Now the Disney Corporation could do this because that culture lived in a commons, an intellectual commons, a cultural commons, where people could freely take and build. It was a lawyer-free zone. It was culture, which you didn't need the permission of someone else to take and build upon. That was the character of creativity at the birth of the last century. It was built upon a constitutional requirement that protection be for limited times, and it was originally limited. Fourteen years, if the author lived, then 28, then in 1831 it went to 42, then in 1909 it went to 56, and then magically, starting in 1962, look - no hands, the term expands. Eleven times in the last 40 years it has been extended for existing works - not just for new works that are going to be created, but existing works. The most recent is the Sonny Bono copyright term extension act.

Forget the 18th century, the 19th century, even at the birth of the 20th century. Here's my favorite example, here: 1928, my hero, Walt Disney, created this ex…

The meaning of this pattern is absolutely clear to those who pay to produce it. The meaning is: No one can do to the Disney Corporation what Walt Disney did to…

That free culture was carried to America; that was our birth - 1790. We established a regime that left creativity unregulated. Now it was unregulated because c…

Along the Syria border there were no farms and no refugee camps - there was only the Syrian army... The kibbutzim saw the good agricultural land ... and they d…

Our well-founded claim, grounded on continuity, has greatly strengthened, during the same period, by the rapid advance of our population toward the territory-i…

Colonies are necessary to Germany. We shall get them through negotiation if possible; but if not, we shall take them.