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Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

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Re: Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

#3

Only the Steamboat Willie Mickey enters the public domain if I remember correctly.

Any derivative works that lack sufficient creativity on their own also enter the public domain.

It’s an interesting question where exactly that line is.

Re: Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

#5

Only the Steamboat Willie Mickey enters the public domain if I remember correctly.

This means Minnie Mouse enters the public domain as well, and if some of the promotional material for the animation is included as well, could also include the red-and-yellow colour version of Mickey.

Re: Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

#6
post #3

Only the Steamboat Willie Mickey enters the public domain if I remember correctly.

Any derivative works that lack sufficient creativity on their own also enter the public domain. It’s an interesting question where exactly that line is.

It's probably not this far, DALL-E / GPT4 has some issues....

https://twitter.com/bpiatt/status/1740915306359329233

Re: Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

#8
Disney now uses that 'steamboat willie' intro clip at the start of most of their stuff.

Are they trying to use it as a trademark, and therefore use trademark law rather than copyright law to stop people using steamboat Willie publicly?

Re: Disney's earliest Mickey Mouse enters public domain as US copyright expires

#10
The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings enters the public domain in New Zealand, Egypt, and a couple other countries.

Would have entered into the public domain in Canada had the government not signed a last-minute 20 year copyright extension act last year.

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