1st Mickey Mouse copyright ends
ICONIC | The mischievous rodent debuted in the 1928 cartoon “Steamboat Willie.” (Agence France-Presse)
LOS ANGELES — Almost a century after his big-screen debut, Mickey Mouse enters the public domain on New Year’s Day, opening the floodgates to potential remakes, spinoffs, adaptations … and legal battles with Disney.
The copyright on “Steamboat Willie” — a short black-and-white 1928 animation that first introduced the mischievous rodent who would become emblematic of American pop culture — expires after 95 years on Jan. 1, under US law.
But a vital caveat is that later versions of the character, like those in the 1940 film “Fantasia,” are not in the public domain, and cannot be copied without a visit from Disney’s lawyers.
Still, the date looms large on the calendars of everyone from filmmakers, fans, and intellectual property lawyers to Disney executives, who in the past helped lobby to change the law to prolong US copyright terms.
“This is a deeply symbolic, highly anticipated moment,” said Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain.
Anyone is now free to copy, share, reuse, and adapt “Steamboat Willie” and “Plane Crazy” — another 1928 Disney animation — and the early versions of the characters that appear within them, including Mickey and Minnie.
But it will not be plain sailing. In a statement to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Disney said it would “continue to protect our rights in the more modern versions of Mickey Mouse and other works that remain subject to copyright.”
Later Mickey cartoons
Justin Hughes, a professor at Loyola Law School, noted: “What’s in the public domain is kind of a frightful little black-and-white animal.”
Indeed, the version of Mickey in “Steamboat Willie” is a spindly, roguish creature who would not be recognizable to many younger viewers.
But artists would be free, for instance, to create a “climate change awareness version” of “Steamboat Willie” in which Mickey’s ship runs aground on a dry riverbed or a feminist retelling where Minnie takes the wheel, Jenkins said.
