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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

#31

Post by Caligatio »

weinzierl wrote: post #29

Before people cheer too much, surprisingly works can retroactively be snatched back from the public domain and go back into copyrighted state. The prime example is the movie Metropolis . It became public domain in 1953 but copyright was restored in 1996 only to re-enter the public domain a year ago today.

This intrigues me as I had no idea, at one time, that the US didn't have the most restrictive copyright laws in the world. It looks like the US had to restore/extend copyrights to foreign works as part of the agreement that established the WTO?

That being said, copyright is a product of laws and laws can always change. Your comment made me believe that the copyright owner somehow extended their rights; not a literal act of Congress.

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

#33

Post by cool_dude85 »

manquer wrote: post #25
gambiting wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mickey Mouse head is literally the logo of the Disney corporation, it is and it will remain their trademark in perpetuity(or for as long as Disney exists). Trademarks are different than copyright - you can't start a company and use Mickey mouse as your logo for instance, because then the trademark law would kick in. But you can still make your own story/cartoon/film with Mickey Mouse the character and it should b…

Only the steamboat Willie version, the one without gloves . Also practically it doesn’t matter whether it could be fine, most businesses can’t afford to fight an extended legal battle with Disney

Someone, in one of these threads a few weeks ago, posted what was claimed to be a movie poster/ad from the same year with his red pants and gloves:

https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/22084

If you could verify the timing on that I guess it would go into public domain as well.

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

#34

Post by core_dumped »

8organicbits wrote: post #26
blendo wrote: post #24

“US copyright law says the rights to characters can be held for 95 years.” 95 years ago was also about when the cinema and recording industries began. Since then, I’ll argue, all recorded entertainment and theatrical performances have become “fixed” into our culture similar to how Plato, the Bible, and Shakespeare became cultural touchstones due to literacy and the printing press. And now, as they enter the public do…

Is Mickey content good enough that we'll see continued interest? My encounters with Mickey (35 year old American) have been only through the movie Fantasia and I know he is a prominent mascot of Disney World. But the pull to Disney world is probably what, Star Wars or Pixar these days? I was recently thinking Star Wars and the Friends TV series could reach that permanent status. Mickey seems unlikely to me.

Mickey Mouse is quite literally Disney’s mascot. The same Disney with global theme park locations. It’s clear that Disney has far more prominence than Star Wars and friends combined. Hell they even own Star Wars now.

If you asked any random person on the street, chances are they know who Mickey Mouse is. It doesn’t really matter what “content” is made with him. Disney can just keep pumping out cheap CGI kids shows for brand recognition alone and Mickey would last for at least another generation.

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

#35

Post by VBprogrammer »

geiagal wrote: post #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.

I'm interested in how this would work in New Zealand. Could I publish a version of The Hobbit on amazon.co.nz? Would this be perfectly legal? If I instead published it on my own New Zealand based blog, maybe even hosted on a data center in NZ, but with no attempt to geo-fence it would that cause issues?

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

#36

Post by GauntletWizard »

gambiting wrote: post #16
londons_explore wrote: post #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?

The Mickey Mouse head is literally the logo of the Disney corporation, it is and it will remain their trademark in perpetuity(or for as long as Disney exists). Trademarks are different than copyright - you can't start a company and use Mickey mouse as your logo for instance, because then the trademark law would kick in. But you can still make your own story/cartoon/film with Mickey Mouse the character and it should b…

I don't really have a problem with Disney Corporation using Mickey Mouse as their logo, Trademark, and otherwise as an identifying characteristic - So long as I can distribute the works that have fallen out of their exclusive use period, and create new works that don't pretend to be related in authorship. Mickey Mouse as a trademark makes sense - Mickey Mouse as a weird exclusively distributed hole in public consciousness, where most anyone who's paying attention can point to the nearly-century-old origin but not offer it up for critical discussion - That's where it got weird.

Everyone should know Mickey Mouse. Everyone should be able to see the original Mickey Mouse cartoons, as authored by Walt and Ub. Everyone should also be able to comment on and redistribute their commentary on such, original cartoon included in full. Now they can.

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

#37

Post by nonrandomstring »

blendo wrote: post #24

“US copyright law says the rights to characters can be held for 95 years.” 95 years ago was also about when the cinema and recording industries began. Since then, I’ll argue, all recorded entertainment and theatrical performances have become “fixed” into our culture similar to how Plato, the Bible, and Shakespeare became cultural touchstones due to literacy and the printing press. And now, as they enter the public do…

> Plato, the Bible, and Shakespeare > inescapable part of our common heritage

Indeed, but how?

The three circles of Mickey Mouse is the semiotic emblem for everything that is shallow, plastic, maudlin and sentimental, self-obsessed, cynically capitalistic and exploitative.

In British (army and construction worker culture) the phrase "Mickey Mouse" is used for anything that's an ineffectual toy or poorly manufactured.

There are almost no positive connotations of Disney I can think of outside the cohort of 5 - 10 yo girls. To call something "Disney" is to mock it. YMMV in the USA.

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

#38

Post by EnigmaFlare »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #35
geiagal wrote: post #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.

I'm interested in how this would work in New Zealand. Could I publish a version of The Hobbit on amazon.co.nz? Would this be perfectly legal? If I instead published it on my own New Zealand based blog, maybe even hosted on a data center in NZ, but with no attempt to geo-fence it would that cause issues?

Countries that block pirate sites, like the UK, could block your site. They might also put political pressure on New Zealand to force you to manage the geofencing yourself.

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

#39

Post by userbinator »

hashar wrote: post #19
userbinator wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Steamboat_Willie_(19... There's WebM, VP9 in various resolutions, and... MJPEG ? Setting aside the oddity of serving a 95-year-old cartoon in full HD, that's still an odd selection of codecs. Everything up to MPEG-4 ASP (XviD etc.) has already been patent-expired. There's also MP3 there, so why not an MPEG-2 (H.262), MPEG-1, or even H.261 encode?

Because despite Wikipedia and sister projects being one of the largest web property, it is running on a thin budget and has starved engineering resources. As far as I know, the transcode code is maintained by a single employee (possibly as a side gig / on top of everything else) and the assistance of a volunteer. For Motion JPEG a recent config change ( https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/operations/mediawiki-config...…

MPEG-2 or even MPEG-4 ASP seems like a better choice for back-compat.

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

#40

Post by Phiwise_ »

praptak wrote: post #27
geiagal wrote: post #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.

Retroactive copyright extensions are changing the deal after it has been made, for the benefit of copyright holders and to the detriment of the public. This is unethical. That's why I get angry when copyright holders try to make ethical arguments against piracy.

You have a deal with a copyright holder? Have you considered taking them to court over it? I'd donate to help get you what their contract owes you, and I'm sure others would, too.
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