23 ms·

> If that's true, then why does Disney care whether the copyright expires? Disney spends millions a year promoting the Mickey Mouse brand. If anyone could use

> If that's true, then why does Disney care whether the copyright expires? Disney spends millions a year promoting the Mickey Mouse brand. If anyone could use the brand then they would be freely benefiting from that.

exodust 11y ago
You've missed the point, which is that even if the copyright expired on Mickey, Disney might have another legal option to protect him, as explained at the end of the article. But I think as someone else suggested, the reason they care is because of not just Mickey, but their back catalogue of other material which may not fall under that same brand protection. And because Disney doesn't know any better than to continue their campaign of paying people off to get their precious copyright extensions. It's what they do. Public domain works are an important creative incentive for new works and increased availability of art. Old and new Art enriches our culture, is a source of wisdom and inspiration for young and old, and the more we have the better. We need a strong connection with out artistic past. Society is worse off for this Disney sponsored 100 year blind spot in our cultural rear mirrors.
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  Words are (1) public domain, and (2) eligible to be trademarks. Suppose you make paper, but instead of white, it's light blue. You sell it under the brand "Blue Paper". You can (I believe) trademark that (for example, your logo probably has the words in a particular font), but you can't stop anyone else from selling blue paper as "Blue Paper", because that's purely descriptive of the product. Similarly, once a video featuring Mickey Mouse is out of copyright, it's perfectly OK for people to sell that video. And it seems to me that they could defend using an image of Mickey Mouse on the packaging, under the same logic -- despite the fact that the image of Mickey is trademarked by Disney for the purpose of selling cartoons. It's not obvious that the trademark is actually protective there.
  - exodust 11y ago
    But that video would be easy to obtain for anyone, so the business model of selling it would not be a threat to Disney. Further more, if you're in the business of selling public domain works, don't expect the courts to protect you when Disney comes knocking about your use of their character on the video cover. Even though you can sell the video, you don't own the rights. You would have very little to say in court except "I want to make money from public domain art". And you wouldn't be permitted to sell collections of Disney films, even those expired. From what I understand, that is not allowed when selling public domain works. For example you wouldn't be allowed to sell a "best of old Disney films" collection, or have a website called "Mickey Mouse Movie Store", even if all the movies were in the public domain.
  - fryguy 11y ago
    You would presumably be able to create derivative works based on Steamboat Willie, but not reference things that happen in things that are still under copyright, as is the case with Sherlock Holmes (http://io9.gizmodo.com/us-judge-rules-sherlock-holmes-and-watson-are-in-the-pu-1490854362 http://io9.gizmodo.com/us-judge-rules-sherlock-holmes-and-wa...)

exodust 11y ago

You've missed the point, which is that even if the copyright expired on Mickey, Disney might have another legal option to protect him, as explained at the end of the article. But I think as someone else suggested, the reason they care is because of not just Mickey, but their back catalogue of other material which may not fall under that same brand protection. And because Disney doesn't know any better than to continue their campaign of paying people off to get their precious copyright extensions. It's what they do. Public domain works are an important creative incentive for new works and increased availability of art. Old and new Art enriches our culture, is a source of wisdom and inspiration for young and old, and the more we have the better. We need a strong connection with out artistic past. Society is worse off for this Disney sponsored 100 year blind spot in our cultural rear mirrors.

thaumasiotes 11y ago
Words are (1) public domain, and (2) eligible to be trademarks. Suppose you make paper, but instead of white, it's light blue. You sell it under the brand "Blue Paper". You can (I believe) trademark that (for example, your logo probably has the words in a particular font), but you can't stop anyone else from selling blue paper as "Blue Paper", because that's purely descriptive of the product. Similarly, once a video featuring Mickey Mouse is out of copyright, it's perfectly OK for people to sell that video. And it seems to me that they could defend using an image of Mickey Mouse on the packaging, under the same logic -- despite the fact that the image of Mickey is trademarked by Disney for the purpose of selling cartoons. It's not obvious that the trademark is actually protective there.
- exodust 11y ago
  But that video would be easy to obtain for anyone, so the business model of selling it would not be a threat to Disney. Further more, if you're in the business of selling public domain works, don't expect the courts to protect you when Disney comes knocking about your use of their character on the video cover. Even though you can sell the video, you don't own the rights. You would have very little to say in court except "I want to make money from public domain art". And you wouldn't be permitted to sell collections of Disney films, even those expired. From what I understand, that is not allowed when selling public domain works. For example you wouldn't be allowed to sell a "best of old Disney films" collection, or have a website called "Mickey Mouse Movie Store", even if all the movies were in the public domain.
- fryguy 11y ago
  You would presumably be able to create derivative works based on Steamboat Willie, but not reference things that happen in things that are still under copyright, as is the case with Sherlock Holmes (http://io9.gizmodo.com/us-judge-rules-sherlock-holmes-and-watson-are-in-the-pu-1490854362 http://io9.gizmodo.com/us-judge-rules-sherlock-holmes-and-wa...)