Question is, how do we win round 2 .. which is coming soon. Works start falling out of copyright in 2019, Disney will and other corps will move to protect their monopolies. How can we stop that? Public action stopped things like SOPA.
The term "intellectual property" is I believe a misnomer. There is first of all no innate right to intellectual property. The right to own a copyright is no different than the right to drive on the roads, you have to be given the right by the government on the basis of meeting certain requirements. This is very different from a fundamental or innate right. You have an innate right to free speech, it is not something the government gives you ..it's something you are born with. For example, if you own a physical object, you have the innate right not to have that object taken from you. But the US founding fathers saw that a person had no such innate right when it comes to inventions and art. Ideas are not your property once you describe them. That is why the constitution says that such monopolies on ideas should be granted by Congress *ONLY* IF IT SPURS THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE USEFUL ARTS. It is very different from freedom of speech, which you have regardless of the effect on society, a person has no such innate right to monopolize their own inventions and art.
According to the constitution Congress has the right .. "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."
According to that text, it's clear the current Supreme Court is shirking its responsibility by allowing excessive copyright and patent terms. Excessive copyright terms don't meet the fundamental constitutional requirement of advancing the useful arts and sciences. Disney made a lot of money by taking advantage of the expired copyrights of traditional stories such as sleeping beauty, beauty and the beast etc. I mean even The Lion King is a retelling of Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Did Disney compensate Shakespeare for stealing his story??? If Shakespeare's estate still owned the copyright of Hamlet, Disney would not have been able to make Hamlet. This is clearly proof that the useful arts and sciences are being hindered by excessive copyright terms. The first US copyright laws had only a few years in length .. and that was in a time where it was much harder to market one's work throughout the country and make enough money in a short time.