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Mickey Mouse could soon leave Disney as 95-year copyright expiry nears
- buggythebug 4y agoCan't wait to see him at Fox News
- DocTomoe 4y agoCopyright extension being flown through Congress in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...
- Overtonwindow 4y agoIt’s amazing what governments can do when they really want to… I remember when my home state of Vermont was going to require the labeling of all genetically modified products at the grocery store. Congress moved with such incredible speed to block that from happening.
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago> It’s amazing what governments can do when they really want to… When the get PAID TO, you mean.
- Overtonwindow 4y agoThat's a very good point, but what congress did in the months after extreme, national emergencies (bombing of Pearl Harbor, 9/11, etc.) shows that they can move quickly when they want to. As for paying, it depends on the issue. Laws stopping predatory lending practices overcame the banking industry; the ACA probably overcame spending by the insurance industry. So I don't fully agree that they can move quickly when they're paid to, but money almost certainly moves congress on smaller issues, and those that go by unnoticed.
- jjj123 4y agoJust want to mention that the ACA actually increased insurance premium revenue [1]. It’s not that the law overcame lobbying, the law was transformed by lobbying into something palatable for the insurance industry. 1: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2016/jul/how-has-affordable-care-act-affected-health-insurers-financial https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2...
- chiefalchemist 4y agoWant to? More like are pushed, twisted and perhaps paid to (by interest groups). Being normalized doesn't make it right. The elites' being oblivious to their self-service doesn't make it right either.
- kevinmchugh 4y agoI will be very surprised if that happens. There's been no indications of that in this Congress. The negative press would be pretty obvious, and from all sides. I also don't know that Disney is worried about it. Have they said anything to indicate they're lobbying for it, or worried about the harm to the company if they lose copyright? It'd have to be in their investor statement, right?
- ngcc_hk 4y agoCan they trademark it ? Still remember the copyright law extension mainly for it. Perhaps the political will run out. If so can it be done using proper way.
- philipov 4y agoEven if that were possible, I think a trademark is only valid in the industry you're part of. So, if for example a welding company wanted to put Mickey Mouse on their sign, no reasonable person could confuse their products with Disney's products, so the trademark shouldn't apply. Additionally, every distinct image of Mickey Mouse would have to be registered as its own trademark. Trademarks exist to distinguish competing products from each other. A trademark is a specific image used to make that distinction: it can't cover an entire concept or character.
- HWR_14 4y agoA trademark doesn't have to be a 1:1 copy of a specific image, it can cover an entire character if the company can convince a jury the public is likely to be confused. Or prove me wrong by marketing your Dr. Peanut nuts with a large anthromorphised Dr. Peanut mascot. Or actually, according to you, you could use the same Mr. Peanut mascot in a new pose. Try that. Meanwhile, I know Disney has "Mickey as a Welder" logos, so maybe they would have some claim to your welding shop. Disney is into everything.
- philipov 4y agoYou're right that an entire character is probably trademarkable because two similar logos are likely to be confused for each other, but I don't think that's enough. Disney may depict Mickey as a welder in some logo, but unless Disney is using that mark to identify its products in the welding industry, they ought have no right to interfere with someone else doing so. Trademarks exist so I can't trick people into buying my product instead of your product. So if you're not offering a competing product, you ought have no right to control that use.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
- matheusmoreira 4y agoAlmost a century of government-granted monopoly on a cartoon character. During this time, Disney earned multiple fortunes and was more than adequately rewarded for its creations. It still wants copyright to last even longer.
- ntoskrnl 4y agoI hope the first public-domain animation we see is of Mickey Mouse swimming in a lair of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck
- thegreatdukd 4y agoWe have Mr Mouse in South Park which is far worse in manners compared to your animation
- muzani 4y agoI believe they haven't even bothered extending it after the last one. Disney seem to be moving Mickey out of the limelight, and no longer using the ears as often in branding. They have lots of new and old IP to milk anyway.
- gkoberger 4y agoI guess I just don't understand this. I'm all for patents expiring and I'm against "monopolies". But why does anyone think that Disney, who created Mickey and is actively developing him, should have to let anyone else use him? This isn't something, like a medical device or drug, that would save lives or make anything better if it was more widely available. Disney didn't go crazy with copyright, like copyrighting the concept of an animated mouse. All that will happen is we'll get a bunch of knockoff Mickey Mouse products.
- mikojan 4y agoIf the same copyright laws that apply to the music of Bob Dylan now, had applied to all the music Bob Dylan ripped off there would be no Bob Dylan. Copyright is a bane to human culture.
- tester756 4y agohow much such a copyright is worth?
- itisit 4y agosuch much worth is how a copyright!
- bonestamp2 4y agoI suppose you could look at annual revenue for Mickey Mouse branded products and that would give you a baseline. Mickey surely drives interest in other Disney products so that's why the primary sales are only a baseline.
- iggldiggl 4y agoWouldn't "Mickey Mouse branded products" rather relate to the value of the trademark?
- bonestamp2 4y agoSure, the Mickey Mouse design is part of the trademark and the art is part of the copyright. That's probably why any risk adverse company isn't going to touch this when the copyright expires.
- D13Fd 4y agoHeadline is ridiculous. Even if the earliest embodiments start to go off copyright, Disney doesn’t have to stop using them. It just means other people can, if they can do it without treading on the later works.
- dawnerd 4y agoBut then people have to deal with trademark issues and just Disney litigation in general. They have enough money to make it near impossible for anyone to use it in any meaningful way.
- mkr-hn 4y agoThat's probably why they stopped fighting copyright expiration. It also had the side effect of keeping new things from entering the public domain for them to mine for new trademarkable properties. There's only so many proven franchises to buy that fit Disney's love of simple morality tales.
- 0xcde4c3db 4y agoDisney has been bringing back Steamboat Willie in some contexts, and even bought the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit a while ago. I absolutely wouldn't put it past them to actively cultivate FUD by putting these designs in new productions so that they have a pretext for claiming that people are deriving from new works rather than old ones.
- lven 4y agoInteresting that IP rights on a cartoon character should last 5x longer than IP rights on a piece of technology. Why?
- giantg2 4y agoBecause of lobbying.
- kevinmchugh 4y agoAre we talking about different categories of IP rights? Patents are shorter because it's economically useful to have more people use them sooner. The amount of economic activity lost by people not being able to sell Steamboat Willy on a DVD in a bargain bin is pretty low. Same with the Steamboat Willy sequels we've never gotten
- vimy 4y agoOnly the first iteration of Mickey. Not the iconic design most people instantly recognize. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6c_WgxTsMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6c_WgxTsMo
- Frost1x 4y agoDisney knows once they lose the first battle the rest falls linearly over time. If copyright hadn't extended beyond 14 years, it would all be public now. As of 1976 copyright law, a fairly modern depiction of Mickey IMO would have been public in 2014 and the original in 2003 even with the extension that covered 75 years ownership by corporations. Disney couldn't have any of that manifesting, so we're at 95 years and I won't be surprised if it's extended again (do children even recognize Mickey mouse these days?). The amount of influence wealth had over public policy to prop up its own interests is a continual problem we have in the US. Your average living breathing citizen in the US doesn't have nearly the amount of rights and freedoms that can be actualized as a select minority with deep pockets.
- gkoberger 4y agoThis clip is amazing. It was animated by one guy, Ub Iwerks, in 2 weeks. He would do almost a thousand drawings a day. Walt gets a ton of credit, but early Mickey (and Oswald) is because Ub was a phenomenal animator.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hyperman1 4y agoI wonder what would have happened if copyright was somehow structured differently. To be clear: I find all current IP law overly broad, including copyright. This being said, I have no problem with Disney still 'owning' Mickey Mouse. I also understand the investment made by Disney will cause them to fight to keep it, and the power imbalance will, in the current copyright setup, extend terms forever. But how to balance this with a copyright that protects forgotten works for 75 years after the author's death. I'd like to see some form of short copyright, that easily extends as long as the owner is known and still actively expanding the series. So e.g. abandonware becomes public domain fast. The Disney Vault and other types of artificial scarcity should become illegal. Pratchett is now dead for a few years, and his works should become public about now. But Disney is still expanding the Mickey universe, and they can do so without worries.
- vilhanova 4y ago
- kevinmchugh 4y agoCopyright expiry getting tied to the author's death doesn't make a ton of sense to me? The economic value of an author's work is, if anything, improved by the author's death, but if copyright expires at death or somewhat shortly after, the ability to capture that value disappears. There are contractual ways to structure this such that authors hurt as much as the publisher, but no way to prevent the publisher from losing out when all their competitors can print a book very suddenly. I also can't think of any justification for copyright privileging running series over standalone works. There's already trademark to protect that.
- zeroonetwothree 4y agoThe goal of copyright is to encourage creating works. If you are dead you don’t really accrue the benefit anymore so it’s not motivating you any longer.
- kevinmchugh 4y ago
- moron4hire 4y agoSo this covers basically just "Steamboat Willy", right? But isn't the likeness and name of Mickey Mouse a registered trademark? So just because the specific film "Steamboat Willy" could enter the public domain, that doesn't mean randos can start making their own Mickey Mouse cartoons.
- zeroonetwothree 4y agoA trademark just means you can’t use it to represent something else. You certainly can make Mickey Mouse cartoons as long as you represent the mouse faithfully.
- ipaddr 4y agoSure they can. Using it to represent a similiar business no.
- moron4hire 4y agoWhen I was a kid, there was a local used car dealership owned by a man named Tom Mouse. He used a Mickey Mouse image on the sign for his business. IIRC, he eventually got hit with a copyright violation for it, because this was 30 years ago. But next year, it might fly, because Disney doesn't sell cars. It's hard to imagine how one could make animations using the likeness and name of Mickey Mouse and not have it interpreted as "representing a similar business". Hence my comment.
- throwawaymaths 4y agoI don't get it. It's reasonable for Mickey mouse's trademark to be evergreen -- nobody could put steamboat willy to represent their own company, but how exactly playing a 90 second clip of steamboat willy in a beyond fair use setting (showing a bootleg copy to some friends e.g.) hurts Disney I don't get.
- grishka 4y agoIn a saner world, copyright either only lasts several years, period, or requires exponentially increasing yearly tax payments to maintain.
- Vaslo 4y agoSo basically anything you make or design, I should be allowed to copy it as you get punished with higher and higher taxes to own it solely?
- Eric_WVGG 4y agoNot “as”, it’s “or”
- wetpaws 4y agoYes
- mjmahone17 4y agoYes? The longer something is public for, the less it is “yours”: people start making it their own, whether through remixes and recreations or just stories they want to create. It is good for society to allow ideas that have permeated public consciousness to be built on top of without worrying about legal repercussions.
- ztrww 4y agoOr alternatively there is no more incentive to put any significant effort into creating anything new since anyone can just rehash something that someone else made for much cheaper…
- FractalParadigm 4y agoAnd yet, it already happens today. How many US companies invent something, just to be knocked-off 14-times over by various overseas entities within a year? It's not a once-in-a-while occurrence either, with virtually everything from electronics to fashion getting knocked-off very regularly with little/no repercussions.
- ineedasername 4y agoThe copyright would only be for the original mickey as it appeared in 1928, not more modern representations. Also I'm sure "Mickey Mouse" is trademarked. This is going to be one of those things where being on the right side of the law is meaningless. No publisher is going to touch a Mickey Mouse kids book by a 3rd party author even if the thing is plastered with "Not affiliated with Disney Corp" from cover to cover and watermarked on each page.
- josho 4y agoDisney has planned for this day, they have a defensive moat of trademarks around Mickey Mouse. The stylistic logos, the name, the outfit, etc. The big publishers won’t because they all have licensing agreements with some part of Disney that is too lucrative to risk for some generic knock off mouse story. But we will see smaller entities trying new things with anthropomorphized mice.
- Tao3300 4y agoStill got a while until Song of the South is freed. We should at least carve out exemptions for works of great cultural importance that are deliberately being kept under lock and key. I know there are some sensitive race issues, but seriously, the film won an Oscar. It's easier to see the unabashedly hateful Birth of a Nation than it is to see Song of the South!
- zzo38computer 4y agoGood, the copyright should expire (even, in my opinion, copyright should be abolished). It should not last as long as it did. However, Disney should not abandon characters and other things in their work even if they are not copyright.
- ykevinator2 4y ago17 years for cancer drugs but 95 years for cartoons