Paraguay Loves Mickey, Its Cartoon Mouse. Disney Doesn’t.; The New York Times, September 14, 2024

Laurence Blair,

Photographs by María Magdalena Arréllaga

, The New York Times; Paraguay Loves Mickey, Its Cartoon Mouse. Disney Doesn’t.

"Paraguayans are notoriously creative — some would say light-fingered — when it comes to intellectual property.

Factories churn out knockoff Nike, Lacoste, and Adidas clothing.Paraguay’s educational authorities warned last year that Harvard University Paraguay — in Ciudad del Este, the country’s second-largest city and a counterfeiting hot spot — was awarding bogus medical degrees. (The school has no connection to the more famous Harvard.)

Paraguay ranks 86th out of 125 countries in an index compiled by the Property Rights Alliance, a research institute based in Washington, scoring 1.7 out of 10 for copyright protection."

How A Mickey Mouse Horror Movie Is Releasing Only 2 Months After Disney Lost The Copyright; Screen Rant, January 31, 2024

 EIDHNE GALLAGHER, Screen Rant; How A Mickey Mouse Horror Movie Is Releasing Only 2 Months After Disney Lost The Copyright

"Mickey Mouse is one of several popular characters who have entered the public domain in the 2020s. However, this upcoming horror movie is solely focusing on the Steamboat Willie version of Mickey Mouse. While the copyright claim on Steamboat Willie has expired, Disney has not lost all their rights to their mascot. Every Mickey Mouse movie and character evolution that took place after Steamboat Willie remains protected under copyright law, and Disney will continue to use the character as a trademarked mascot."

'Steamboat Willie' is now in the public domain. What does that mean for Mickey Mouse?; NPR, January 1, 2024

Neda Ulaby , NPR; 'Steamboat Willie' is now in the public domain. What does that mean for Mickey Mouse?

""You know, he's evolved so much and become more 3D and colorful," observes Ryan Harmon, a former Disney Imagineer, of the character today. He remembers anxious talk, when he worked at the company in the 1990s, about the beloved icon eventually entering the public domain.

But that's not happening, says Kembrew McLeod, a communications professor and intellectual property scholar at the University of Iowa.

"What is going into the public domain is this particular appearance in this particular film," he says.

That means people can creatively reuse only the Mickey Mouse from Steamboat Willie. Not the Mickey Mouse in the 1940 movie Fantasia. Nor the one on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, a kids' show that aired on the Disney Channel for a decade starting in 2006.

New versions of Mickey Mouse remain under copyright. Copyright applies to creative characters, movies, books, plays, songs and more. And as it happens, Mickey Mouse is also trademarked.

"Trademark law is entirely about protecting brands, logos and names — like Mickey Mouse as a logo, or the name Mickey Mouse," McLeod says.

"And of course, trademark law has no end," adds Harvard Law School professor Ruth Okediji. Disney and other corporations, she says, use trademarks to extend control over intellectual property.""

Mickey Mouse Gets First Horror Parody Film as Steamboat Willie Enters Public Domain; CBR, January 1, 2024

JEREMY DICK, CBR ; Mickey Mouse Gets First Horror Parody Film as Steamboat Willie Enters Public Domain

"Filmmakers are not wasting any time with putting a dark spin on Mickey Mouse following the character entering the public domain.

As of Jan. 1, 2024, Mickey's very first cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became part of the public domain. While modern versions of Mickey Mouse are still protected by copyright, the classic black-and-white version seen in the Steamboat Willie cartoon is now available to be used by filmmakers outside of the Disney umbrella. On the very day that the copyright lifted for Steamboat Willie, it was announced that the character will be spoofed in an upcoming horror movie titled Mickey's Mouse Trap. The first trailer and poster have also been released for the film, which can be viewed below."

Mickey Mouse Copyright Expiration Has Internet Scrambling For Steamboat Willie Horror Movie; ScreenRant, January 1, 2024

HANNAH GEARAN , ScreenRant; Mickey Mouse Copyright Expiration Has Internet Scrambling For Steamboat Willie Horror Movie

"The copyright for a specific version of Mickey Mouse has expired, which is leaving the internet urging for a Steamboat Willie-based horror movie. Mickey Mouse first became copyrighted by the Walt Disney Company in 1928 through the movie Steamboat Willie.

At the dawn of the new year, the Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse has entered the public domain, and the internet is pushing for a horror movie based on the character."

These Classic Characters Are Losing Copyright Protection. They May Never Be the Same.; The New York Times, January 1, 2024

 Sopan Deb, The New York Times; These Classic Characters Are Losing Copyright Protection. They May Never Be the Same.

"In 2024, thousands of copyrighted works published in 1928 are entering the public domain, after their 95-year term expires...

The crème de la crème of this year’s public domain class are Mickey Mouse and, of course, Minnie, or at least black-and-white versions of our favorite squeaky rodents that appeared in “Steamboat Willie.” Disney is famously litigious, and this copyright only covers the original versions of the character.

The New York Times reached out to some writers, producers and directors to give you a taste of what might be unleashed in this strange new world."

Disney loses famous Mickey Mouse copyright in 2024, along with many others; CBS News, December 30, 2023

CBS News ; Disney loses famous Mickey Mouse copyright in 2024, along with many others

"Copyright protections on many well-known books, films and musical compositions are set to expire in 2024. Disney's Mickey Mouse is getting a lot of attention as one famous iteration of the classic mouse is set to enter the public domain. CBS News' Jo Ling Kent has the story."

Mickey Mouse, Long a Symbol in Copyright Wars, to Enter Public Domain: ‘It’s Finally Happening’; Variety, December 22, 2023

 Gene Maddaus, Variety; Mickey Mouse, Long a Symbol in Copyright Wars, to Enter Public Domain: ‘It’s Finally Happening’

"Every Jan. 1, Jenkins celebrates Public Domain Day, publishing a long list of works that are now free for artists to remix and reimagine. This year’s list includes Tigger, who, like Mickey Mouse, made his first appearance in 1928. Other 1928 works include “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” “All Quiet on the Western Front” and Buster Keaton’s “The Cameraman.” 

The celebrations are relatively recent. After Congress extended copyright terms in 1998, 20 years went by when nothing entered the public domain. Works began to lose copyright protection again in 2019, and since then, it’s been open season on “The Great Gatsby,” “Rhapsody in Blue” and Winnie the Pooh...

Lessig fought the extension all the way to the Supreme Court. He argued that Congress might keep granting extensions, thwarting the constitutional mandate that copyrights be “for limited times.” He lost, 7-2, but the debate helped advance the movement for Creative Commons and an appreciation for the benefits of “remix culture.”

“That movement awoke people to the essential need for balance in this,” Lessig said. “At the beginning of this fight, it was a simple battle between the pirates and the property owners. And by the end of that period, people recognized that there’s a much wider range of interests that were involved here, like education and access to knowledge.”...

He continues to support reforms that would free up a vast body of cultural output that remains inaccessible because it lacks commercial value and its ownership cannot be determined."

Disney is about to lose its decades-long battle to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain; Business Insider, December 14, 2023

Grace Eliza Goodwin, Business Insider; Disney is about to lose its decades-long battle to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain

"That 1998 law is what all copyrights operate under today. But there hasn't been another extension to the law, so starting January 1, anyone can use Steamboat Willie.

But even though the Steamboat Willie version of Mickey Mouse is entering the public domain, Disney doesn't need to be too worried about imposter Mickeys popping up around the world. 

Every time the company creates an altered version of the character, it gets copyrighted, and all modern depictions of the friendly mouse are protected, according to LUC's blog. Disney also owns trademarks on the modern incarnation of Mickey Mouse, giving the brand's mascot even more protection."

Mickey Mouse's Impending Copyright Expiration Explained; Screen Rant, January 8, 2023

CLOTILDE CHINNICI, Screen Rant; Mickey Mouse's Impending Copyright Expiration Explained

"It seems likely that Disney will maintain its copyright over Mickey Mouse for the foreseeable future. In particular, Mickey Mouse will remain under Disney's property because it is a registered trademark. In fact, this would let Disney keep ownership of Mickey Mouse as its trademark potentially forever, thus allowing Mickey Mouse to feature in future and upcoming Disney films. Unlike copyright, which expires after a certain amount of years, trademark protection can endure in perpetuity, as long as Disney can claim that the character of Mickey Mouse is associated with the Walt Disney company itself.

Ultimately, Mickey Mouse will still to be a legally protected Disney product. The strong association between Disney and Mickey Mouse, one that the company itself has invested in, represents a strong protection for Disney as the trademark will not expire any time soon, giving Disney control over Mickey Mouse. Despite the copyright law and Steamboat Willie's copyright expiration, Disney's approval is still required for others to use Mickey Mouse material, even the one that will eventually become public domain, in anything outside of fair use, thanks to the mouse's trademark protection."

The Copyright Death (and Rebirth) of Mickey Mouse; Puck, January 2, 2023

Eriq Gardner, Puck; The Copyright Death (and Rebirth) of Mickey Mouse

"Another wrinkle is that the passing of copyrights into the public domain doesn’t necessarily mean there are fewer copyrighted works. On the contrary, it usually leads to more copyrights for each new remake. Consider the Sherlock Holmes canon: Warner Bros. has copyrights to its Robert Downey Jr. movies; the BBC has copyrights for its Sherlock episodes; CBS has them for Elementary, and so on. Netflix created an entirely new Sherlock-adjacent character, and now enjoys copyrights for its Enola Holmes films. Of course, only those elements that are truly original are eligible for new protections, which is why the BBC considered suing CBS over its own contemporary spin on the detective series (before thinking better of it).

After all, Hollywood studios are sued all the time for allegedly ripping off others. Fortunately for these studios, copyright lawsuits almost always fail because the law only protects original expression, not generic, time-worn genre tropes. Studios tend to be well represented and are usually adept at giving judges sound arguments for why their works don’t infringe. Nevertheless, with more people playing in the same sandboxes comes the increasing prospect of studios being sued for using famous characters in a particular way. So I’ll end with a prediction: There will come a time when Disney gets sued for infringing some new version of Mickey Mouse—and the studio defends itself by pointing to what’s in the public domain."

Mickey’s Copyright Adventure: Early Disney Creation Will Soon Be Public Property; The New York Times, December 27, 2022

 Brooks Barnes, The New York Times ; Mickey’s Copyright Adventure: Early Disney Creation Will Soon Be Public Property

"Ms. Ginsburg said she was watching closely to see if Disney and other entertainment companies tried to apply trademark law as a substitute for or extension of copyright — as she put it, “apply a separate protection to get to the same place.” In a Supreme Court intellectual property case from 2003 involving 20th Century Fox, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, warned of using trademarks to generate “a species of mutant copyright law.”"

Republicans took away Disney’s special status in Florida. Now they’re gunning for Mickey himself; Los Angeles Times, May 11, 2022

 HUGO MARTÍN, Los Angeles Times; Republicans took away Disney’s special status in Florida. Now they’re gunning for Mickey himself

"No legislation has been proposed to extend the copyright a third time, and copyright experts and lawmakers say it’s not likely that any legislators will want to lead that battle, given the opposition and fury it generated in the 1990s. Other companies’ copyrighted characters would also expire, sending more notable characters into the public domain. 

Disney critics say the company continues to have influence over copyright law, pointing to the recent naming of Suzanne Wilson as the general counsel and associate register of copyrights for the United States Copyright Office. She formerly oversaw intellectual property and interactive and media legal functions for Walt Disney Co.

Legal experts say the debate over copyright protection is moot because the only version of Mickey Mouse that is expiring is the 1928 black-and-white one depicted in “Steamboat Willie.” Copyright protections remain in place for later versions of Mickey Mouse, the more commercially recognized one that wears white gloves, has bigger ears, distinctive eyes and a pet dog named Pluto, according to experts.

Crucially, Disney also still holds trademark protection on Mickey Mouse, which does not expire. While a copyright keeps other companies from replicating the Mickey Mouse image, a trademark ensures that other companies can’t use the Mickey Mouse image in a way that might suggest their products are made by Disney."

Disney could lose the copyright to some very important characters; WKRC, January 1, 2022

WKRC; Disney could lose the copyright to some very important characters

"Disney is at risk of losing the copyright to some of its most important -- and lucrative -- characters."

Current copyright regime makes entertainment industry boring; The Daily Texan, June 18, 2017

Usmaan Hasan, The Daily Texan; Current copyright regime makes entertainment industry boring

"The current system of copyright and intellectual property protections quells artistic expression gives consumers the short end of the stick.

Mickey Mouse, as a property of Disney, enjoys bipartisan support in Congress. He was created in 1928, and under the existing copyright regime of the time, Disney’s right to Mickey should have ended in 1956 at the soonest, 1984 at the latest. Yet with some Disney magic, without fail, Congress expands copyright protections every time the Mickey is about to lapse into the public domain.

The hypocrisy coming from Disney is staggering. It has gained its immense wealth by monetizing properties in the public domain – like Cinderella, a centuries old fairy tale owned by no one – lobbying for copyright protections for those properties, and then reworking properties while constantly expanding the lifetime of their protections. It is a company that has managed to exercise artistic reinterpretation of cultural touchstones while making it nearly impossible for others to do the same. In fact, Disney has made its wealth by making movies on at least 50 works in the public domain."

Amazon Scoffs at Google’s Offer to Share Book Search Sales; Wired, 9/10/09

Ryan Singel, Wired; Amazon Scoffs at Google’s Offer to Share Book Search Sales:

"The Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters went even further than Amazon, accusing the courts of usurping Congress and that the agreement made a “mockery of Article 1 of the Constitution.”

“Key parts of the settlement are fundamentally at odds with the law and impinge on the rights of authors,” Peters said.

In particular, the settlement lets Google do more with scanned books than just use them in search results and to sell them, making the settlement license overly broad.

Such licenses should be given out only by Congress, Peters argued.

But Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-California) said the deal should be approved, calling it a “rare truce in the copyright wars.”

Moreover, Congress was to blame for the whole mess anyhow, by failing to fix the orphan book issue in recent years.

Lofgren also suggested that Congress simply reduce the number of books still in copyright by repealing the 1998 Sony Bono Copyright Extension Act, which added extended copyright terms for 20 years, reportedly to keep Mickey Mouse from falling into the public domain.

Thanks to the act, no books will go into the public domain in the United States automatically until 2019."

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/09/amazon-google-book-search-sales/

Should There Be A Penalty For Falsely Claiming Copyright Over Public Domain Material?; TechDirt, 6/26/09

Mike Masnick via TechDirt; Should There Be A Penalty For Falsely Claiming Copyright Over Public Domain Material?:

"Slashdot and The Register point us to a new paper by Jason Mazzone about "copyfraud" -- or the ability of someone to claim copyright on something that is in the public domain. The issue, Mazzone points out, is that there's no penalty for falsely claiming copyright on something, so there's plenty of incentive to claim something is still covered even if it's not."

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090626/1421065375.shtml

UK Copyright Expiration On Popeye May Be A Test For Mickey Mouse, TechDirt.com, 12/31/08

Via TechDirt.com: UK Copyright Expiration On Popeye May Be A Test For Mickey Mouse:

"And... the reality is that not very much different might happen.

That's because even though the copyright on the character has fallen into the public domain, the trademark remains -- and the current holder of the Popeye trademark in the UK, King Features (owned by Hearst), is expected to "protect its brand aggressively." That means people will still be quite limited in how they can use Popeye. If King Features is able to successfully use trademark law to keep Popeye under control, perhaps Disney won't go quite so crazy trying to extend the copyright on Mickey Mouse again... Either way, this little "experiment" will be worth watching."

http://techdirt.com/articles/20081231/1202033265.shtml

Popeye the Sailor copyright free [in UK] 70 years after Elzie Segar's death, London Times, 12/30/08

Via London Times: Popeye the Sailor copyright free [in UK] 70 years after Elzie Segar's death:

"From January 1, the iconic sailor falls into the public domain in Britain under an EU law that restricts the rights of authors to 70 years after their death. Elzie Segar, the Illinois artist who created Popeye, his love interest Olive Oyl and nemesis Bluto, died in 1938.

The Popeye industry stretches from books, toys and action figures to computer games, a fast-food chain and the inevitable canned spinach.

The copyright expiry means that, from Thursday, anyone can print and sell Popeye posters, T-shirts and even create new comic strips, without the need for authorisation or to make royalty payments...

The question of whether any enterprising food company can now attach Popeye's famous face to their spinach cans will have to be tested in court.

While the copyright is about to expire inside the EU, the character is protected in the US until 2024. US law protects a work for 95 years after its initial copyright.

The Popeye trademark, a separate entity to Segar's authorial copyright, is owned by King Features, a subsidiary of the Hearst Corporation — the US entertainment giant — which is expected to protect its brand aggressively.

Mark Owen, an intellectual property specialist at the law firm Harbottle & Lewis, said: “The Segar drawings are out of copyright, so anyone could put those on T-shirts, posters and cards and create a thriving business. If you sold a Popeye toy or Popeye spinach can, you could be infringing the trademark.”

Mr Owen added: “Popeye is one of the first of the famous 20th-century cartoon characters to fall out of copyright. Betty Boop and ultimately Mickey Mouse will follow.”

Segar's premature death, aged 43, means that Popeye is an early test case for cartoon characters. The earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons will not fall into the US public domain until at least 2023 after the Disney corporation successfully lobbied Congress for a copyright extension."

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/kids_tv/article5415854.ece