Coffee Talk

05/12/2022 PMSwithESP Coffee Talk 0

Good morning, NewsViewers, it’s Coffee Talk time, our free chat zone for Thursdays.

It’s a great place to talk about cats — which you all know by now — but it’s your space to bring us what is on your mind. It’s also where we offer a topic to discuss if your mind is blank.

My mind is not blank this morning, I have a busy day and weekend in store, entertaining family from out of state.

Today’s Topic:

Did you hear the one about Josh Hawley introducing a copyright bill that doesn’t target Disney? wink-wink — righhhht!

Josh is shaking his fist at Disney, competing with presidential contender Ron DeSantis, by introducing…

....a bill to shorten the duration of federal copyright protection. The measure would apply retroactively only for firms with a market capitalization above $150 billion that operate in the motion picture industry.

Hawley admits that Disney “inspired” his proposed legislation, but to actually target a single company would be unconstitutional. Again, wink-wink. In a nutshell, Hawley’s proposal reduces copyright laws for filmmakers (as well as authors, artists, musicians, and photographers) to Nixonian era laws — shortening copyright laws for new works going forward from currently 120 years to 56 years.

Again, waxing nostalgic for the simple life from 50 years ago. Wink-wink.

It’s pretty funny to think of these wannabes pretending that they are retaliating against a giant mouse and his theme park.

The conglomerate Disney has acquired (as of summer 2021) multiple media outlets, including 21st Century Fox, Capital Cities/ABC, Pixar Studios, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Fox Family Worldwide, BAMTech (streaming media), and the list goes on.

This means Disney is much more than The Mouse. Disney owns National Geographic, FX, most of Hulu, the Muppets, Star Wars, ESPN, parts of A&E, Lifetime, and the History Channel. I honestly don’t have the time and space to continue.

And here in our Coffee Talk space, I was simply going to ask……..