USA.- Despite The Walt Disney Co. has protected its characters with “a thousand padlocks”, for the first time, one of the star characters of the company, Mickey Mousewill become public domain.
Tenderly, The Walt Disney Co. once forced a Florida daycare to remove an unauthorized mural from Minnie Mouse.
In 2006, Disney told a stonemason that carving Winnie The Pooh on a child’s headstone would violate their copyright.
Steamboat Williethe 1928 short film that introduced Mickey to the world, will lose copyright protection in the United States and some other countries at the end of 2023.
And the question surely is what Disney will do to respond and protect its most iconic character.
I see on the Reddit forums and on Twitter that people – the creatives – are getting excited about the possibilities, that somehow the character is going to be able to be used however it is,” said Aaron J. Moss, a partner at Greenberg Glusker in Los Angeles. , specialized in copyright and trademarks.
“But that’s a misunderstanding.”
The matter is more complicated than it seems, and those who try to take advantage of expiring rights could end up in a legal mousetrap.
It is the original version of Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie
Only one of the copyright expires. This is the original version of Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Williean eight-minute short with little plot.
This Mickey does not speak and has a rat-like nose, rudimentary eyes (no pupils), and a long tail. He can be naughty. In one scene, he torments a cat. In another, he uses a terrified goose as a trombone.
Later iterations of the character remain protected, including the sweeter, rounder Mickey in red shorts and white gloves, better known to today’s audiences. These will enter the public domain at various times over the next several decades.
Disney has frequently modernized the character, not necessarily as a form of copyright management, at least initially, but to keep up with the times,” said Jane C. Ginsburg, an authority on intellectual property law who teaches at the University of Columbia.
The expiration of the Steamboat Willie rights means the black-and-white short can be screened without permission from Disney and even resold by third parties.
However, there may not be much value left. The company uploaded it for free on Youtube years ago. It also means that anyone can make use of the movie and the original Mickey to create new stories and works.
Source-news.google.com