Timothy L. O’Brien, who has written critically about Trump’s claims to be a multi billionaire, wonders whether Elon Musk is having buyer’s remorse about his offer of $44 billion for Twitter. Musk tweeted on Friday morning that his offer was “temporarily on hold” while there is an investigation of Twitter bots.

O’Brien wrote at Bloomberg News:

Elon Musk took to Twitter early Friday to say that his takeover of the company was “temporarily on holdpending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.”

Musk might be serious about this. Or he might be joking and just using his vast social media reach to have fun with the investors, Twitter Inc. employees, journalists, free-speech advocates and others who have been watching this garbage fire ignite. (A couple hours later he tweeted he was still committed to the deal.)

I’m in the camp of: “Musk is serious about this but he’s finding the most unserious of reasons to explain why he’s bailing.” As in: “I was thinking about buying that mansion, but the deal is on hold pending details about whether there are termites in some of the planters on the patio. I still have plenty of cash and can get a mortgage from the bank, believe me. It’s not about the money.”

I suspect Musk’s jitters about buying Twitter are all about the money and has nothing to do with how many bots are zooming around the platform. He just doesn’t want to say that. If the richest guy in the world wanted to be more honest about what’s going on, he might have to acknowledge that his primary credit card — his shares in Tesla Inc. — doesn’t have the buying power it once did.

Musk said last month that he wanted to buy Twitter for $43 billion — when he only had about $3 billion in cash on hand. Most of the fortune of the world’s richest man, which added up to some $259 billion at the time, was tied up in his Tesla shares. Since then, Tesla’s shares have lost about 36% of their value, and Musk’s net worth has fallen to about $215 billion.

Frankly, I would be pleased to see this purchase fall through. It’s frightening to think that one person would wield the power to control what has become the nation’s public square.

Musk has said he believes in unlimited free speech, but that too is dangerous in these times of disinformation and pervasive propaganda. In a famous Supreme Court decision, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that free speech does not give you the right to shout “Fire” in a crowded theater. Holmes was using the reference to justify a decision against a man handing out flyers opposed to recruitment for the military during World War 1. (Schenck vs. United States). That decision was subsequently overturned but the metaphor remains apt.

Musk would not exclude those on Twitter who offer phony cures for COVID or other diseases or those who urge people not to take the vaccines that would protect their lives. He would not exclude those who peddle hatred and bigotry.

This not to say that he does not exclude anyone. A group called “Public Citizen” has complained that it was blocked by Elon Musk. It may be that he blocks groups and individuals who post tweets about the riskinesss of Tesla. Who knows?

The Twitter platform should have standards for screening and deleting tweets that incite violence or circulate medical misinformation. That’s why Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene were banished.

Musk is apparently politically biased. He tweeted not long ago ““I strongly supported Obama for President, but today’s Democratic Party has been hijacked by extremists.” Extremists? Inciting an insurrection on January 6 doesn’t count as extremist? Invading the halls of z Congress and attacking police officers is not extremism? Insisting that the 2020 election was stolen is not extremist? If any party has been hijacked by extremists, it is the Republican Party.

Twitter is too important in our common life to be controlled by one man and his wildly inflated ego. I’m hoping the deal never happens.

Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times explains why American copyright law benefits major corporations, not the creators of original works.

In 2022, he says, there will be a bumper crop of well-known titles that will enter the public domain, including Winnie the Pooh, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, poetry collections by Dorothy Parker and Langston Hughes, and first novels by William Faulkner and Agatha Christie. A number of sound recordings, including ones by Al Jolson and Enrico Caruso will no longer be copyrighted.

Hiltzik writes:

As it happens, however, this massive release isn’t something entirely worth celebrating. Instead, it’s a pointer to the sheer absurdity of American copyright law, which long ago came under the thumb of the entertainment industry and distant heirs of artists determined to preserve what is essentially a windfall.

It’s proper to keep in mind that copyright law was not designed originally to keep cash flow running for future generations of a creator’s family. The idea was always to preserve an incentive for creators to create, by guaranteeing that they would be able to enjoy the fruits of their own labor for a set period.

The first U.S. copyright law, passed in 1790, established a limit of 14 years, and allowed the original creator, if still living, to renew the copyright for another 14 years.

Eventually, the term was extended to 28 years, plus a single renewal option of another 28. (The vast majority of copyrights were never renewed.) The 1976 Copyright Act extended the term to 50 years from the date of an author’s death, and the 1998 Sonny Bono Act increased it to 70 years after the death of the author, and to 95 years after publication for corporate works-for-hire.

The Walt Disney corporation and the families of George Gershwin and Oscar Hammerstein, among others, have lobbied effectively to keep their copyrights intact. Disney wants to protect its rights to Mickey Mouse as long as possible. Even though A.A. Milne’s book Winnie the Pooh will no longer be copyrighted, Disney owns and defends the animated forms of Winnie, as well as the trademark of ”Winnie the Pooh.” The Disney copyright on Mickey Mouse is scheduled to expire January 1, 1924, but Hiltzik bets that Disney will lobby for another extension of the law to protect its property.

A notable feature of all this maneuvering over copyright terms is that it hasn’t done much to straighten out the mazes of copyright claims afflicting some of our culture’s most important and popular creative legacies.

Emily Dickinson, for instance: The Belle of Amherst died in 1886 with the vast majority of her poems unpublished (indeed, unknown). That was 136 years ago, but most of her works are still subject to a copyright claimed by Harvard University, which maintains that “all applications to quote or reprint Emily Dickinson material should go through the Harvard University Press Permissions Department.”

Harvard zealously defends its control of Emily Dickenson’s works.

Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank, holds the copyright to her diary until the 2040s, even though she died in 1945 at age 15 in a concentration camp.

The family of Dr. Martin Luther King holds the copyright to everything he wrote, including his speeches.

Hiltzik writes: As I reported in 2015, the King family stringently controlled broadcasting of King’s seminal “I Have a Dream” speech without royalty payments, even as the 50th anniversary of its Aug. 28, 1963 delivery on the National Mall approached in 2013.

When I compiled an antholgy of great Americans speeches, poems, and songs called The American Reader in 1990, I had to pay the family royalties to include not only the ”I Have a Dream” speech, but his important ”Letter from a Birmingham City Jail.” They are significant historical documents, and I wrongly assumed they were in the public domain.

Extending the copyright of original works for a century does not encourage creativity, especially when the creator of that work has died. The descendants should have a reasonable time to enjoy the fruitsof their relatives’ labors. But that too should be limited to a generation, not monetized through multiple generations. It is even harder to justify the century-long copyright eagerly sought and won by corporations.

Hiltzik concludes:

A return to the fundamental principles on which copyright law was originally based would point to a reduction in copyright terms, not the persistent efforts to lengthen them. That’s especially so in the digital age. As the Duke scholars [at Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain], argue, “the public domain is being impoverished just as its opportunities for creativity, innovation, democratic participation, and knowledge advancement are transformed.”

Knowing the power of the corporate lobbyists, he is doubtful that the terms of copyright will be reducedn more likely, they will be extended yet again. You know, Mickey Mouse.