Mickey Mouse v. The Air Pirates

Writing in the Boston Globe's great Ideas section, Jeet Heer recaps one of the most interesting of all copyright battles:

In the 1970s, the underground cartoonist Dan O'Neill risked a life-destroying lawsuit and jail time when he published a series of raunchy Mickey-taunting comics. Along the way, O'Neill recruited scores of followers into two of the wackiest groups to emerge from the counterculture of the 1970s: the Air Pirates and the Mouse Liberation Front.

Whole thing here.

Read Jesse Walker's great interview with the rat himself, on the occasion of this year's Supreme Court ruling in Eldred v. Ashcroft, the case that unsuccessfully sought to overturn the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998.

Comments

[Jean Bart]

This post has no comments, so I thought I would show pity and write one. 🙂

[Warren]

Thanks Jean,
This is an issue that I've been caring more and more about over the past couple of years. I've totally reversed myself and now believe we should do away with copyright altogether (Fuck you Disney/Viacom/TimeWarner and while I'm at it I'd like to dedicate a great big special FUCK YOU to the assholes at Microsoft). I don't have anything new to say, just reiterate how copyright is a government sanctioned monopoly that the establishment uses to oppress independent creativity.

I reread that Mickey interview. Funny stuff Walker, how come you don't write that well anymore?

[Waltcycle]

>>a government sanctioned monopoly that the establishment uses to oppress independent creativity

[Jesse Walker]

Waltcycle: Your post would be more convincing if it did not begin with 12 words lifted directly from "somebody else's work."

Warren: I couldn't even write that well back then. That was Mickey talking.