Elon Musk vs. Mickey Mouse: Why Copyright Has Become a Brake on Progress

Introduction. The Elon Musk Case and the Google Update
How and Why Did Copyright Appear?
When Did It All Go Wrong? The Mickey Mouse Protection Act and the Extension of Protection Boundaries
Consequences for Culture
Conclusion and AGI
Sources

Introduction. The Elon Musk Case and the Google Update

At the end of 2025, the social network X (formerly Twitter) introduced an image editing function using Grok — any user could take an image from someone else's post, remove watermarks, change the style, pose, or add new elements. This provoked a mass protest from artists, as a result of which some authors announced their departure from the platform [1]

Under copyright law, it is forbidden not only to edit someone else's work, but even to publish it without the author's permission. However, Elon Musk introduced a tool that seemingly demonstratively ignores these norms.

I became curious about how this story would end and whether it would be regulated in some way. And then at the end of January 2026, Google introduces a similar function in Chrome, allowing a user to edit images on any website without even downloading them.

I have a feeling that everything happening is ~~some kind of conspiracy~~ 😅 not a random chain of updates, but a targeted campaign. Perhaps, in this way, large corporations are trying to introduce new norms and gradually rewrite the rules.

Back in April 2025, Jack Dorsey (co-founder and former CEO of Twitter) wrote on X: "delete all IP law." Musk replied: "I agree" [2].

The abbreviation IP (Intellectual Property) refers to all intellectual property in general. This includes both copyright, which protects drawings and texts, and patent law, which protects technical inventions.

These words prompted me to think: why would entrepreneurs who have built such giant companies suddenly speak out against a system that should protect their own patents and content?

I was puzzled by all these things and had not previously thought about anything like this, but now I wanted to find out — are there objective grounds for Musk and Dorsey's position? Are they right? Or is it just a desire of large corporations to save money at the expense of authors? To find the answer, I intend to delve into the history of copyright, find out why it was originally created, how it has changed, learn about its possible negative aspects, and try to assemble a complete picture from all of this.

A small disclaimer.

In this article, I set myself the task of trying to understand how Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, and other supporters of radically simplifying intellectual property laws think. I want to find out what their beliefs are based on and what problems they encounter — perhaps in this way it will be possible to understand their logic.

Being a digital 2D artist, I do not advocate for the complete abolition of copyright. I am writing this article because I want to go beyond my usual information bubble and study the opposing point of view. I am not a professional historian or lawyer and do not claim to cover all legal nuances, but I have tried to study and verify all the facts and gather the information into a single study. I hope that this text will seem interesting to you and, perhaps, help you look at the situation a little more globally.

How and Why Did Copyright Appear?

In the course of trying to figure out, so to speak, where the roots of Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey's beliefs lie and who else thinks similarly, I came across a couple of books that discuss problems related to intellectual property law.

"Against Intellectual Monopoly" [8].
Its authors are economists Michele Boldrin and David Levine; in their book they express the following idea: what we are accustomed to calling rights protection, in reality often turns out to be merely a tool for restraining competition. In the book, the authors mainly write about patent law and provide many examples of how this system did not drive progress but, on the contrary, froze it for decades and led to technological stagnation.
"Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity" [9]. The author is Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Harvard University and founder of Creative Commons. In his book, he talks about how laws that were supposed to protect creators turned into a tool for corporations to control culture. According to Lessig, humanity is moving from a culture where one can freely create based on what was made before, to a "permission culture," where any use requires a lawyer. And this stifles not only creativity but also innovation.

In my article, I will draw on ideas from these books.

The Statute of Anne 1710

The history of copyright began not with the protection of creators, but with control over them. Until the 18th century in England, there were "royal privileges" that granted publishing guilds the exclusive right to print, which allowed the authorities to use the guild as a tool for press censorship [3].

Everything changed in 1710 with the adoption of the Statute of Anne [4]. This was the world's first copyright law, its full title: "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned."

The essence of the contract. For the first time, property rights were recognized for the author themselves, not for the publishing guilds. But it was temporary — only 14 years (with the possibility of renewal for another 14 if the author was alive).
Why was this needed? The law gave the creator a temporary monopoly so that they could earn money. In return, after a short period, the work passed into the public domain so that others could learn from it and build something new.

When Did It All Go Wrong? The Mickey Mouse Protection Act and the Extension of Protection Boundaries

For almost 120 years, the system established by the Statute of Anne maintained relatively short terms of protection — 14+14 years. The idea that copyright exists for the sake of public progress was even enshrined in the U.S. Constitution of 1787.

(Article I, Section 8, Clause 8) "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries [7]."

However, in the 19th century, changes began.
Brief chronology of term changes in the USA:

1790: 14 years + 14 years renewal = maximum 28 years.
1831: 28 years + 14 years renewal = maximum 42 years.
1909: 28 years + 28 years renewal = maximum 56 years.
1976: life of the author + 50 years (for individual works); 75 years for corporate works.
1998: life of the author + 70 years (for individual works); 95/120 years for corporate works [6].

In addition to increasing the terms of protection, the very understanding of what exactly falls under copyright protection also changed. The law began to extend to areas that were not originally within its scope: software code, databases, fonts, design (original layout of graphic elements), etc.

This gradual expansion has been called "Copyright Creep."

The "Mickey Mouse Protection Act" (1998)

One of the striking examples of corporate pressure was the act of 1998. When the copyright term for the first Mickey Mouse cartoon ("Steamboat Willie," 1928) was approaching its end, the Disney Corporation participated in campaigns for legislative changes [5].

As a result, the U.S. adopted the Copyright Term Extension Act (known as the Sonny Bono Act). It extended the protection of works to 70 years after the author's death (or up to 95/120 years if the rights belong to a corporation). The public ironically nicknamed this document the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act."

With each new extension, copyright moved further away from its original purpose — to stimulate progress — and increasingly turned into a mechanism for extracting profit from the old.

Economists Michele Boldrin and David Levine call such a system of intellectual rights "unnecessary evil." In their opinion, it protects not so much the interests of living creators, but rather the artificial monopolies of corporations. As a result, the system's focus shifted from encouraging progress to protecting the old assets of large companies, which ultimately began to hinder the development of culture.

Lawrence Lessig describes this as a transition to a "permission culture."

Creativity often represents a remix — people build something new based on what was created before them.

For example, the Disney Corporation created many of its works using other people's stories — fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault, which were in the public domain at the time. But over time, the company began actively lobbying for laws that prevent other authors from doing the same with modern characters. When "Steamboat Willie" finally entered the public domain in 2024, Disney continued to protect Mickey Mouse through trademarks, effectively maintaining control over the character [10].

When the law firm Morgan & Morgan decided to use visual elements from the cartoon "Steamboat Willie" in its advertisement, relying on its public domain status, Disney did not give assurances that it would not sue. To avoid risk, Morgan & Morgan went to court first — they asked a judge to officially confirm that their advertisement was lawful.

This case is a clear manifestation of the very "permission culture" Lessig wrote about. In practice, even when copyright expires, corporations can continue to protect assets through trademarks and the fear of litigation. It turns out that formally one can use a public domain work, but in reality — a lawyer will be required to understand whether other rights are being violated.

Meanwhile, protection terms continue to grow, and the opportunity to freely create based on what was made before continues to shrink.

"The property right called 'copyright' has become unbalanced and has taken a dangerous tilt. In a world where creativity requires permission, and creativity requires consulting with a lawyer, the ability to create and transform perishes." © Lawrence Lessig, "Free Culture".

Consequences for Culture

Orphan Works

These are works that are still protected by copyright, but whose owner cannot be found (studio closed, author deceased, no documents). Previously, an author needed to specifically register the work for it to be protected, and this information was stored. Now protection arises automatically, but there is no registry of rights holders [11].

And because the term of protection is tied to the date of the author's death, it becomes impossible to determine the moment when a work passes into the public domain. Such works often end up forgotten and simply disappear from cultural memory — they cannot be digitized, republished, or used for new projects without the risk of a lawsuit from a suddenly appearing heir.

According to estimates by the U.S. Library of Congress, up to 70% of American silent films from 1912-1929 are lost forever. Studios did not preserve old films because they saw no commercial value in them [12]. And for those copies that survived but became orphan works, extended copyright terms and the fear of lawsuits still block their digitization and rescue. As a result, these films simply continue to decay on archive shelves from old age [13].

Disappearing Books: Paul Heald's Study

In 2013, University of Illinois professor Paul Heald published a study titled "How Copyright Keeps Works Disappeared," whose task was to determine whether long copyright terms help preserve and distribute books and music [14].

The main purpose of copyright is to stimulate the creation of new works, but some proponents of extending protection terms also argue that, in addition to this, copyright is necessary for encouraging the continued use, preservation, and dissemination of old works.

That is, as far as I understand the logic, copyright protection should help old works continue to live and be republished, because they have an owner who is interested in this and who oversees the quality of these works.

A similar thought was expressed by former president of the Motion Picture Association of America Jack Valenti, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee with the argument for the need to extend the term of copyright: "A public domain work is an orphan. No one is responsible for its life. But everyone exploits its use, until that time certain when it becomes soiled and haggard, barren of its previous virtues" [15].

However, Paul Heald's data showed something else. He took a random sample of 2,266 new books sold on Amazon and found out when they were first published. The result was unexpected — there were more books published in the 1880s (already in the public domain) for sale than books from the 1980s. And this despite the fact that in the 20th century many more books were published; for example, in the 1980s eight times more new titles were released than in the 1880s [16].

According to the logic of rights protection, the law should stimulate authors and publishers to distribute their works. In reality, the opposite happens — works with long-term protection disappear from the market. Thus, a large part of 20th-century books has simply fallen out of cultural memory.

Source: P. Heald, "How Copyright Keeps Works Disappeared", 2013

Heald writes: "Note, however, the steeper decline in the number of copyrighted books over time: 2000-2010 (254 titles) to the 1990’s (109 titles) to the 1980’s (29 titles). This is not a gently sloping downward curve! Publishers seem unwilling to sell their books on Amazon for more than a few years after their initial publication.

The difference in the rate of decline between the public domain subset and the copyrighted subset demonstrates publishers’ preferences for marketing books that are less than twenty years old".

Heald's study showed that it is precisely long-term protection that makes republishing books economically unviable for business. Perhaps due to high risks and the difficulty of finding rights holders, it becomes simpler for publishers to exclude old works from their catalog.

Thus, the law designed to protect culture unexpectedly works against it. As the author himself writes: "copyright is substantially correlated with the disappearance of works rather than their availability."

Algorithmic Automated Censorship

Lawrence Lessig in his book mentioned the remix culture, thanks to which, by reworking folk tales, Disney created their works. But it seems this culture is now going through hard times.

Automated moderation systems like YouTube Content ID scan uploaded videos and look for recognizable fragments of others' works. These systems are designed to combat piracy, but unfortunately, they do not make exceptions for parodies, criticism, commentary, or educational videos — all of which is formally permitted by the fair use doctrine.

As a result, authors begin to censor themselves in advance: they use the shortest clips, refuse the best examples, or completely change the structure of the video, just to avoid getting blocked.

As American human rights lawyer Katharine Trendacosta writes in her article "Unfiltered: How YouTube's Content ID Discourages Fair Use and Dictates What We See Online" — "What and how Content ID makes matches therefore determine what viewers get to see—not free expression, fair use, or what a creator thinks makes for the strongest video" [17].

Censorship, Trolls, and Paid Knowledge

As I delved deeper into the topic of problems related to intellectual property laws, I came across an increasing number of examples. But to avoid stretching the article, I will briefly list some of them:

Difficulties with access to scientific articles and knowledge, which led to the emergence of the Sci-Hub project [18].
DMCA, which is used not only to combat piracy, but also as a means of censorship. False complaints allow the removal of criticism or blocking of competitors under the pretext of rights infringement [19].
Patent trolls — individuals or legal entities that produce nothing, but simply buy up patents and make money from lawsuits against actual manufacturers [20].

Creative Commons

But there is also a good example of how intellectual property laws have influenced culture — in response to the system's imperfections, Creative Commons emerged.

Lawrence Lessig and his like-minded people's idea was to add flexibility to copyright law — instead of "all rights reserved" — "some rights reserved." Now the author themselves can decide whether to allow others to use their work for education, remixes, or non-commercial projects.

Thanks to these open licenses, for example, Wikipedia operates, and on GitHub many projects use CC for documentation and other content [21].

Conclusion and AGI

After I studied all this information and became acquainted with the works of critics of intellectual property laws, I got the feeling that today the balance has indeed shifted towards large corporations. The law that was supposed to stimulate development, in some cases works against culture, science, and progress.

Well, apparently, Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey really do have grounds for such radical statements.

By the way, Elon himself opened Tesla's patents to everyone in 2014. In the company's official statement, he explained it this way: "Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers." [22]. He said that patents too often serve not inventors, but "to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations" [23].

This position is in many ways similar to the position of economists Michele Boldrin and David Levine, who concluded that the modern intellectual property system often works not for progress, but against it. One of the examples they cite is the Wright brothers. In their opinion, they actively used patents for litigation instead of further inventions, which delayed the development of American aviation.

Unlike Boldrin and Levine, who lean towards the radical abolition of intellectual property, Lawrence Lessig proposes changing the system and returning it to its original meaning.

Lessig's ideas regarding copyright:

Shorten the term of protection.
The author allows different options: you could return to 14 years, you could set 32 years or 75 years with renewals. The main thing is — "not to bind a work with legal regulation when it no longer brings profit to the author."
Create a clear boundary between protected content and the public domain.
The current system with its vague concepts like "fair use" and distinctions between "ideas" and "expression" is, in the author's opinion, very beneficial to lawyers. Lessig wants a simple and understandable "lawyer-free zone," where any person knows for sure that they can use content freely, without fear of court.
Introduce mandatory registration for rights renewal.
Protection still arises automatically, but after a certain period, for example, after 32 years, the author must decide whether they need further protection. If yes — they apply for a term renewal for 5 years and pay a small fee for it, e.g., $1 (and in this way rights can be renewed for up to 75 years). If not — the work passes into the public domain. Thanks to such a system, works with renewed terms will have a registry, which will facilitate finding the rights holder.
Prohibit term extensions.
No more "Mickey Mouse Acts."

But, while lawyers are dealing with the laws, tools like Grok and Google do not ask for permission; they simply confront everyone with the fact — now everyone can copy and modify content. Laws forbid it, but the button is already there.

Elon Musk has repeatedly mentioned that the main goal of his company xAI is to create AGI, Artificial General Intelligence, capable of solving global problems of humanity: defeating cancer and aging, stopping global warming, colonizing space, and much more. It is about an AI that can perform any intellectual work at a human level or even surpass it. And this is probably one of the reasons why Musk advocates for the abolition of intellectual property. For AI to truly become AGI, that is, to be able not only to analyze but also to create new things, think creatively, and understand human culture, — it needs to absorb a huge array of content created by humans: paintings, music, books, texts, and everything else.

And here I feel somewhat uneasy. How will the world change when such technology appears? What will remain valuable in a world where any content is created instantly and perfectly tailored to the user's taste?

What can people offer that this self-learning super-intelligent neural network will not replicate?

It seems to me that soon this question may become very relevant, and the creative sphere, and indeed not only it, will face big changes. And as an artist, I am very concerned about the question — how to even survive in such a world.

This is probably a topic for another big study. If I have time to do it, because, according to some forecasts, AGI could become a reality within the next five years. Tick-tock, tick-tock..

~~Romeo's on the clock!~~ :D