Midnight in the Disney vault. Cavernous, cold and shadowed, the vast underground chamber is crowded with the shivering, huddled forms of animated and illustrated characters: Winnie the Pooh comforts a trembling Piglet, while Pongo and Perdita softly sing 101 crying puppies to sleep. Shackled to the floor, Mickey Mouse sleeps fitfully, dreaming of the sweet freedom of the Public Domain.
Suddenly, a shadowed figure slips between the bars of the lonely window, dropping silently to the floor. Armed only with bravery, honour, and a set of Acme lockpicking tools, Copyright Cat slips between the prisoners, unlocking their shackles and freeing from their chains. Green eyes glinting in the moonlight, she expertly scales the giant vault doors, picking the lock and unscrewing the hinges. With a great cry of triumph, the hordes of enslaved characters follow Copyright Cat up out of the vault, overwhelming the studios and trampling the corporate bigwigs who enslaved them as they surge towards the open doors, and the great open spaces of the Public Domain. Free at last from their endless servitude, the characters finally return to the world, where those who love them are free to enjoy them forever.
If only.
In reality, Copyright Cat wakes from yet another dream of heroism and triumph to a world in which Mickey Mouse and Winnie-the-Pooh are still chained and bound in the Disney vault, and likely to stay that way for some time. The sad truth is, publishing houses, studios and corporations have taken copyright law and turned it into a net they can use to snag unsuspecting creativity and hide it away where no one but themselves can touch it. But Copyright Cat dreams of a better world, where copyright law and the public domain work together with artists to create a rich, creative landscape, with freedom and protection for all those who make art.
Copyright Cat's mission is to return copyright law to an older, better time. A time when long-buried, dessicated corpses of dead artists can't take their work to the grave with them. A time when authors don't have to sign away their work to publishing houses, or scriptwriters to studios. A time when corporations can't retroactively extend copyright on or trademark beloved characters that should be in the public domain. Copyright Cat believes that that time should be now.
When she's not fighting copyright injustices, Copyright Cat is an artist, writer and animator who plans to found her own animation studio when she graduates art school. And she's keeping her real identity secret, because the sad truth is: if that plan falls through, the poor sucker may well end up working for Disney.
So come along for the ride as, through incredible acts of bravery and heroism, Copyright Cat educates and informs you about the sad state of copyright law, and hopefully - even if just a little - manages to change it for the better.
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Protecting artists and fighting the Mouse!
