Jason Hardin Copyright

First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Hardin for coming and taking the time to talk to our class about the issue of copyright. Throughout his presentation i learned many things from what is considered illegal to creative commons an the things that you can do with that kind of copyright. What I thought was interesting was the actual law for copyright. The law right now for a copyright is the author's life plus 70 years after, but what really caught my attention was the story about how the law was changed 14 years ago due to The Walt Disney Company and their strive to change the law. Is this right and ethical?
To me it isn't right. Just one company changing the entire law to suit themselves is not right in my eyes and isn't very ethical as well. Eventhough the characters that they are trying to keep under copyright, like mickey and donald duck, are very famous and can see how they would want to keep them, they cant just change the law for only one company. Since it has already been changed, I assume that in 6 years the Walt Disney company will appeal the law again to get it changed again; however, the law shouldnt be changed. It should be left as it is until there is a very viable reason to change the law.
I can see; however, the way the Walt Disney company feels about their characters and stories that are currently under copyright. When their characters go into the public domain, who knows how people will use them or what they will do, and as a leader of this company I would never want the characters as famous as the ones Walt Disney had to be used by everyone to use them as they want. I dont think however the law will change twice for these charaters and soon enough mickey mouse and others will be in the public domain.