Copyright over the years

I wrote a whole paper on copyright for my English class last term.  So I did a fair amount of research over copyright throughout history.

If anyone has noticed, the copyright term has increased drastically over the last few decades.  Disney, in fact, started before copyright.  He created Steamboat Willie off of Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr.  And that is how Mickey Mouse was born, and, in fact, the whole Disney corporation.  What Disney did at the time was not illegal, because there was no copyright law.

Now, the copyright law can last the life expectancy of the author and 70 years.  So that could very well be over 100 years until something is in the public domain (and by then it could just fall off the face of the earth).  If you wanted to use works under copyright, you'd have to ask permission (good luck with that!)

Thankfully, the rise of the Internet also brought about an addition to copyright, called Creative Commons.  Someone can put the CC license on their works, making their works copyrighted, but also allows for someone to use content from it as long as they give credit.