This excerpt originally appeared in The Examiner on Demember 06, 2012.

Jerry Brito, a scholar at the Mercatus Center, has just published"Copyright Unbalanced: From Incentive to Excess," an entire book of essays critiquing current copyright law from a free-market perspective, and the Cato Institute is hosting a panel on the book Thursday. Brito's incisive book tells tale after tale of government kowtowing to copyright holders. An egregious example is Mickey Mouse. "Each time the copyright ... was about to expire, and the happy rodent was about to become a shared cultural icon like Santa Claus, Hamlet, and Uncle Sam, Congress has extended the copyright term," Brito explains.