Time.news – For the first time, writes the New York Times, one of the most popular Disney characters, Mickey Mouse, will become public domain. “Steamboat Willie,” the 1928 short that gave birth to Mickey Mouse and introduced him to the world, will in fact lose its rights protection in the US and other countries at the end of next year.
However, the matter is not at all that simple, because those trying to capitalize on the expiring copyright of “Steamboat Willie” could easily end up in a legal trap with a complicated solution. In fact, Disney is far from tender and submissive in terms of rights: think that this company once forced a Florida nursery to remove an unauthorized mural of Minnie Mouse. And in 2006, Disney charged a stonemason that carving Winnie the Pooh on a child’s gravestone would infringe copyright.
“The question is, where is Disney trying to draw the line on copyright enforcement?” asked a copyright and trademark lawyer. However for the moment only one copyright is expiring. Covers the original version of Mickey as seen in “Steamboat Willie,” an eight-minute short with little plot. And they will enter the public domain at various times over the next few decades. But the copyright expiration of “Steamboat Willie” means that the black-and-white short “may be shown without Disney’s permission and even resold by third parties.”
However, the Times writes: “Winnie the Pooh, another Disney property, offers a scenario on what could happen” in the future: this year, here is the example, “the 1926 children’s book ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’, by AA Milne, has entered the public domain”. An up-and-coming filmmaker has since made a low-budget live-action film called “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey,” in which the chubby yellow bear goes wild. In one scene, Pooh and his friend Piglet use chloroform to incapacitate a bikini-clad woman in a hot tub and then drive a car over her head. Here’s what happened: Disney does not resort to copyright protection, however “provided the director adheres to the 1926 material and does not use later elements” such as the typical red shirt added in 1930.
Here everything gets complicated: in fact, Disney also owns the trademarks on its characters, including the “Steamboat Willie” version of Mickey Mouse, and “the trademarks never expire as long as the companies continue to present the appropriate documents”. Thus a copyright covers a specific creation (unauthorized copying), “but trademarks are designed to protect against consumer confusion, to provide consumers with certainty of the source and quality of a creation”, specifies the newspaper. In summary, any public domain use of the original Mickey Mouse cannot be blamed on Disney. A strong protection, therefore, because the character, even in its first form, has such a close bond with the company that produced it, that people look at those ears and “automatically associate it with Disney” is the official justification that binds to the original copyright.