Disney Will Lose the Rights to Mickey Mouse in 2024

[The Deadman]

https://insidethemagic.net/2021/08/d...key-mouse-ad1/

When you think of Disney, there are a few iconic images that may come to mind. Perhaps a castle, maybe a favorite princess, but one thing that is universally known as Disney is Mickey Mouse.

From the days of Steamboat Willie, Walt’s debut of his little pay, Mickey Mouse, has been the mascot of Disney. Now it seems that Disney is at risk of losing the rights to the character! According to The Hollywood Reporter, “The copyright for Walt Disney’s 1928 cartoon Steamboat Willie — which introduced the world to Mickey Mouse — is set to expire and enter the public domain in three years.” The rights would include the Mickey Mouse that we saw in the film, which is different from other iterations of the character as time progressed.

The Hollywood Reporter went on to explain how Disney avoid this happening earlier. Disney successfully lobbied Congress to lengthen the number of years that copyrights can be held in 1988. The law ended up being called the Copyright Term Extension Act but has also received the name “the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.” However, in three years, the rights to Mickey Mouse will end, and Mickey will be up for grabs.

It seems “Disney’s legal team might succeed in keeping Walt Disney’s famous character and Mouse House mascot from becoming rights-free,” just as others have done with Dracula or Sherlock Holmes. If not, however, another company is already ready to “eat [Disney] alive.”

The Hollywood Reporter announced:

MSCHF has launched the “X Famous Mouse.” The company’s ad copy doesn’t call the token “Mickey Mouse” or use its exact imagery – for now – but it’s a placeholder for the iconic character and comes with a unique ticking clock. The idea is you pay for the nondescript mouse-like token today (cost: $100 for one of the 1,000 copies available) and then you receive a physical collectible token for the character that’s redeemable in 2024 – when Disney’s copyright on Mickey Mouse is set to expire. At that time, you’ll receive the real deal.

MSCHF CEO Gabe Whaley is clearly not a fan of Disney as he stated, “Disney is a massive all-swallowing conglomerate, with a desire for both industry dominance and cultural hegemony. It is ever-growing, all-encompassing, risk-averse, and society-blandening. We must leap at the chance to take back even the scant morsels available to us. At the slightest chance, we must eat them alive.” If Disney does gain the rights to Mickey Mouse, his tokens would likely be void.

The idea of creating the coin while Disney still owns the rights may not have been the best move on Whaley’s part. A copyright attorney James Sammataro discussed the situation, and it seems that Disney could have legal grounds to sue MSCHF.

“It’s difficult to foresee a scenario where [art] of a not-yet-in-the-public-domain work would not give rise to a prospective claim. Disney can credibly argue that the inchoate license devalues the current value of its licensing rights by diverting up would-be licensees.”

It should be noted that even if Disney were to lose the trademark to the original Mickey Mouse, Disney would still own copyrights for later incarnations of the character and Mickey-related trademarks.

[sdp]

I'm pretty sure Disney won't be a giant asshole when people want to use Mickey Mouse and their version of characters when they're in public domain. They extended copyright law enough for them to profit so much and now they have plenty of new copyrighted content that they will let people use their characters since controversy would cost them more in bad PR and sales than letting people use Mickey, and like say Cinderella, there's a difference between Disney's Cinderella and any Cinderella adaptation, just like Disney's Mickey and Public Domain Mickey. The Burrows estate and others like it will be screwed because of it as people won't let themselves be bullied anymore by phony trademark cease and desists of public domain assets.

Then again I think there are some dromers who refuse to believe Mickey will be public domain in 2 years, I remember there was a thread arguing it wouldn't happen (it will). But they were also arguing that it was better for copyright holders to keep their rights for whatever reason (Stockholm syndrome?). It'll be great to see Superman, Batman and other join Mickey in the next few years as well. Sadly TMNT won't be Public Domain anytime soon, I'd love to see people with talent work on the property again.

[Jester]

Disney ain't losing the Mouse. They'll....um...find a way.

[CyberCubed]

So some long dead people in the 1920's magically came up with some "rule" that rights expire to fictional characters after about 100 years? WTF?

Why should any modern company agree to some nonsense from the 1920's? Laws are changed and updated all the time.

[Leo656]

Disney has literally gone after children's hospitals which had the audacity to include Disney characters in murals which were painted on their walls. Nobody profited from this, the only benefit was in making sick kids happy, and Disney still called down the legal thunder.

Disney doesn't give two sh*ts about "bad PR", but they give tons of sh*ts about trademark and copyright.

They'll finagle something. They're not ever going to let their company mascot become public domain. Laws are just words on paper, and said words get amended constantly, especially when people have lots and lots of money on their side.

Looking at the fanfiction that exists on the internet, I can't believe anyone would even WANT certain popular characters to become public domain. Like it or not, corporate gatekeeping is necessary to a degree in order to preserve the integrity of certain things. It's bad enough that some people bother writing Mickey/Donald slash fics in the first place, but so long as Disney holds the rights to the characters at least those people can't make any money off of such nonsense.

[sdp]

If copyright was going to be extended it would've happened a few years ago, no one cared to fight it because the government now see's value in freeing up rights to old stuff in the age of the internet, stuff is more public and it'd be hard to do without people going up in arms about it. Mickey, Superman and everyone else is slowly going to be public domain. Granted it won't be Mickey as we know now, just like The little mermaid from the books is not the red headed (african-american?) Disney version. It'll start only with the black and white mickey and no one will dare to make him look like the copyrighted Mickey Mouse until those rights expire. Disney knows the Disney brand is important.

Anyone can make dinosaur toys since they're in the public domain, kids love dinosaurs and yet Jurassic Park dinosaur toys sell better than non-licensed ones. branding matters, Disney isn't afraid when they built their empire using public domain works anyone could do stories (and many have) of those same characters. You won't see the world flooded with stories since it still takes money to get them made and good ideas. This will be a renaissance of some of those characters since actual work being put into some projects will be released. No more half assed Superman/Batman stories from DC.

Originally Posted by Jester

Disney ain't losing the Mouse. They'll....um...find a way.

But they are, and there's no "other way".

[Wildcat]

They had murals taken out of day cares not hospitals. It was in the 80s. That’s all I could find on that.

It was unnecessary but why bother painting characters on your company walls when you can buy posters? Don’t they sell giant stickers? Even back then.

I linked this before so I’m sure losing Black and White Mickey is possible but I’m skeptical. https://lavoz.bard.edu/articles/index.php?id=1206643

It’s pretty bizarre to see their website. http://www.mickey.com.py/

About the copyright/public domain thing I lean more towards characters staying with rights holders. Especially if it’s a giant brand. Reasonable use like fan art and projects are fine of course.

I mentioned there’s companies that seem to use Sonic as their mascot. Sega is apparently ok with it. Which is cool of them because they’re not exploiting the character and are using him under good terms.

Never heard of MSCHF before. Obviously just trash.

[CyberCubed]

I always used to see stuff on doctor/dentist office of Nintendo characters all over the walls. Like Mario, Donkey Kong, Pokemon, etc...and you can tell that stuff wasn't official but just painted there and advertised for their place. Even on amusement park rides.

I suppose that stuff was also copyright infringement if Nintendo ever found out about it

[sdp]

If companies don't "protect" their trademark they lose it, so that's why you ocationaly see on the news that "Big company went for little company that helps society" in the news from time to time. It's bad PR but if in court it's proven that the big company knew of someone else using their characters illegally and they didn't do anything about it they lose the trademark, it's basically that. If they're made aware they need to take some action. They don't really care if a daycare uses the characters, they likely like the free advertisement but from time to time they need to take action.

[Ninja Toitles]

DC is having the same problem with Superman. Lots of aging characters

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Here are some examples of what could have been public domain if the pre-1976 American copyright law.

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/public...2021/pre-1976/

[oldmanwinters]

Probably the most succinct and accurate internet resource on U.S. copyright law and public domain:
https://copyright.cornell.edu/publicdomain

[neatoman]

Something entering the public domain isn't quite the same thing as "losing the rights". They won't have the exclusive rights to the character anymore, they can still use him in new projects as much as they want to, they just can't prevent anyone else from doing the same thing. The extenstion of copyright duration really something they shouldn't have lobbied for in the first place, very few franchises are still profitable after 50 years, I'm honestly not sure how important Mickey Mouse is to the Disney corporation's profit compared to everything else they've had going since 1998 but I'm willing to bet it hasn't even been a drop in the bucket.

[CyberCubed]

Isn't the same thing going to happen to Superman and Batman in a few years? I think THAT will be a bigger deal because then companies like Marvel or anyone can start making their own Batman/Superman comics or movies or cartoons.

[sdp]

If anything I think new laws will be passed that will shorten public domain for newer works. It'll really get interesting, life of the author plus an additional 70 years is just ridiculous. I'm sad I'll never get to know what TMNT is in the public domain. We'll definitely start seeing an explosion of creativity as some rights are slowly released over the next decades though. I don't understand people who cling to having big companies remain the sole proprietary owners in perpetuity, ridiculous.

[CyberCubed]

Technically these days people are selling fanart of copyrighted characters all the time on paetron or whatever, as well as making their own toys, and of course fanfiction has always existed in general. So you always see regular people making their own stuff with licensed characters anyway.

[superstaff]

If Mickey ever goes into public domain, I'm going to miss all the 'bootleg' Mickey parodies I've seen over the years like Lester the Possum, Billy Bat, Bizzy Bee, Chuck E. Chee-- well, maybe the last one isn't really a Mickey spoof, but you get the picture.

[oldmanwinters]

I do think a future world where (some version of) Mickey Mouse and Superman are as public domain as Dracula and Frankenstein would be quite interesting. I welcome it.

I mean, "Thor" is public domain, but that never stopped Marvel from doing their thing with the IP.

[MrPliggins]

If Mickey does go public domain, it will only be the "original" version of Mickey from the early cartoons like Steamboat Willie.
Like, the Fleischer Superman cartoons are in the public domain, but only that specific version and those specific stories.
But...Disney will find a way. They are single-handedly responsible for the changes in public domain laws we've had for the past few decades.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by MrPliggins

If Mickey does go public domain, it will only be the "original" version of Mickey from the early cartoons like Steamboat Willie.
Like, the Fleischer Superman cartoons are in the public domain, but only that specific version and those specific stories.
But...Disney will find a way. They are single-handedly responsible for the changes in public domain laws we've had for the past few decades.

I must admit I'm not 100% certain how copyright law/P.D. relates to Intellectual Properties. Sure, any fixed work (book, film, etc.) goes into P.D. a fixed date, but how does that affect the ongoing rights to a fictional character? Like you mentioned, Trademark protections are still in effect for elements added to a character after creation, but when Steamboat Willie finally becomes the world's cartoon, can any random person or company start using Walt Disney's original drawing of Mickey Mouse for profit?

This past New Year's Day saw the first public domaining of anything regarding Winnie the Pooh:
https://news.temple.edu/news/2022-01...e's%20work