[ck2]

This is not how copyright works. One of the biggest misconceptions on the web.

Well not unless you are worried about your copyright in 100 years.

You could have copyright 2001, that doesn't mean it expires 2002, or 2003 or even 2015.

Given that Disney characters and stories would come into public domain soon, you can also easily bet copyright will be extended for hundreds of years by Congress.

In 1976 Congress extended copyright to 50 years beyond the authors life. This means if you made your site in 2000 and you died today, the copyright would still be good until 2050. And you don't even need a notice for copyright in the USA, it is copyright unless stated otherwise by default.

[jaredsohn]

>This means if you made your site in 2000 and you died today, the copyright would still be good until 2050.

Based on the logic of the previous sentence, wouldn't it be good until 2064?

[ck2]

You are correct, my mistake, 50 years beyond death.

Corporations get 75 and will most certainly keep getting extensions, can you imagine Disney ever becoming public domain?

[empthought]

The most important pieces of their intellectual property are the trademarked characters, and trademarks never expire; they could probably allow the earliest works to fall under public domain and still maintain a large degree of control.

There are a little over a dozen influential Superman cartoons[1] from the 1940s that are public domain. That's the kind of thing that would be public domain -- it couldn't be a Mickey merchandising free-for-all or anything.

That being said, they certainly won't give up copyright protection unless they are forced.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_(1940s_cartoons)

[ck2]

Yes but you could make non-parody copies of disney stories without disney characters if the copyright expired as normal.