3 ms·
Headline 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 t
by D13Fd 4y ago
Headline 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.