Free Mickey
Despite its best efforts, Disney has lost the rights to Mickey Mouse — vintage Mickey, that is. The mouse’s first iteration, which appeared in the 1928 short film Steamboat Willie, is now in the public domain, meaning that anyone can take the old likeness of Mickey and use it as they wish.
Disney has been fighting copyright law for years to keep this from happening. Thanks in part to lobbying from Disney, the United States expanded copyright law in 1976 and again in 1998 with a law that detractors called the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act.” As the law currently stands, intellectual property enters the public domain after a maximum of 95 years.
Vintage Mickey isn’t the only thing now available to be memed or unceremoniously dropped into various movies or pieces of art. A. A. Milne’s The House at Pooh Corner (including Winnie the Pooh’s pal Tigger), Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography, and J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan play, among others, have also broken free of copyright as of Jan. 1.
But none have created such a stir as Mickey. Already, a Mickey Mouse horror film is set to release this year, with a disclaimer under the trailer strategically noting that it is not “affiliated or endorsed by Disney in any way.” Disney may not have been able to keep Steamboat Willie’s Mickey, but it has crafted a trademark on Mickey as a corporate mascot, meaning it’s still illegal to present a non-Disney-affiliated Mickey as being connected to the corporation.
For creative types, this still gives them plenty of leeway. And if Disney is displeased with the horror film — or the other horror film, or the video game — wait till it sees the memes. On the internet, Mickey is already up to all sorts of mischief, and one conservative political commentator even suggested that he should become a tool to make the Disney brand toxic: “We need to turn Mickey into a Nazi.”
Without a doubt, Mickey’s entrance into the public domain is a blow to an already struggling Disney, no matter how cleverly it continues to push back. Disney has been hemorrhaging money and fans, which prompted its CEO to say in September that it would “quiet the noise” around liberal initiatives such as its war with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).
Then, there’s the fact that it seems pathologically incapable of coming up with original content. In this area, the debut of public domain Mickey may do some good. When everyone has the ability to do what Disney does, create uninspired content featuring nothing notable besides characters with name recognition, maybe Disney will finally have to create something new. Then, it will have something else to keep for the next 95 years.