on copyright

Actually, copyright was NEVER intended to last even the lifetime of the author.

Copyright was first established (in England) as a means to protect PUBLISHERS, not authors.

Copyright in the United States was intended to allow a period in which authors and inventors could get a return on their labor. The original copyright period in the U.S. was 14 years.

Considering that the vast majority of artistic works make over 90% of their profits in the first 6 years, even 14 years may be too long.

Disney has benefitted greatly from the public domain. Most of its hits have come from public domain stories, and The Lion King was a blatant rip-off of Kimba, The White Lion. In that movie, they are also alleged to have violated the copyright of the owners of the song, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". For all their own use of the public domain and copyright violations, Disney has hypocritically done their best not to cripple but to DESTROY the public domain, and they have pursued even the most innocent copyright violations with a fury most unbecoming a "family friendly" business.