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Comment by chris_wot | Hacker News Reader

Anyone wonder why Mickey Mouse is no longer the signature Disney character any more? I think we know why now. No more control over the character.

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Mickey Mouse is a terrible, boring character that nobody cares about.

Disney can keep using him as a trademarked corporate logo, that's all they really need.

> Mickey Mouse is a terrible, boring character that nobody cares about.

That is funny, because I think most Germans born in the 80ies to mid 90ies would disagree. We got a daring adventurer and a hard-boiled detective. I don't think it was content specifically produced by the German publisher for the German market, but it is possible, that there was more focus on that content opposed to "classic mickey".

Edit: I looked it up: It looks like the detective stories were English, but first compiled for Denmark, whereas the adventurer stories were from the Italian publication "Topolino".

In Sweden most of the donald duck/mikey mouse comics are translated from Italy, occasionally from Brazil.

Coming from Italy, my perception of disney characters is completely skewed and I did not realize it.

I was passionate about PK (paperinik or super donald duck), but that is not a thing in north america!

> I was passionate about PK (paperinik or super donald duck)

He is called Phantomias in Germany.

Disney+ uses a little clip of "Steamboat Willie" in the leaders to streamed Disney movies. Making out-of-copyright Steamboat Willie into a trademark thing muddies the waters at least a little, and I'd guess that's why Disney+ uses it.

They've been using rubber hose Mickey for marketing a lot more in the last 10 years for this reason.

Have young kids? Mickey Mouse is very prominent, if not the signature character, of Disney Jr. Prominent in shows, branding, and interstitials.

https://disneynow.com/all-shows/disney-junior?group=kidsafe&...

Mickey Mouse is still the signature mascot of Disney. There's a massive difference between copyright and trademark.

Legally, yes, but even there the PR flacks confuse the issue by lumping trademark, copyright, patent and sometimes even trade secrets under "intellectual property".

I believe he is still trademarked though, isn't he?

who is the central mascot then

spiderman

I hope you're joking. Spider-man is owned entirely by Sony. It is only by a tenuous contract that Disney was able to get Spider-Man into the MCU.

Sony has film rights only, for as long as they produce a new Spider-Man movie every five years.

Wow. No.

Spider-Man is owned by Marvel, which is owned by Disney.

Sony has an exclusive license to the film rights which they will eventually lose and cede back to Disney.

> Sony has an exclusive license to the film rights which they will eventually lose and cede back to Disney.

Not if they keep making a reboot and two sequels every few years (contract is one film every 5 years, AFAIK)

Spider-Man is almost entirely owned by Marvel. Spider-Man's live action movie rights are owned by Sony as long as they produce at least one film with the character every 5 years and 9 months. This includes co-producing them with Marvel. Universal owns the film rights to both solo Hulk and Namor films. Finally, Fox owned the right to make 13 X-Men films, Fantastic Four, and Deadpool films over 20 years, but Disney bought those rights back.

The film rights are owned by Sony. As part of the deal in relinquishing some creative control to Disney for the MCU, Sony also has exclusivity to Spider-Man centric video games (e.g., other games, like Midnight Suns, can use Spider-Man as a supporting character, but not the primary character).

Funnily, Nintendo got Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 which had Spiderman.

How does this work? It feels silly that someone can use Mickey Mouse and create cartoons and stories?

What about something like Mario? Will it eventually go in public domain as well?

Yes. That’s how the public domain works.

How is it sillier that any someone can use Mickey Mouse for whatever than that someone can use Mickey Mouse to create cartoons, but only some random people who happen to be hired by a specific giant corporation?

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