Disney loses famous Mickey Mouse copyright in 2024, along with many others

For those who haven't figured it out, it's the first Mickey Mouse design to end up in the public domain, not the character itself

What a way to end Disney's 100th Anniversary

It astounds me that Disney is against copyright infringement when their entire early catalog was based upon work written by other people, primarily in western Europe (eg. Grimm brothers etc.)

They didn’t “lose” anything, it just finally went to Public Domain after 95 years

I'm so glad they acknowledged that Disney also just repackages older stories, they're built on works in the public domain

i don't think i've ever seen a news agency openly fire shots at a company like Disney in this way. directly pointing at Walt Disney using public domain works, and also how Disney played a part in IP extensions. Actually pretty respectable reporting here ngl.

I love the fact that CBS still had to pay for the footage since they published it one day ahead of New Years Eve

God it is about time this happened. Every single time it came close to this Disney would somehow find a way to extend copyright, to the point that the 14 year long term of copyright has become a term of Life of the Artist + 70 years, meaning that the maximum term is 180 years (assuming that the artist lives to 110, the oldest a human has been known to live), which is simply insane and subverts the purpose of copyright entirely. I do believe that Disney has tried to fight this, but a maximum term of 220 years sounds absurd even to those in Congress thank god.

Disney has become the epitome of "you either die a hero, or live long enough to become the villain."

It's sickening that copyright expiration dates have been lengthened and lengthened at the behest of corporations like Disney.

Copyright in America was created to put a LIMIT to the typical English guild perpetual appropriation of works. Its original term was 14 years with a single extension of 14 more years, after which it ensured entering the public domain for the promotion of arts and culture that would make derivative works of it (just like Disney and many others did). But corporate interests pushed this to a century or more, almost destroying its original purpose. This is why Lawrence Lessig and others came up with Creative Commons, so that authors have a choice to declare their works from Public Domain to different levels of reduced copyright. This is why you can use music in your videos online, heroes like Kevin MacLeod declared their works CC and you only need to give attribution OR pay a one fee of $30 per song.

For those who have no clue about this situation, It was actually the first design of Mickey Mouse to end up in Public Domain, not the character itself.

Funny thing is, most of the most known movies of Disney, came from the public domain. Also interesting how they fought to keep the rights longer

They aren’t losing the trademark. They’re losing the copyright. Massive difference.

I love just how quickly the internet responded to Mickey going public domain 😂

About time, should be public domain ages ago. I suppose Disney can still continue to use all those assets if they want to, but so will other artists, and we may see some more quality works hopefully.

Let me make this perfectly clear; Disney’s only losing the old version of Mickey, they’re not losing Mickey entirely.

Can you imagine WB taking advantage of this and giving us another moment where Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse are together at the same time?

Blood and Honey is the exact reason, as an artist, the idea of my work one day becoming open for anyone to use is a little scary. Not like my works are popular enough to be copied someday, but the idea of someone using my characters to do horrible things is troubling.

Good news! The original creator is long gone and it's an atrocity, that a soulless corporation can hold onto the rights so long