Mickey Mouse isn't a program: Information is very different from machines and tangible products, and so requires a new conception of property and property protection applicable to it.

Until fairly recently, a copyright granted protection to the expression of ideas in books and similar forms for 28 years (renewable for another 28 years). The protected period was then changed to the life of the author plus 50 years and to 75 years for a corporate author. In 1998, Congress extended the already-extended period, to the life of the author plus 70 years and to 95 years for a corporate author. The change came just in time to save Mickey Mouse from falling into the public domain, much to the pleasure of the Walt Disney Company.

On the other hand, when faced with the Y2K problem, many computer software companies claimed that their products did not have to be year 2000 compliant until 1996. Some even argued that the deadline should be 1998, because the life of a program was at best two or four years before it became obsolete. Nonetheless, computer programs are covered by copyright for the same 95 years that Mickey Mouse or the latest novel is covered. Does 95 years of protection make sense when the industry claims its products are obsolete after four years or less?

We can share information without depriving ourselves of its full use. It can be stolen from us without depriving us of its use. It is intellectual property. But just as we have not adequately discussed the changing nature of privacy, we as a society have not adequately discussed the changing nature of property applicable in the information age. We have sought to use traditional laws about copyright and patents, and have in the process caused a great deal of confusion. Instead of rethinking intellectual property in the information age, we have tried to make do with concepts and legal doctrines that were not constructed with thought of the kind of intellectual property that is emerging and that does not fit the old mold. What is fair and what is not are issues that form an important part of business ethics for the information age; these are issues that too few in the field presently address.

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