Occupy Disney
Back when Occupy Wall Street was making more news and I was writing about it and leadership and on it and responsibility, I had an idea about corporate control of our lives I thought would be interesting. As an entrepreneur and inventor, I felt the control closer to those areas of my life. I’ve written about how the patent and copyright systems have created monopolies and oligopolies that distorted their effects from promoting invention to stifling it and small business. There’s more to things than just one sentence, so I hope you’ll forgive my oversimplicity for the sake of brevity.
The Occupy Wall Street movement seems to have lost steam, but recent stories about patent fights between Apple and Samsung are turning the stomachs of engineer geek and artist communities I participate in. In my experience, however limited, these people, who innovate and create, dislike how patents and copyright are used. Business people who don’t innovate, whom I also interact with a fair amount, seem to like the system, but they don’t seem to understand it like the innovators.
Anyway, my idea was to promote an Occupy Disney. Disney supports increasing rights of copyright holders — well beyond anything remotely like the Constitution started with — forever keeping its mouse out of the public domain.
The idea was to have a day when everyone post and display images of Disney images that had been modified, as would be allowed legally as fair use so everything would be legal, but collectively would create an impression. I’m not sure where it would go, but I think it would empower people and help contribute to culture and public awareness that we benefit from sharing.
So I don’t plan on promoting the idea, but I’d love to see it happen — everything legal — and the work that would come from it.
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