Disney’s nightmare as early Mickey Mouse character enters public domain

At the House of Mouse, the mouse reigns supreme – and the house is hugely litigious. Disney, which once chased a Florida childcare centre to remove an unofficial Minnie Mouse mural and told a stonemason that carving Winnie-the-Pooh into a child’s gravestone would violate their copyright, has lost control over the earliest iteration of Mickey Mouse after their 1928 short Steamboat Willie entered the public domain on January 1st.

Within hours, people were having fun remixing Steamboat Willie’s whistle into dubstep dance music, turning him into NFTs, and having him swear, shoot people and crash the Titanic.

A poster and teaser trailer were revealed for Mickey’s Mouse Trap, a horror film in which a masked killer dressed as Mickey Mouse attacks a group of young people in an arcade. Mickey’s Mouse Trap has yet to secure a distributor, but the Hollywood Reporter reported that the film’s producers were aiming for a March release.

Also on Monday, video game developer Nightmare Forge revealed the trailer for Infestation 88, a horror game that sees a haunted-looking Steamboat Willie hunt the player down in a dark warehouse – two weeks after game developer Fumi released a trailer for a noirish “jazz-filled shooter” called Mouse, in which you play a Steamboat Willie-like gangster mouse causing bloody havoc.

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How did this happen?

As one of the most instantly recognisable characters in the world, Mickey Mouse has been fiercely protected by Disney for decades. The copyright protection on Walt Disney’s 1928 animated short Steamboat Willie was initially due to expire in 1984, but Disney lobbied to have US copyright laws changed to cover the “life of the author plus 50 years”, which protected Willie until 2003.

Then in 1998, Disney (along with several entertainment companies, including Universal) successfully lobbied to have copyright protection extended again to the “life of the author plus 70 years” or 95 years after publication, whichever ends earlier. This extension to the copyright act protected Willie until the end of 2023 and was mockingly dubbed the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.

Other 1928 works and creations in the US public domain as of January 1st include Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, JM Barrie’s Peter Pan, All Quiet on the Western Front and Winnie-the-Pooh’s friend Tigger. Just like Mickey, when Pooh lost copyright protection in 2022, he ended up becoming a serial killer in a slasher flick.

Does this apply globally?

Anyone in the US can make use of the 1928 short to create new stories and artwork depicting Steamboat Willie. But as copyright protections vary from country to country, Steamboat Willie will remain protected until at least 2042 in some jurisdictions that extend protection to works 70 years after the death of the last remaining author or creator – and Steamboat Willie’s co-creator Ub Iwerks died in 1971.

But some countries will only give Steamboat Willie the copyright protection guaranteed by the country it was created in, meaning it will be in the public domain there too. If you want to use Steamboat Willie, research your country’s copyright laws.

In Ireland, for instance, copyright protection can extend to 70 years from the author’s death but it depends on the type of work.

Can people really do anything they want?

No. Crucially, while Steamboat Willie has lost copyright protection in the US and other countries, Mickey Mouse as we know him remains under copyright.

In Steamboat Willie, Mickey has a pointier nose, a long tail, no pupils – and no voice. Later versions of Mickey, with his big eyes and red shorts, remain protected by copyright – but they, too, will enter the public domain over the coming decades.

Mickey is also a trademark, which can be renewed indefinitely by Disney. This could be used by the company to maintain some control over use of the character; for instance, Pooh does not wear a red shirt in the slasher flick Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey because Disney has that depiction of the bear trademarked.

And as Disney has made clear, it is watching closely. “More modern versions of Mickey will remain unaffected by the expiration of the Steamboat Willie copyright, and Mickey will continue to play a leading role as a global ambassador for the Walt Disney Company in our storytelling, theme park attractions, and merchandise,” the company said in a statement last week.

“We will, of course, continue to protect our rights in the more modern versions of Mickey Mouse and other works that remain subject to copyright.” – Guardian