The Life Nippon - An American In Japan

Archives for: February 2009, 04

Oh Disney, how I used to love you. One of my earliest memories is of watching the Disney Channel. At the time, it was number twenty-seven. To this day, twenty-seven is my lucky number—because of Disney.

Being a Floridian, how many times have I traveled to Disney World, taking full advantage of the Florida Resident's discount? Along with most of the other High Schools in Florida, I went to Disney World for grad night, 1999, and saw Brittney Spears sing.

And yet, today I hate Disney. Because they stole from me. And you. They steal from the people at large, and they do it legally.

Before, creative works used to pass into the public domain after X years. Now, due in large part to Disney's lawyers, copyrights have been extended. Some people believe that Disney's lawyers will be able to maintain their copyrights indefinitely. When you take from the Public Domain, Disney, you're taking from everybody. Greedy bastards! They even resort to the lowest form of branding/advertising. They market directly to children—babies even. Making their products, their copyrights ingrained on the minds of generations worldwide. Places in Europe have banned such practices, but if you're in the US or Japan, trying to raise a child, they'll like Disney characters—and neither the child nor the parent will have a choice in the matter.

But there is, finally, one small victory for the Public Domain. Here in Japan at least. I saw this video at a 7-11. At first I was surprised, because I thought I was looking at a cheap Chinese rip-off. Turns out, this is perfectly legit. Because here in Japan, earlier Disney works, such as Alice in Wonderland, have already fallen into the Public Domain. The quality is bad, the content is old, but the price is cheap—as it should be.

Just to spite those lawyers who hide behind the cute cartoon characters, I decided to make a .torrent file. Now, if you're reading this web page from America, it would probably be illegal for you to download this DVD. But to my readers in Japan, please download and help me spread the movie—because here its all in the Public Domain baby yeah!