Mickey Mouse Stop Signs Protest Copyright Extension

A street artist named Denmark has added a set of attachments to several local stop signs in Los Angeles and Burbank in protest of Disney’s ongoing lobbying efforts to change copyright law and extend copyrights on its short films of the 1920s and ’30s. Denmark told street art blog Wooster Collective:

“I recently did an installation in and around Los Angeles protesting Copyright Extension, which is Disney’s very effective lobbying to keep Mickey Mouse, and works created thereafter, out of the public domain.”

Thanks to congressional lobbying by Disney, traditional copyright terms have gone from 28 years to at least 95 years – or even longer (the law since 1998). Some have argued that films falling into public domain has actually saved them from extinction. Though Disney does a good job of making its library available to the public (with the obvious exception of Song of The South) other studios, unaware of any value these assets may yield, vault and abuse their older animated shorts still under copyright protection. This debate has been raging for years–it’s nice to see it take such a creative turn.

(via Art Info)