How come the owners don’t just trademark these characters to get around the expired copyright?
Wouldn’t that let them block all new material made with those characters?
(Asking for a friend)
Wouldn’t that let them block all new material made with those characters?
(Asking for a friend)
Here is where it gets tricky: Disney also holds trademarks on its characters, including the “Steamboat Willie” version of Mickey Mouse, and trademarks never expire as long as companies keep submitting the proper paperwork. A copyright covers a specific creation (unauthorized copying), but trademarks are designed to protect against consumer confusion — to provide consumers assurance about the source and quality of a creation.
Boiled down, any public domain use of the original Mickey cannot be perceived as coming from Disney, Ms. Ginsburg explained.
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20221227170631/https://www.nytim...
I think its only blows my mind because of how hard Disney protects against that sort of thing. I guess they just can't fight it anymore tho.
It might work for Disney because they have real products and can use Mickey to brand them. Even that won't stop someone from making Steamboat Willy 2. But it might block someone from making MickeyLand Amusement park.
So if Holmes is trademarked I can’t make “Evil Sherlock Holmes Supervillian Movie” but I could write a story wherein he is his usual self.
I believe a trademark just prevents you from releasing a new Sherlock narrative that misleads the public that it's a legitimate story from the original collection.