Earliest Version of Mickey Mouse Set To Become Public Domain in 2024 (apnews.com) 116
SonicSpike writes: With several asterisks, qualification and caveats, Mickey Mouse in his earliest form will be the leader of the band of characters, films and books that will become public domain as the year turns to 2024. In a moment many close observers thought might never come, at least one version of the quintessential piece of intellectual property and perhaps the most iconic character in American pop culture will be free from Disney's copyright as his first screen release, the 1928 short "Steamboat Willie," featuring both Mickey and Minnie Mouse, becomes available for public use. "This is it. This is Mickey Mouse. This is exciting because it's kind of symbolic," said Jennifer Jenkins, a professor of law and director of Duke's Center for the Study of Public Domain, who writes an annual Jan. 1 column for "Public Domain Day." "I kind of feel like the pipe on the steamboat, like expelling smoke. It's so exciting." U.S. law allows a copyright to be held for 95 years after Congress expanded it several times during Mickey's life.
Until that is (Score:5, Insightful)
Cost (Score:5, Insightful)
That would cost a *whole* lot of money. They are very unpopular with, basically, all of the republicans on capitol hill. The last time they got a copyright bill extension passed they had Sonny Bono championing their cause on the republican side. Nowadays they are radioactive to republicans.
simple fix (Score:1)
Coming soon from Disney - live action "Steamboat Willy" remake. Think "Die Hard", but on a tugboat!
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Not how it works.
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Not how it works.
Life of the author plus 70 years is also not how it works. Except it does.
14 years auto plus another 14 years extension is how it works. Except it doesn't.
Congress shall have power "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
Limited time is how it works. Except it doesn't.
A work created before I was born, not entering the public domain until after my death, is not a limited time. That is not how it works either. Except it does.
You should be very careful throwing around "not how it works" and "how it works" when the law is changed over and over and over, even to the point
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You think it violates the constitution, and I think it violates the constitution, but that's not what the Supreme Court ruled.
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Copyright Clause of the US Constitution (Score:2)
Search your copy of the Constitution for the phrase "To promote the progress of science and useful arts" [wikipedia.org].
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I do not believe that unlimited duration, or effectively unlimited duration, of copyright promotes the useful arts.
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If you believe the present copyright term is "effectively unlimited", then vote accordingly, or run for office once eligible.
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The Supreme Court ruled in Eldred v. Ashcroft that Congress didn't violate the Constitution. If you have a bad Congress, make a better Congress.
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If the same justices who argue in favor of strict constructionalism suddenly did a 180 and ruled that it doesn't apply in this case, it would seriously undermine the perceived legitimacy of every other ruling they've issued that has strict constructionalism as its professed legal basis.
As if any of the current justices give a fuck about doing legal "donuts in the parking lot." Justice Clarence Thomas [wikipedia.org] was desperate to use his logic in Dobbs to overturn other decisions on "rights granted from the bench". Except the one that allows him to marry his wife. [wikipedia.org]
TL;DR: Do as I say peasant. Not as the Nobility does.
Deferential review of Copyright Clause preamble (Score:2)
Has anybody in a patent-infringement lawsuit ever tried to challenge the constitutionality of contemporary IP law by making the legal argument that:
1. The wording of Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 makes protection of intellectual property contingent upon it actually promoting the sciences and useful arts.
2. Not only does contemporary IP law fail to achieve that goal, it actively and demonstrably harms its achievement.
And... if so.... did the challenge fail because:
a) The US Supreme Court heard the case, and issued a ruling that there's no requirement that IP law actually promote any public purpose or provide any benefit
Yes. The Supreme Court considered and rejected this argument. Instead, it chose to grant deference to Congress in its role as the representative of the people in determining what does and does not "promote the progress of science and useful arts." See "Eldred and Lochner: Copyright Term Extension and Intellectual Property as Constitutional Property" by Paul M. Schwartz and William Michael Treanor [georgetown.edu]. The intended recourse is to apply the soap box and then the ballot box. First "petition the government for a re
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The Supreme Court ruled in Eldred v. Ashcroft that extending the term repeatedly is "legislative misbehavior" unless there's a compelling reason otherwise. It found such a reason for the 1998 extension: harmonizing the copyright term to that of a major trading partner that 1. had already adopted a longer term and 2. applies the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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Not how it works.
Life of the author plus 70 years is also not how it works. Except it does.
And then someone figures out a way to be able to claim that the author is the Disney company not the person making the character, so in that case the author is still alive. But maybe not for much longer if Iger and Kennedy continues their path to doom.
Work for hire life is 25 years (Score:3)
In the case of works made for hire, the Copyright Act of 1976 set the "life" portion of the copyright term at 25 years after publication or 50 years after creation, whichever comes first. The 1998 extension did not change this definition of "life".
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In the case of works made for hire, the Copyright Act of 1976 set the "life" portion of the copyright term at 25 years after publication or 50 years after creation, whichever comes first. The 1998 extension did not change this definition of "life".
No it didn't, that's just stupid.
There are simply several different terms for different circumstances. You can find them easily at 17 USC 302-305.
For works created on or after January 1, 1978, the term is the life of the author plus 70 years. (Originally it was life + 50, and the extension simply added 20 years)
However, if the work is a joint work by multiple authors, the life in question is the life of the last surviving author.
And if the work is a work made for hire, or psuedonymous, or anonymous, then t
Solving for life (Score:3)
You're correct that the statute never directly expressed the term of copyright in a pre-1978 work or work made for hire in the form of a life term of 50 years after creation or 25 years after publication, followed by the post-mortem term. However, that has been the net effect after both the 1976 Act and the 1998 Act.
The Copyright Act of 1976 set the copyright term as life plus 50 years for individual works, or 75 years after publication or 100 years after creation for pre-1978 works and works made for hire.
Re: simple fix (Score:3)
Just watched "It's a Wonderful Life", no longer in the public domain.
How DOES it work, exactly?
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The music is copyrighted.
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Actually, before that Republic Pictures demonstrated they held copyright to the story "The Greatest Gift". They purchased copyright to the music as a backup. With copyright to "The Greatest Gift", they claimed that only they could make derivative works, of which the screenplay for "It's a Wonderful Life" is one.
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OK, thanks for the correction
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The weird status of public domain work with copyrighted elements led to a fairly recent "cleaned" version of it made with the musical elements removed/replaced.
It's possible the story credits may be challenged at some point in the future, although with any luck by that point the original story will have also fallen out of copyright protection.
Special Cases (Score:2)
It's A Wonderful Life, the film itself, lapsed into public domain because of a clerical error in the 1970s where the studio forgot to renew the copyright. However, the film is based on a copyrighted book, whose copyright is still valid. So, though the film itself isn't copyrighted, the story is, so you have to pay the holder of the rights to the story a licensing fee to show the movie, not the (lapsed) holder of the movie.
It isn't much different than if a film's copyright lapses, but it contains 3rd party m
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That and chances are the Supreme Court may not approve of endless extending of copyright law. They already signalled as such in their last decision on the matter which held that there was no precedent set at the time. They might not like the look of extending copyright 20 more years every 20 years.
Anyhow, it's not just Disney being toxic to republicans, it's republicans being toxic to themselves. they have some other priorities going around including debt ceiling limit bills they keep kicking down the road
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If we are talking politics then the US political system is a bipolar disorder combined with schizophrenia and paranoia as well as misdirected OCD.
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They've declined to do so for a number of years. Very specifically declined.
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Sadly... they've also declined to restore Copyright to a reasonably limited length of time, such as 20 years maximum duration. There's a heck of a lot of stuff that ought to be public domain by now which is not; which would be very valuable for the public domain, and a massive improvement to a lot of things.
They're not going to bother (Score:2)
Modern mega corporations are so powerful and wealthy they transcend our laws.
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trademark law and our legal system means they can crush anyone who tries to make anything off Steamboat Willie.
Exactly. Trademark law still protects Mikey Mouse, so while someone could sell or show Steamboat Willie they certainly will have to be careful how they Mickey Mouse as it is trademarked and likely to result in costly litigation with Disney.
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Exactly. Trademark law still protects Mikey Mouse, so while someone could sell or show Steamboat Willie they certainly will have to be careful how they Mickey Mouse as it is trademarked and likely to result in costly litigation with Disney.
So careful as to just not bother with any verbs at all.
Re: They're not going to bother (Score:2)
I am not a lawyer, but I suspect that Disney would lose if they tried to stop the distribution of Steamboat Willie because of trademark. Unless the offending company used Mickey or his name as a form of brand identification, how do they have a case?
Will Owens Corning be able to prevent the eventual public domain use of the Pink Panther because they use it as a mascot? If so, our laws are more screwy than I thought.
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I am not a lawyer, but I suspect that Disney would lose if they tried to stop the distribution of Steamboat Willie because of trademark. Unless the offending company used Mickey or his name as a form of brand identification, how do they have a case?
Will Owens Corning be able to prevent the eventual public domain use of the Pink Panther because they use it as a mascot? If so, our laws are more screwy than I thought.
I think you are correct. IANAL, but as I understand it you can distribute Steamboat Wille, but if you try to use Mickey Mouse you could run afoul of trademark law since Mickey is a trademark. TFA implied you might be able to use the rat like Mickey from SBW; as for the Pink Panther it would again depend on what was a trademark vs copyrighted material.
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but if you try to use Mickey Mouse you could run afoul of trademark law since Mickey is a trademark
It depends on how you use it. If you use the Mickey Mouse character in a new creative work, that should be fine. If you use the Mickey Mouse character in connection with goods or services otherwise (e.g. on the wrapper of Mickey Mouse-branded chewing gum, for example), then you'll probably have legal trouble.
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but if you try to use Mickey Mouse you could run afoul of trademark law since Mickey is a trademark
It depends on how you use it. If you use the Mickey Mouse character in a new creative work, that should be fine. If you use the Mickey Mouse character in connection with goods or services otherwise (e.g. on the wrapper of Mickey Mouse-branded chewing gum, for example), then you'll probably have legal trouble.
Thanks for the clarification. I'm guessing as long as it looked like Steamboat Willie and not the modern Mickey you'd be fine as well. Could Disney trademark the Steamboat Willie image since they have used it, and continue to, to this day on merchandise, etc.? So you might be fine if you made say a movie but not plush toy?
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I'm guessing as long as it looked like Steamboat Willie and not the modern Mickey you'd be fine as well.
Two separate things, really.
From a copyright perspective, all that is in the public domain are the first three Mickey Mouse films. Attributes of the character in those films -- appearance, behavior, etc. -- may be used. Copying other attributes from still-copyrighted sources is not permitted, such as the particular voice, the color appearance of the character, etc. As those sources drop into the public domain too, over the years, they'll also become available.
But from a trademark perspective, the issue i
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All that being said, Disney has loads of money and is famously litigious, so it'll be interesting to see who goes first to test the waters.
This is, IMHO, the key. Who wants to fight Disney and its wallet? Thanks for the in depth analysis.
Re: They're not going to bother (Score:2)
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Will Owens Corning be able to prevent the eventual public domain use of the Pink Panther because they use it as a mascot?
It's likely that Owens Corning doesn't own the Pink Panther character, and rather licensed it from MGM who created and animated it originally, and likely licensed it to Owens Corning for use in their marketing.
That licensing agreement surely states that ownership is not transferred, and thus copyright remains with MGM.
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You won't be able to sell Micky Mouse-brand orange juice or cigars, but you will be able to sell copies of Steamboat Willie (using a screenshot even) to anyone willing to pay for public domain content. Warner Brothers will delete their own unmonetized content to make a buck, yet you can still legally download a bunch of public domain Superman cartoons [archive.org]
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you will be able to sell copies of Steamboat Willie (using a screenshot even) to anyone willing to pay for public domain content.
Not just that. You'd probably also be on pretty strong legal footing if you made derivative works of the Steamboat Willie cartoon, provided your character looked exactly like that version of Mickey Mouse and not any later iteration. You'd probably also have to refer to him only as Steamboat Willie and not Mickey Mouse, for trademark reasons.
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I agree generally, except as to the last point: the character is Mickey Mouse. Nominative use permits the use of his name. In fact, given the almost total lack of dialogue or title cards for Steamboat Willie, and given the marketing of the thing ('Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie'), there's no reason to think that that is even the name of the character the Mickey Mouse character is portraying. Steamboat Willie is merely the name of the cartoon, and is evocative of Steamboat Bill, which is the pre-existing
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They'll likely abuse trademark law instead.
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Disney buys a longer copyright term from Congress again.
I don't think so.
The Republicans are forecast to hold the HOR and take the Senate in 2024.
Disney is their enemy.
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They barely hold the HOR now. If a few old people die, they wouldn't (though that's true for both sides).
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They barely hold the HOR now.
Yes, but the incumbent retirements favor the GOP.
Polls show that record numbers of Hispanic and black men (but very few women) intend to vote Republican.
The reason? Immigration.
They fear competition for jobs from immigrants, and Hispanics of Mexican, Cuban, and Puerto Rican descent have little solidarity with new arrivals from El Salvador.
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We were told there was going to be a "red wave" and instead of winning the House by a landslide, they got a very slim majority. Maybe this time will be different but we're still 11 months away from the election. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.
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Oh right. Let's see what this Congress has managed to get done in the first session:
- 15 votes to pick a speaker
- lurching from funding emergency to funding emergency
- horseshit hearings into "weaponization of government" that represents the actual weaponization of government, but only in the most hilariously inept and ineffective way because they guys running the show are fucking spineless idiots that just do what their disgraced, twice-impeached, four-times-indicted authoritarian piece of shit "party lea
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Democrats see all that as bad, because Congress's job is to get stuff done.
Republicans see all that as good, because Congress's job is to stop stuff from getting done.
It's all a matter of perspective.
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It will be a while, if it ever happens at all. Disney declined to hop aboard the republicans' anti-LGBT hate train a couple years back. And because of that they've been public enemy #1 in the red states ever since. So congress is pretty hostile right now to the house of the mouse. I'm sure Disney will try once the MAGAs, qAnons, and the rest of their ilk are cast out; their malevolence is rendered inert; and the US reverses it's current regression and returns to social advancement and and political norm
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Being against the pushing of deviate sexual acts and lifestyles upon children, is not synonymous with hate.
This stuff is NOT from super far with, ultra-qAnon stuff etc....this is middle Amer
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I'm not sure you really have an understanding of middle america.
I am from middle america -born and raised in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri -small towns, farms, coal hollers, and car-factory cities. The land where black people are still called "Jigaboo" and homosexuals are "the Gays". Home of Mike Pence and Amy Coney-Barrett. School and Church blend together. Blacks and whites distrust each other. Homosexuals are thought of as odd, but mostly harmless -kind of like the Amish. Weird deviant beha
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Middle Americans are old school conservative where the less interference in each others lives -the better. "You keep to yourselves, and we'll do the same."
This.
So much this.
Correlation: Kentucky (Trump +26% in 2020) re-electing a Democrat governor who basically ran on pro-choice. Ohio (Trump +8% in 2020) voters telling their regressive dipshit legislature in Columbus at least 3 times in one year (vastly exceeding petition signatures for a state constitution amendment, voting down the legislature's horseshit attempt in a special election to change the rules about amending the constitution, and then voting overwhelmingly for the constitutional amendment in Nov
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Oh please... You people have been trotting out your tired old "Gay people are all a bunch of pedophiles." narrrative since before I even knew what being gay was. All you ever do is mad-lib in some different words every decade or so. But whether you just go ahead and say pedophile, or think you're clever by substituting in "recruiter," "spotter," "groomer," or maybe you've gone through others that I've missed; it's all just the same, sad, hateful, old bullshit. And you know that as well as I do.
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You might wanna read what I posted again.
Nowhere in my post did I bring up such topics.
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But is it even possible to retroactively extend copyright once it's expired?
It's been done before in the US.
Or, for that matter, *should* copyright be extended?
Not only no, but hell no. It should be massively shortened.
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Well considering that this Congress can't even pass required spending bills without firing their own Speaker over making the compromises that divided government requires, I don't think that this GOP House majority is going to be very interested in helping out "woke" Disney on that.
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The House already left for their Christmas break, so no more legislation will pass in 2023. They won't be back again until after New Year's Day. Retroactive copyrights won't fare well with the courts. Disney has already made their peace with letting the original Mickey go.
Great breakdown of Disney's strategy on this (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Very different play by Disney this time around, but just as effective.
Mickey Porn Incoming. (Score:2)
New Theme Park Also.
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IANAL, but I think the porn would be legal and the park wouldn't. Since Disney operates parks with the Mickey logo, that falls under trademark law. So go ahead and cosplay the mouse on Only Fans all you like, but don't put a Mickey logo on your roller coaster. It's a wild ride.
Dickey Mouse. (Score:2)
Mickey Porn Incoming.
I heard he actually prefers the stage name Dickey Mouse. Chicks dig it.
New Theme Park Also.
Look on the bright side. If the theme is Fuck this Woke Bullshit, they might actually be profitable.
Hooray, I guess? (Score:2)
Yay! Now you can use Mickey Mouse when ripping on Disney.
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Tell it to Dan O'Neal. Of course, he was asking for it with a bad attitude, but he lost the case.
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All non-parody variations of "steam boat willie" Mickey Mouse (which is a different, older style than the current one) are now legal and valid. You can make steamboat willie mickey mouse porn, or video games, novels, movies etc. It's all legal now. I had forgotten mickey mouse existed, but my toddler absolutely loves "MICKEY!" so there's a lot of value here for the average AI/ML person who wants to churn out endless Mickey Mouse content. My toddler can't tell the difference between copyright free old style
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I hope the first use is ... (Score:2, Troll)
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Yes, I can hardly wait for Steamboat Mickey Does Dallas
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Not so fast (Score:2)
Breaking News (CNN): Disney has filed an emergency injunction petitioning the Federal court to extend the copyright protection indefinitely, citing 'irreparable harm' to the financial interests of Disney and its Affiliates."
I'm kidding, but I certainly won't be surprised if it happens.
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Even just from a monetary standpoint, it's irresponsible of them to not even try.
Disney has done some shitty-ass stuff, but Mickey is "theirs" and a bunch of merchandise-makers in china/wherever don't (shouldn't) have any right to him.
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I'm all for that. Maybe Disney would finally start making new IP again if that happened instead of coasting on the accomplishments of people long since dead.
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I have young kids. The only "new" Mickey stuff I see is cheap Disney Channel filler. They're spending their money on live action remakes and new Pixar films, not retreading Mickey and his friends.
What About Pluto? (Score:2)
Will he still be a dog?
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Snow White will be adopting him, so now he'll be a dwarf dog.
Current copyright law has done immense damage. (Score:2)
Even worse than that, copyright extensions have at times been legitimately illegal. They've restored copyrights that had already lapsed, essentially taking material back out of the public domain and handing it to corporations, which is patently unconstitutional. Technically, under actual rule of law, The Hobbit has been public domain for decades. B
They already let Oswald into the public domain (Score:3)
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Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (Score:2)
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The version of Mickey due to become PD is the steamboat willie version. No voice, and a fairly primitive look, in terms of body and costume. Even just his ears look substantially different. So maybe the backers don't want to bother with "proto-mickey"
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Well, you can create derivatives based on the original version. Want him to have lines of dialog? That's fine, just don't copy the high pitched voice that was introduced in later, still protected cartoons. Instead have him sound like Barry White. Want him to have a different look? That's fine too, just don't copy from changes to the look introduced in later cartoons -- blue shorts instead of red (or the rarely seen green), for example.
I'll believe it... (Score:1)
Three-generation rule is not new (Score:2)
But when elements of the free market collude with government entities to get "rent" checks for IP for two to three generations - something is wrong.
Then it's been wrong since the mid-nineteenth century, which is when the momentum began to build for the three-generation principle. See "The Copyright Term Red Herring" by Leo Lichtman [copyrightalliance.org].
Shut up about this. (Score:2)
Seriously the last thing we need is Disney reminded to call up its legislators and threaten to withhold their year-end bonus and fire them if they don’t to do something asap.
Hate Disney all you want.... but... (Score:2)
What happened to Winnie the Pooh (Blood and Bone gory horror movie) should not happen to an innocent cultural icon, regardless who owns it.
I'd say the same thing about Woody Woodpecker, Snoopy, Mighty Mouse, Tom/Jerry, etc.... Disney fucked up by not begging, pleading, bribing for an extension. Then again, they do have a LOT of animosity running against them, so maybe they didn't think it would go anywhere.
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And you can't exercise your right not to see such films because why?
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They weren't virgins as much as we're led to believe. Pre-marital sex has always been a thing.
mickey won't be free (Score:2)
there's an exception to copyright expiring and that's if it is clearly associated with the brand, and it's easy to argue that mickey is completely intertwined with Disney's brand.
Well... (Score:2)
Really? (Score:2)
Corridor Crew's Video (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] -- "Why Disney's Most Iconic Character is entering the Public Domain (Lawyer Explains)"
the damage is done (Score:2)
Public domain in the US has been damaged forever, collateral damage to the fight to keep mickey out of the PD
Does anyone ever watch Mickey? (Score:2)
I think I've only ever seen Steamboat Willie, and that only a couple of times. For such an "icon", as far as I can tell his only existence is in marketing spin-offs.
Only Fans (Score:2)
I thought it had already expired (Score:2)
Microsoft have been making Mickey Mouse software for decades.