It's incredibly ironic that under the copyright terms Disney has helped get enacted, several earlier films in particular Alice in Wonderland would have been infringement. Crossing a rope bridge and cutting it down behind you.
The public domain works like Snow White and Cinderella were hundreds of years old when Disney made their versions, and they have no issues with others making their own versions of these fairy tales (because there is only one "Disney's Snow White").
And Disney is perfectly fine with paying for the rights to IP to adapt into films, as with Alice in Wonderland, the MCU, etc.
Actually, Disney is incredibly aggressive legally when it comes to other people trying to use Germanic fairy tales in their own works, even if it's completely independent from Disney and there's no risk of confusion.
They've been able to shut down a lot of stuff that's almost certainly legal under the law, simply because nobody is able to take on a protracted legal fight with the megacorp.
Citation needed.
In the past decade there have been more than a dozen movies based on the same Germanic fairy tales that Disney has exploited. Disney didn't sue over any of them.
Disney didn't even sue over Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, and that is based on the version of Winnie the Pooh that they actually own. (The original stories and characters are now in the public domain though.)
Let's mention that these stories were in public domain for literal centuries.
Disney didn’t mind paying for the rights to adapt copyrighted material, like they did for Bambi, Dumbo, Peter Pan etc.
Because the copyright holders at the time were much smaller and less astute.
You try to get the rights for a TV show based on Frozen. Disney will probably not sell those rights to you at any price.
You think Disney IP should be free for all to use? Just remember this would go both ways - Disney could take the work of any independent author or artist and use freely without crediting.
At least the older stuff should become public domain.
They're trying to have their cake and eat it.
It's not normal or sane or good for society that things created 70+ years ago are still locked up in a corporate vault.
You just can’t use the exact character design of Anna and Elsa, but why would you want that anyway?
Certainly things more valuable to humanity (like land or real estate) is loced up in corporate vaults.
Your conflict is self-created and can also be undone.
I think it is ridiculous to think it might happen. It is like asking Apple to sell you M3 chips. They will use it on their own devices in the same way that Disney could make that TV show end-to-end for years, if not a lifetime. Think in the Star Wars brand.
Simultaneously they partner with Lego and other companies for franchising.
While I understand where you are coming from, it's obvious they would. They are a public company, responsible to the shareholders, yadda, yadda. It's another question whether it would make economical sense to pay such a price which would likely run into the tens of billions.
Even now, book adaptations into movies, series, etc happen all the time. Even Disney still lets various companies (including freaking Warner Bros) make video games of its various IPs.
The dynamic here isn't about being astute, it's about well-positioned for a given market. If Disney thought a Frozen show was a good idea, they'd produce it themselves (like they did for Tangled and various others). For markets where they don't have / don't want to have an internal talent pool (RIP LucasArts), they rent the license.
Disney bought the rights to Peter Pan from Paramount Pictures in 1938. At the time, Disney was a small fraction of the size of Paramount Pictures.
The original author of Bambi sold the motion picture rights to his film in 1936 for $1000 USD to a film producer...Disney was not the purchaser. Disney bought those rights from the producer for an undisclosed amount.
Disney bought the rights to Dumbo for $1000 plus royalties on the book sales. (At the time Dumbo was a very simple, very short story intended as promotional content for a new type of book called a "roll-a-book". It sold very few copies, and would have been a historical footnote if not for the unexpected success of the film.)
Disney bought the rights to Winnie the Pooh and paid royalties to the Milne family for decades, before shelling out $350 million to buy the entire rights in 2001. (Disney originally paid $1000 for the merchandising rights to the merchandising rights holder, it's not clear how much they paid for the film rights but given that the Pooh books were a huge commercial success, estimates are somewhere between $100k and $1million in 195x dollars.)
Using public domain stories enabled others to easily produce cheap knockoffs legally, and they did. So, for instance you you had direct-to-video, cheaply made versions of "Cinderella" which were an attempt to trick unsuspecting buyers who really wanted the Disney version.
When some work is still under copyright, that makes is a higher bar for knockoff producers than for Disney. Disney has more money, more and better lawyers, and is known for the quality of its work, which makes it in a better position to negotiate the rights.
Heads they win. Tails you lose.