In the New York Times, Edward Rothstein writes that "the recurring argument that culture is now 'owned' and must be freed and that creativity is being stifled as a result is overwrought." It concludes, in part,"As it turns out, the extension of 20 years means that copyright law has held off for a while what will be a large-scale entrance of television and movies into the public domain. In the meantime, the absence of a public domain has not hampered creativity in either medium."
Criticisms and commentary if you read more.
Rothsein writes, "Courts have tended to allow this kind of enterprise (witness the publication of 'The Wind Done Gone,' Alice Randall's African-American version of 'Gone With the Wind')."
Except, of course, that the Mitchell estate fought Randall for over a year before finally settling. What's less important than courts eventually deciding to allow this kind of work is copyright holders being deterred from beginning works that they're afraid may be "derivative." The question shouldn't be, Do the courts allow "innovative parody"? Instead, it should be, How many people choose not to create socially beneficial work due to copyright law (thereby keeping such cases out of the courts)? (Not to mention that there are surely examples of courts unfriendly to the mere hint of copyright infringement.)
Then, "In fact the 1998 law Mr. Lessig challenged was intended to match the kinds of copyright protections already offered by the European Union."
Of course, one of the big points of the petitioner's opening brief [PDF] in Eldred was that the 1998 law in question actually did not increase harmonization--and, in certain cases, hurt it. Plus, Rothstein doesn't seem to recognize that "harmonization" as a justification for copyright extension becomes an endless cycle, as each country uses the others' higher copyright terms to justify increasing its own copyright terms.
"Even Disney had to purchase rights to 'Winnie the Pooh.'"
Of course, they didn't exactly play nice.
"[I]f cultural health were really affected by whether Mickey and his contemporaries were in the public domain, there may be other, more serious problems to consider first--like why a truly creative culture can't find other ideas to work with." (emphasis added)
Whoa! A jab at the artists here--you're only complaining because you're just not original enough so you have to steal other people's ideas. The problem with this argument: people will come up with truly original ideas no matter what copyright law is. The question is whether copyright protection prevents people from coming up with additional ideas or works that may be derivative. (There is some overlap, of course--it is possible that some artists would rather create derivative works than original ones, so allowing derivative works would suppress some original content. But that's still saying that artists are really lazy--even lazier than corporations, which, my goodness, rely on their past creations rather than finding "other ideas to work with"!)
And finally: "What innovations, for example, are being thwarted by corporate control over Mickey Mouse?"
Well, I don't know specifically about Mickey Mouse. But there are at least two broad reasons why innovation is being stifled. First, because copyright holders have exclusive control over their material, sometimes mere neglect by copyright holders will in fact prevent people from accessing other people's creations, so that others are kept away from the (uncopyrightable) ideas that may spark even truly original creative talent. (Artists, after all, can be inspired by another's work even if their eventual work has nothing to do with the orginal.) Second, sometimes the ability to use another person's creative content is a wonderful spur to your own creations. This is what Disney's works (and Randall's) exemplify. Now, of course, you can always license somebody else's intellectual property--but what's important is that, because it's property, the price is set by the copyright holder, so it is entirely possible that the copyright holder may simply refuse to grant permission, for whatever reason. And, of course, nothing has been said so far about the artists who have great ideas that use (rather than "rip, mix, and burn") Mickey Mouse--but who decide not to pursue those ideas because of fear of Disney.
This doesn't even address all the other harms of the Bono Act--see the Library Associations' brief and the Project Gutenberg brief here, for instance. But the article is already problematic enough, without getting to these larger omissions.