Mickey Mouse: copyright dispute over a multiple personality

Opinion copyright dispute

The Liberation of Mickey Mouse

Stand: 11.04.2023 | Reading time: 2 minutes

Who and if so, how many? Mickey balloons at Disneyland

Source: picture alliance / dpa topic service

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Can we do what we want with Mickey Mouse soon? Disney is still fighting against the loss of rights. But since Mickey is a multiple personality, there could be surprising solutions. Meanwhile, the mouse has had a completely different problem for a long time.

Gott protect copyright, because copyright protects the artists, and god knows they can use it. On the other hand, no copyright is also something beautiful: “The Gift” (die Gabe) is the name of a criminally unknown classic by the famous thinker Lewis Hyde, who likes the idea that art could free itself from all economic, legal, even civilizational rules. Not coincidentally, Hyde also wrote a book about the anarchic “Trickster” who does just that all the time.

Which brings us to “Steamboat Willie,” the first talkie appearance of Disney’s Mickey Mouse, who back in 1928 was still a pure trickster, rebelling against an order represented by none other than the sinister cat Karlo. On Karlo’s steamer, an even skinny Micky turns Fron into joy by making music and partying, come what may.

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And this same Mickey is now about to enter the public domain, in the spirit of Lewis Hyde; In 2024, after 95 years on the Disney steamer, his copyright expires. However, if the company does not succeed in protecting the mouse as a trademark, this only applies to Mickey in its original form: thin and pointed-nosed, with short collars and ungloves, not at first in “Steamboat Willie”, but already in a Silent film with a nice title “Plane Crazy” has appeared.

Dethroned by Donald

Mickey’s Problem in a Nutshell: Donald 85th Birthday Cartoon

Quelle: picture alliance/dpa/Disney

Plane crazy but Micky wasn’t allowed to stay. The character has undergone a rapid transformation into a long-armed, chubby glove wearer and has gone from being a rule breaker to a rule enforcer: generations of Duckburg fans have skipped through the Mickey stories in the “Funny Paperbacks” because only the ones with Donald were really funny.

Notice the tragedy that lies in all of this: With Donald Duck’s invention in 1934, Mickey was dethroned as Disney’s top jester, in Enten(!)hausen he degenerates into a marginal figure that the great Carl Barks ignores. So it’s no wonder that the original Mickey goes off the flag of Disney. And logical, if the Trickster of all things went into the public domain. The shrinking world could use him well.