If you made it thorugh all of that, congratulations. I must now complete numbing your brain by discussing Sonny Bono, and how copyright can expire.
As well as being a very bad skier and the wife (heh heh) of Cher, Sonny went into politics and became a congressman. I suppose he can be forgiven for entering politics, but not for poinking Cher.
Sonny had friends in the entertainment lobby (primarily Disney). I have this mental image of Michael Eisner (Disney's CEO) and Sonny Bono sharing a cigarette in stained silk sheets in a cheap Hollywood motel, but that's just my sordid imagination at work.
Disney and others lobbied Sony to introduce legislation to Congress which extended the term of copyright from 50 years to 70 years. This is generally known as the Sonny Bono Act.
I had a very intelligent conversation with some peole on the old DCMBs about this, including whomod, IIRC. At that stage I supported the extension, because it meant that comic book publishers including DC would not lose their copyright in old Superman and Batman stories. They have invested a lot of money in promoting their character concepts, and they were shortly going to lose them.
Sonny's extension has allowed DC and Disney to keep control over the Mouse, Bats and Supes for another 20 years.
I have since changed my mind on this issue. It seems to me that Disney and DC knew full well how long copyright would last for, and made a business decision to run that risk.
And as whomod pointed out at that time, the extension means that a cultural commodity - early images of the Mouse, the Bat and Supes - are not in public control, as are the works of Shakespeare and Dickens.
It would be outrageous if someone still controlled Shakespeare. It is similarly outrageous that DC still control the copyright in the first issues of Superman.
