Disney spent the last decade or so growing their business (through large acquisitions) to where Mickey is now just small fraction of their worth. So they likely don't really care anymore.

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.

There's a video by Corridor Crew that goes over exactly what you mentioned.

https://youtu.be/u2dIvUAd5QE

Yeah, What I wrote came from that really. I should have mentioned it.

I mean it's a compelling breakdown IMO.

I was shocked to learn my 7yo daughter associates Disney with Mickey and Minnie.

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.

Grew up in the 90s and Mickey was not a significant character in their movies that decade and the old Mickey cartoons were rarely shown. Mario became more famous than Mickey by then, but the mouse logo is ubiquitous, and most people had at least seen Fantasia or clips of the old cartoons.

> Mickey was not a significant character in their movies that decade and the old Mickey cartoons were rarely shown.

My grandparents had several tapes of Disney cartoons; they don't have to be broadcast for people to be familiar with them.

Mickey’s silhouette is still used in various Disney logos, so it’s not too wild a connection to make.

(It's the ears.)

Mickey Mouse clubhouse? Lots of Disney branding still has him. Just asked my 6yr old who the most famous Disney Character is.

It's the ads.

https://www.google.com/search?q=disney&tbm=isch

Where I grew up Donald Duck magazines were super popular (this was during Don Rosa so they were quite good as well). I got a magazine delivered weekly. I remember being a kid and always skipping the Micky Mouse stories as they were always really boring.

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.

Scandinavian, right? It blew my mind to hear about the enduring popularity of Donald Duck at the top of the Disney food chain.

Yes

They trademarked everything they could about him, so it is still a valuable part of the portfolio.

While Mickey may represent a small portion of revenue, it (he?) accounts for a large portion of the Disney brand. It's one of the most recognizable cartoons of all time

When I was a kid Mickey had transcended movie character, he was like the Santa of the Disney world. the M.C. The spirit of Walt in some ways. I think I'd seen maybe one special or fantasia with him actually starring, and even that was after I knew him. My nephews have seen less of him and yet he's still something of a magic benevolent being to them.

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.

> So they likely don't really care anymore.

I don't think that's possible.

And that's exactly why long copyrights stifle innovation and encourage rent seeking and stagnation. As soon as they saw the deadline approaching, they started creating new content (which arguably hasn't been that good, but that's another problem)

I feel like by this point, Mickey is already useless as copyright, but rather as trademark. Will this be how Disney use Mickey in the future?

Disney also spent the last decade making enemies of at least 50% of the power base in Washington to the chances of them getting any favorable treatment in government is slim to none

The MSCHF art collective had a project a few years ago based on this public domain timing: https://mschfxfamousmouse.com/

> 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.

> It was close to entering the public domain in the U.S. several times: each time, copyright protection was extended. It could have entered the public domain in four different years: first in 1955, renewed to 1986, then to 2003 by the Copyright Act of 1976, and then to 2023 by the Copyright Term Extension Act (also known pejoratively as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act”) of 1998. It has been claimed that these extensions were a response by Congress to extensive lobbying by The Walt Disney Company.

So now we can begin to undo all the damage Disney has done by extending copyright beyond any reasonable timeframe, right?

This undos nothing. We just limit damage to what has already been done for this one film. there are other things still in copyright that wouldn't have been, and that damage is still being done, and will until that copyright expires.

They probably realized by now there is not much value left in that old version of Mickey. It's the newer self of Mickey (different looks and character) that brings in the money, but even that is becoming less relevant these days, I think? That's why they have bought so much IP which appeals to more people than Mickey Mouse.

There's actually a an ongoing run of pretty funny cartoons [1] using the old designs and characterization elements, though with a strong streak of more modern absurdist humor.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_World_of_Micke...

Someone pointed out to me that Winnie the Pooh brings in more money than Mickey, and his copyright is just about the same timeframe. Everyone assumes The Mouse is what Disney is shitting bricks over and it's just as likely it's the silly ol' bear instead.

Hmm I’m not sure - that might be true for movies but is it true for merch?

Think of all the Mickey ears that get sold at the parks. Either way there is a boatload of Mickey related revenue still…

Disney doesn't need to rely on IP protection to maintain a hand in merch sales in their own parks.

Sure, but the claim was that Winnie the Pooh currently brings in more money than Mickey.

I don’t have the link anymore but at the time I was sent to a breakdown that was above $5B for all Winnie, and around 4 for Mickey and friends.

Obviously not nothing, and the fact they are close together doesn’t give Disney a ramp down once PD starts affecting them.

This link puts Winnie at about half the merch revenue of Mickey recently.

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.

Pooh as a concept is already in the public domain. Disney's rendition of Pooh doesn't happen until I think sometime in the 1960's, so it'll be a while.

How many kids recognize Pooh without the red shirt? Without it, he's just a bear.

Since having my first kid 15 years ago, I haven't meet a single kid that cares about Mickey in the slightest. Their parents sometimes shove it in their face but you can tell they don't care as much about it as something newer.

Lucky fellow not to have to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

It's been obvious for a few years that Disney wasn't going to pursue extending copyright anymore. It would have been politically difficult at any point in the last few years as the Senate does so little.

To expand on this point a bit, Ars Technica has some articles on the copyright extension saga. In 2019, when works started going into the public domain again in the US, they published https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/a-whole-years-wo... in 2018, they published https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/hollywood-says-i... which had interviews saying that there were no plans for another copyright extension term push.

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.

Where it also gets tricky is the creation of additional Steamboat Willie content - if you want to create and publish new Steamboat Willie stuff, you'll have to be crystal clear that it's not coming from Disney. If it looks like it's coming from Disney, that's when they can step in.

Legally speaking, they have a right to distribute copies. But Youtube isn't required to accept it though, and their copyright claim system is already somewhat notorious for the degree to which non-copyright owners to try to strike down videos for claimed copyright infringement.

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.

Hmmm, is the term "Mickey Mouse" trademarked?

As in, would a new name be needed for any new "Mickey Mouse" animation created using the old Steamboat Willie (mouse) character?

Mickey Mouse is trademarked as a word and as a picture and all kinds of derivatives like the silhouette of his head or the design of the eared hats. You can't use him as a symbol of your business or to suggest that your product comes from Disney, but none of that will stop you from making a new creative work featuring Mickey as he appeared in Steamboat Willie any more than McDonald's can stop you from writing a book where characters eat a Happy Meal.

Makes sense, thanks. :)

You have to make pains to not look like you're representing yourself as Disney, _and_ you can't step on anything Disney did in later Mickey cartoons

Sure you can. You just can't infringe subsequent copyrighted works.

But if there's an episode where that character goes to space or whatever your derivative work can do that too.

More importantly, those who care about the public domain were not paying attention the last time. They are now, so Disney realizes that it will be a harder sell. As soon as they get someone to propose a laws letters will be written. There is one thing more powerful than money in politics and that is votes. Letters to congress are a proxy for votes and so nobody will risk another extension.

Not to mention that Disney has run afoul of both parties a handful of times over the last decade, so it's a challenge to find support on either side.

The timelessness of those old cartoons has waned considerably. GenX was already getting reruns of Disney and Looney Tunes cartoons that were aimed at Boomers. As the boomers are aging out, a lot of the slices of both domestic life and leisure time in these cartoons are something alien. Women in the kitchen? Hunting rabbits? And with a shotgun? Really?

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.

Neither of those things are alien. A world exists outside of whatever metropolis you think is the center of the universe. Millions and millions of people hunt and millions and millions of women are primary caretakers or stay at home moms.

I would say the world shown in those cartoons is alien to viewers of today.

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 have no idea where you live but you are completely disconnected from the average reality. 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.

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.

> I have no idea where you live but you are completely disconnected from the average reality.

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?

I recently attended a 90 minute marathon of those old cartoons. At least those 90 minutes absolutely hold up. Quite a few of them had themes that sailed right over your (and my) head when we watched them as kids. e.g. What's Opera, Doc? and Rabbit of Seville

In general, I appreciated the Warner Brothers (vs. Hanna Barbera etc.) cartoons much more after I got a bit older than when I was a young kid.

They wont. Corridor Crew did a good little video on this topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2dIvUAd5QE

It's my understanding that they still retain a lot of control over Mickey Mouse indefinitely because he is trademarked as the face of their company.

There's a distinction between trademark and copyright, and the ability to imply a Disney source and to include Mickey in your work are not controlled in the same way. Using the 1928 Mouse in your work while making it clear your work doesn't originate with Disney wouldn't violate trademark law.

that would first of all take a lot of work to make it absolutely clear, a lot of work to use the mouse, and finally a lot of work to fight the lawsuits until it was established that you didn't violate and could do what you were doing.

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.

It took one year from Winnie the Pooh entering the public domain to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh:_Blood_and_Hon...

And AFAIK they were not sued, despite being ever so slightly off brand for Disney.

Plenty of Disney characters like Snow White or Cinderella have been public domain all the time without it hurting Disney.

I'm working on a "Pedophile Willy" adaptation of Steamboat Willy, complete with raw (stick figure) sex scenes and Willy promoting the "pedophile lifestyle".

Lets see how that goes.

Nobody will care about your stick figures.

1960s underground comix did all that 50 years ago when it was still edgy.

OK, yeah I remember seeing that - not seeing the film but seeing it existed. On the other hand that is understood as a property that originally was not 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.

That's almost the most infuriating thing about their copyright grabs; it hardly even gets them anything of interest. They're not making any money on the actual Steamboat Willie movie. We're still a ways away from anything of even modest commercial interest from Disney entering the public domain, and even when Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs does finally come into public domain, I can't imagine it meaningfully affects their bottom line. The ability to roll into a store and just buy it isn't going to meaningfully affect Disney. Meanwhile, they still have all the trademark control, which itself means you can't really do anything to Steamboat Willie that would "offend" Disney. (I'm going to just leave that vague for now.)

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.

> Meanwhile, to keep this at-best modestly interesting historical film locked up

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.

Those characters are trademarked, and Disney has a good case that they are still using those trademarks. Trademark is different from copyright - it doesn't expire, but also has more use it or lose it parts, along with defend it or lose it. Disney is doing both with most of the characters so if you try to use Micky mouse in anything you are likely to lose a lawsuit.

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 would be unsurprised Disney has skeletal outlines of lawsuits in place already asserting that uses of Mickey Mouse from Steamboat Willie in an unrelated video game or something violates their trademark, and are just waiting to fill in the blank for the first person audacious enough to do it.

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".

> violates their trademark

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.

> even when Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs does finally come into public domain, I can't imagine it meaningfully affects their bottom line.

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.

The word "meaningfully" was there for a reason.

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.

> That's almost the most infuriating thing about their copyright grabs; it hardly even gets them anything of interest. They're not making any money on the actual Steamboat Willie movie.

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."

What would happen in practice if someone tried to use the public domain Mickey for something? I assume that regardless of the legal status, you'd still have a fun time with Disney lawyers proving in court that you had the right to use public domain Mickey.

Is Mickey also a trademark (which never expires) and anything using public domain Mickey would be too similar to their trademark?

Yeah Mickey is a trademark. Now I could remake Steamboat Willy with characters that weren't trademarked. Previously I could not depict either without getting sued.