The mouse via Steamboat Willie is scheduled to enter public domain? Guess we can look forward to quite eventful three weeks before the end of the year, while Disney is frantically trying to prevent that outcome.
Plus it's only the old, old design of Mickey, not the current version they have been using for awhile that looks more normal to most people these days.
She's watched like one Mickey cartoon on Disney+, and she's seen way more Disney stuff than that. Never been to Disneyland.
But somehow to her, Disney === Mickey/Minnie. Branding is wild stuff.
My grandparents had several tapes of Disney cartoons; they don't have to be broadcast for people to be familiar with them.
First I would read all the Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck stories, then I would read the weird stories (like Goofy [but only if it didn’t involve Micky], Chip ‘n’ Dale or even the Big Bad Wolf), and only if I had nothing else to do, I would first re-read the Donald and Scrooge stories and then finally read Micky.
Growing up I never understood what the big deal was around Micky, objectively the worst of the Disney characters.
I mean it's a compelling breakdown IMO.
He represents so much more than a character, I think in a time when they're expanding portfolios they NEED to keep Mickey to stay Disney if they want to - and imo they should want to.
I don't think that's possible.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_World_of_Micke...
Think of all the Mickey ears that get sold at the parks. Either way there is a boatload of Mickey related revenue still…
Obviously not nothing, and the fact they are close together doesn’t give Disney a ramp down once PD starts affecting them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media...
Still a substantial franchise though, and looks like it got a bit of a boost around 2005 & 2011 where some newer movies got released.
Of course, both times, comments were pretty incredulous that Disney would prevent Steamboat Willie from going public domain. And now we're 3 weeks from that happening, and 1 week from the US House planning to go on recess, and there's no sign of any bill that would extend copyright further. People who pay attention will note that Disney has seemed to prepare for Steamboat Willie going public domain: part of the short now appears as part of their film logo in movies, presumably to enable them to claim it as trademark and sue anyone who tries to upload it into oblivion. Nevertheless, I fully expect quite a few people to do stuff like upload Steamboat Willie to Youtube in January, and it will be interesting to see what the response of that is.
Steamboat Willie is probably the single most famous work to fall into the public domain since Youtube started. It is (formerly) owned by one of the most famously aggressive company in protecting IP. Youtube itself is also owned by an entity that is on the other side of IP law than Disney, but definitely far less aggressive in pushing those claims.
As in, would a new name be needed for any new "Mickey Mouse" animation created using the old Steamboat Willie (mouse) character?
But if there's an episode where that character goes to space or whatever your derivative work can do that too.
Itchy and Scratchy are Tom and Jerry ad absurdum. The Flintstones were somewhere between Tom and Jerry and The Honeymooners. Most of this stuff does not deserve a replay.
There were millions of hunters and millions of stay at home mothers in the 40's during Tom & Jerry's original run, but there's many fewer millions now.
Consider: Women jumped from a third working in 1950 to just over two-thirds (of those who have children under 6, even) working as of the year 2000. We've had another two decades and change plus recessions since then, how much smaller could the demographic be?
I'm as liberal as they come but am from flyover country. Everyone hunts. Women do a lot of the cooking. There are lots of stay at home moms. And everyone is ok with it, shotguns and all.
This is a really bizarre response to hard statistics, just openly denying they exist?
The "average reality" is indeed that mothers work. Stay at home mothers are in the absolute minority and have been for a couple decades.
> I'm going to guess NYC or SF because you don't seem to realize that things actually haven't changed that much. You're describing the woke utopia that the left from those places seem to pine for.
You seem to have uncritically swallowed some narrative using terms like "woke" "liberal" "metropolis" and you've assumed that it'l apply to me.
I'm from neither NYC nor SF and I'm not liberal, now what?
In short nobody but a crazy person or someone with a real deep artistic need that absolutely required that version of Mickey to work would ever pursue it.
And AFAIK they were not sued, despite being ever so slightly off brand for Disney.
I think as well Disney protection of its characters might be a more ingrained than just normal copyright protectionism - Walt was notoriously a bastard to anyone who messed around with not treating Mickey with the respect he deserved.
Lets see how that goes.
1960s underground comix did all that 50 years ago when it was still edgy.
Meanwhile, to keep this at-best modestly interesting historical film locked up for those last few marginal drops of IP, they've kept the entire rest of the culture locked up. Hell of a cost society pays just for that. I'd almost rather we just grant Disney copyright in perpetuity if it would shut them up and leave the rest of the culture alone.
Given that Disney is infamous for its practice of rereleasing its older films periodically and otherwise making them completely unavailable (the "Disney Vault"), it seems that they have a business model which is fully predicated on copyright exclusivity.
Yes, obviously, there's someone buying it when they release it. But even in Marvel's current anemic state I doubt sales of Snow White reaches even .1% of the revenue from The Marvels, a single movie. Their revenue on direct sales of stuff about to go public domain is a rounding error, and nowhere near enough to justify locking up the entire rest of the nation's culture just for that.
Further evidence that it must not be that big a deal is that the Mouse seems to have finally relented and doesn't seem to be lobbying for more extensions anymore.
Well, it's not just the film, it's also everything in it, including (that design of) the characters themselves. When that enters the public domain, anyone can use (that design of) those characters for any purpose, including in their own works that have nothing to do with the Steamboat film. I can go make a platforming video game ala Cuphead using those characters and sell it. While I think that's a good thing for society, you can probably understand why Disney doesn't.
Consult a lawyer for exact details. there are things you can do with the characters after this expires, but the rules are very complex and I don't really understand them.
I kind of expect them to win that. But maybe they won't. Still, I wouldn't touch Mickey with anything less than the metaphorical ten foot pole and a really, really solidly constructed LLC or other corporate structure isolating it from any other asset I care about.
Note I am limiting this to just things they have clear trademark to. Grab the steamboat itself and do as you like. The soundtrack will be up for grabs. But I wouldn't expect to be able to defend myself in a trademark suit with the claim that the Mickey Mouse I used is not copyrighted; I expect the counterargument will basically "Yeah, but who cares? This is a trademark lawsuit".
Okay, yeah that's fair. Thinking strictly about copyright, I think what I said is true, but you're right there's other IP law at play here.
It's not about making money from Steamboat Willie, it's about preventing others from enjoying it without a monetary transaction happening. I'm sure if they could, Disney would rather destroy all copies of a work they weren't making money from than release them for free. Look at game companies fighting against people distributing abandonware. It's not about the value of that particular good--it's about the value of the other things they are trying to sell, and not letting customers get something for nothing.
"The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country."
Is Mickey also a trademark (which never expires) and anything using public domain Mickey would be too similar to their trademark?
> We are making and selling the idea of a MSCHF “Famous Mouse” artwork now, that will not exist–even as a design–until 2024. If you purchase this artwork, we give you a temporary token with a unique code that can be redeemed for the actual piece in 3 years.