Last Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a historic decision regarding the Sonny Bono Act -- I'm not making this up -- and furthermore, it could with some accuracy be characterized as a Mickey Mouse decision. But don't laugh too hard: What's at stake might just be the death of art, and the everlasting impoverishment of human life.

The Supremes upheld Congress's power to extend the term of copyright by 20 years. Until 1998, copyright protected a work for the lifetime of the author, plus 50 years. Then the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (named for the late congressman/entertainer) bumped it two decades, to 70 years.

Big whoop, right? Why would anybody get upset over that -- much less push it all the way to the Supreme Court? I suppose Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig might have decided to challenge the Sonny Bono Act, at his own expense, so we all wouldn't have to wait 20 more years to rip off the heirs of George Gershwin and Robert Frost, and could immediately record Rhapsody in Blue or publish Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening without paying anyone a dime.

But I suspect what really got on Prof. Lessig's wick was that a major lobbying force behind the Sono Buoni Act . . . I mean the Sonny Corleone Act . . . I'll have it under control in a minute . . . that one of the biggest supporters of the Sonny Bono Act was none other than Mordor itself: the evil empire men call Disney.

I've never understood exactly what's so vile about Disney. Every time I've ever given them a dollar, I got back a buck and a half of value. If the Sonny Boy Williamson . . . I say, if the Sonny Bono Act hadn't passed, Steamboat Willie (the Mouse himself!) would have slipped into the public domain.

Naturally, the Disney corporation pressured Congress. If it hadn't, today we'd probably be paying half a buck for cut-rate Mickey Mouse gear that isn't worth a dime, and wondering why nothing good ever seems to last.

Granted: As far as I know, precious few of those who are currently major players at Disney are relatives, loved ones, friends, or even associates of Walt himself any more. I wonder how many people getting rich on his genius today ever met the man. And I'll bet they all wear better clothes, drive better cars, and have more aerobic sex than the average Stanford law professor. I'm not disputing that they're scum.

But they also jealously guard, and thus zealously preserve, old Walt's creations. To this day, every smallest thing in Disneyland is perfect . . . and you can sneer at Mickey Mouse watches if you like, but they keep good time . . . and all the great Disney cartoons have been restored and reissued precisely because someone in a power suit could make enough money to lease a cool car to have hot sex in by doing that . . . because he held copyright to the material.

Prof. Lessig argues that Congress only has the right to permit copyright within limits: Apparently, in his view, 50 years is a limit but 70 somehow is not. To explore this, let's shift perspective 180 degrees from Disney, and focus on the exact opposite end of the financial spectrum: me.

Science fiction can have a fair shelf life, with a little luck: Some of the biggest moneymakers in the field today have been dead for decades. The biggest, Robert A. Heinlein, died in 1988.

I've written 32 books so far. I believe I've earned what money they've brought me (and then some!), and I hope they'll stay in print awhile after I'm gone.

So when I do snuff it, I'd like to leave them, and any money they may fetch (the wee percentage the publishers, producers and taxmen won't keep) to my daughter Terri -- just like any other craftsman would. I don't think that's an outrageous, capitalist-pig desire: It's a large part of why the stories exist in the first place.

Terri's 28. If I hand in my lunch pail tomorrow, she'll hold U.S. copyright on my works until she's 98. Again, that doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Life span is increasing. Her great-grandfather died last year at 100. I recently heard an eminent expert -- Dr. Phil -- say if you are alive in the year 2010, your life expectancy will be 125. If that's true, and I croak later today, Terri will be S.O.L. for the last quarter-century of her life, helpless to prevent slipshod pirate editions, bogus spinoffs or Hollywood rip-offs of her dad's legacy.

So I'm fine with the Sonny Rollins . . . the furshlugginer Sonny Bono Act; I wouldn't mind extending it further.

Why this is unspeakably ironic is, 20 years ago I won science fiction's top international honour, the Hugo Award, for a story called "Melancholy Elephants," which argued that firm limits will one day have to be placed on the length of copyright . . . because our technology now gives society an elephant's memory, and when was the last time you saw a happy-looking elephant?

Not ironic enough yet? You can read that story right now, for free, on-line -- legitimately! (See baen.com/chapters/W200011/0671319744___1.htm). It appears in my story collection By Any Other Name. The publisher, Jim Baen of Baen Books, believes on-line samples are like rock videos: He figures if you like the free story, you'll buy the paperback.

I wish we were done with irony now. "Melancholy Elephants" was originally dedicated to the remarkable Virginia Heinlein, Robert Heinlein's widow. On Jan. 18, Ginny passed away in her sleep in Florida, surrounded by family and friends. She leaves several descendants -- one 3 years old -- and I don't see why they should get ripped off because "information wants to be free."

We creative types are content for our information to be reasonably inexpensive. Whether we ourselves happen to be breathing or not, don't begrudge us that pittance, as long as someone we loved is alive.

Or even a little longer.
Some have said B.C. writer Spider Robinson's current novel, The Free Lunch, is about Disneyland (substantially changed for copyright reasons). Mr. Robinson can be contacted by anyone but Disney lawyers at http://www.spiderrobinson.com.