Yeah, the current copyright laws are pretty screwed up, and Disney has to take a lot of the blame for that (though not all, others have helped too).
And it doesn't make sense that Disney thinks they need eternal copyright either. Trademark is eternal as long as they are using it, so it's not like anybody else can open other Disney Worlds or Mickey Mouse Clubs or whatever. Nobody else can use Mickey Mouse to sell their products. The uses of Mickey Mouse that make Disney all their money would be totally unaffected if other vendors started selling cheap DVD copies of "Steamboat Willie."