Could Mickey Make Insulin Cheaper?

The 'House of Mouse' is a very litigious one which is why we are super wary about this week's episode of Seemingly Unrelated. We're taking a look at the very origins of both Disney the company and intellectual property rights on a journey to find out if Mickey himself might have had an impact on the cost of some prescription drugs. Along the way we'll take a journey by sea to solve the mystery of calculating longitude, laugh and cry alongside the tragically short life of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and ask the question: what does Sonny Bono have to do with any of this?All this and a lesson in how clocks work on what is quite possibly the most seemingly unrelated topic of any episode of Seemingly Unrelated the podcast!All these questions and more will be explored, at least until the South Korean government shuts this podcast down, on Seemingly Unrelated!Subscribe to the audio only version on: https://shows.acast.com/seemingly-unrelatedFind the videos on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SeeminglyUnrelatedPodWant even more Seemingly Unrelated content? Get bonus episodes for as little as $2/month as well as the list of sources for this episode (free) on our Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/SeeminglyUnrelatedBibliography:Bracha, Oren. Owning Ideas: The Intellectual Origins of American Intellectual Property, 1790–1909. Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1017/9780511843235.Burton, M. Diane, and Tom Nicholas. ‘Prizes, Patents and the Search for Longitude’. Explorations in Economic History 64 (1 April 2017): 21–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2016.09.001.Chartrand, Sabra. ‘Patents; Congress Has Extended Its Protection for Goofy, Gershwin and Some Moguls of the Internet.’ The New York Times, 19 October 1998, sec. Business. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/19/business/patents-congress-has-extended-its-protection-for-goofy-gershwin-some-moguls.html.European Commission - European Commission. ‘Null’. Text. Accessed 23 June 2025. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/pres_11_303.‘Longitude Found - the Story of Harrison’s Clocks | Royal Museums Greenwich’. Accessed 23 June 2025. https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/time/harrisons-clocks-longitude-problem.‘Mickey, Disney, and the Public Domain: A 95-Year Love Triangle | Duke University School of Law’. Accessed 23 June 2025. https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/mickey/.Pallant, Chris. Demystifying Disney: A History of Disney Feature Animation. New York, UNITED STATES: Bloomsbury Academic & Professional, 2013. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=793280.Proskauer. ‘$264 Million Settlement in EpiPen Price Gouging Litigation - Insights - Proskauer Rose LLP’. Accessed 23 June 2025. https://www.proskauer.com/blog/264-million-settlement-in-epipen-price-gouging-litigation.Racker, Mini. ‘A Political History of Disney … and Its Donations’. National Journal Daily A.M., 6 May 2022. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2660086184/abstract/9125FB301BC4463FPQ/1.Rozek, Richard P., and Ruth Berkowitz. ‘The Effects of Patent Protection on the Prices of Pharmaceutical Products’. The Journal of World Intellectual Property 1, no. 2 (1998): 179–243. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1796.1998.tb00010.x.‘The Statute of Anne: The First Copyright Statute : History of Information’. Accessed 23 June 2025. https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?entryid=3389.‘Walt Before Mickey | Kanopy’. Accessed 6 February 2025. https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/12287972?vp=kcl.