I knew that Mickey was a huge part of the reason for ongoing copyright extensions. What I didn't know was that Disney have no real *need* to push for them, since they've got him so heavily trademarked. They own him as long as they want to.

This is saddening. Even among the famous works, there's a lot here that it would be a huge public good to have copyright-free, and I don't think anyone could argue that the original creators (or in most cases, their estates) haven't been fairly compenstated for these work.