At the turn of 2024, the classic animated short Steamboat Willie entered the public domain, this was Disney's animation with the first version of the beloved character Mickey Mouse. The character is directly associated with the Walt Disney Company brand, but now on the first day of 2024, Disney's copyright on “Steamboat Willie” and the silent version of Plane Crazy — made in 1928 — will expire.
The decision is quite symbolic as Disney is often contradictory to the issue of copyright. On the one hand, the studio played an important role in lobbying and pushing to approve the law that extended the term of copyright to 95 years, and which came to be called the “Mickey Mouse Protection Law”.
On the other hand, Disney itself built an extensive and successful legacy using works that were in the public domain. This is the case of "Frozen", "Tarzan", "Cinderella", "Rapunzel", "Winnie the Pooh", "Lion King" and several others that are in the public domain.
However, Mickey Mouse's most recent appearances remain the exclusive property of Disney and the company was quick to announce this fact.
Although Mickey from Steamboat Willie is the same character, the mouse mascot's appearance has changed drastically. Most notably his 1940s and later version with full eyes (as opposed to black ovals), which has been his most common appearance in subsequent decades.
This may seem a little confusing but this distinction between versions of the character is important to the Walt Disney Company, who regularly use their unique takes on characters to separate them from the original copyright. An emblematic case is Disney's "Winnie the Pooh", which is not in the public domain, but the version by the original author AA Milne and the concept of the story itself are in the public domain, which allowed the creation of the horror film Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey without running afoul of the Disney legal team.
Now just wait for the magic to be done, and some works using the first version of Mickey start to appear!
You can check out the original Steamboat Willie short here.
QkJnZ2huUUY2RTQ=
I like several different works, but with a tendency for strange and funny stories.
I like arts, games, drawings and interesting things.
