Elon Musk and his involvement with hot topics and recent news on Twitter have always caused a good swirl of gossip amongst the netizens. The billionaire, CEO of Tesla, is always present in all kinds of politics, wokism, and social dramas.
Recently, he took to Twitter to share his views on DMCA (The Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and support for limiting the ownership rights of original works and content, and a moment of rejoice over the copyright expiration of mickey mouse from Disney.
Elon Musk Cracking The DMCA Law
Republican Senator Josh Hawley introduced a bill that aims at decreasing the term of protection for original works from 95 years to a maximum of 56 years. The DMCA law was amongst the first laws passed for recognizing intellectual property on the internet.
On May 13, under a news article talking about Hawley’s bill which could strip Disney of special copyright protections, Musk tweeted, “Current copyright law in general goes absurdly far beyond protecting the original creator.” In the follow-up tweet, he goes on to call the DMCA “overzealous” and “a plague on humanity.”
Many are pointing out how this bill is a direct attack on Disney for speaking against the “Don’t Say Gay” Law in Florida. Almost every giant entertainment company stayed silent regarding this matter, except Disney, who managed to anger both the left and the right.
On July 5th, Elon Musk tweeted yet another set of heated words. Under Slashdot’s news on Disney losing its copyright ownership on Mickey Mouse, Elon Musk tweeted two small, but up roaring words – “It’s time.”
Disney’s Mickey Mouse Caught Up In The Copyright Bill
If Disney’s copyright over Mickey Mouse expires, this means that the much-loved mouse figure will be dropped in the public domain, and freely used. Earlier, companies and people had to pay royalties to use the character, but the expiration of the copyright frees the people from such formalities.
Another thing to notice is that there is a wide-cut difference between copyright and DMCA. The DMCA simply provides a haven for websites like YouTube and DropBox, on which copyrighted materials are often publicly shared and streamed. This means YouTube and DropBox are exempted from the responsibility of copyright infringement.
With Elon Musk’s ongoing mission of Twitter takeover, the issue of DMCA becomes crucial for him. The DMCA gives rights holders power and influence over their creations and work. They can inform the service provider to remove the content they own. Through these DMCA notices, Twitter removes millions of tweets from its platforms.
Elon Musk is a powerful man, but such a bill is a hard pass, and changing the laws is quite out of Elon Musk’s hands. If he becomes the Twitter owner, he himself would have to follow the law.
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