. This copyright problem represents the pain that authors, musicians, and artists suffer after creating something amazing but lose control over them after a certain number of years. Yet at the same time, many people feel that a piece of work should enter into the public domain quicker; if not, the public is obliged to pay the person who owns the rights (often not even the creater) to use a piece of work. So for many, this copyright issue is too strict, and for others too lenient. In my opinion, I think that the creater of a work should decide when his or her work should enter into the public domain - not a relative, spouse, or anyone looking for monetary gain without the creator's approval. This way, the rules would be different for every piece of work, but the public would have the upper-hand since many creators will want the monetary gain to end with him or her. So, with few exceptions the public could expect almost all pieces of work to be accessable once a creator dies, making both the public better informed on copyright strains and the creator more at ease about the future of his or her work.