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Disney Animation has been using a clip from Steamboat Willy (and the song) as their opening bumper for years. It was originally done when John Lassiter took ov

Disney Animation has been using a clip from Steamboat Willy (and the song) as their opening bumper for years. It was originally done when John Lassiter took over Disney Animation as an homage to his idol Walt. But some IP lawyers have said that it may also make it impossible to use Steamboat Willy in the public domain because they could claim you're violating their copyright on their bumper. Will be interesting to see if that gets tested.

humanrebar 3y ago
I always thought it would be establishing "Willie" as precisely a trademark to invoke that side of IP law.
deleted 3y ago
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dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
> could claim you're violating their copyright on their bumper That's not how it works, the use of Steamboat Willy in the bumper and public domain use just share the same source material, and Disney can't claim copyright on that source material since they no longer own it. Someone would have to copy the actual bumper to make it copyright infringement.
- tga_d 3y ago
  They presumably meant trademark, not copyright. I.e., if you use Steamboat Willie in anything that Disney could plausibly make with Steamboat Willie, they could argue that the character isn't being used as a character, but to imply endorsement by Disney, violating the trademark.
  - BizarroLand 3y ago
    I'd take that bet. I know 3 different law firms with deep pockets that know that when Disney loses the case they will have to pay all of the lawyer fees. After all, that portion of Mickey Mouse will also be entering public domain, so Disney won't own Mickey exclusively anymore either. Same as the non-red shirt version of Winnie the Pooh.
CSMastermind 3y ago
This reminds me of the copy protection on the original Gameboy. So Nintendo makes the Gameboy, and they only want authorized games to be used in the system. But how can they stop someone from looking at the hardware and making a compatible game without paying a license fee? Well, they build a check into the hardware for a specific set of assembly code on the cartridge. If your cart doesn't have that exact assembly it won't boot up. The code? It displays the Nintendo logo on the screen and plays their jingle. That way, if you did make an unauthorized cartridge, you'd have to infringe on their trademark in order to make the game playable.
- sn00tz00t 3y ago
  damn thats big brain
  - andrewxdiamond 3y ago
    It also didn’t work, both technically and legally > This has however been rendered pointless once the courts ruled in Accolade's favor in Sega v. Accolade, where Sega's trademark enforcement system was questioned as being monopolistic, and bypassing it by third parties on the grounds that it is for the purposes of lawful interoperability was ruled as fair use. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/CopyProtection/Nintendo https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/CopyProtection/Ninten...
- spicyjpeg 3y ago
  Nintendo wasn't actually the first company to implement cartridge logo checks. Sega did it first with their "Trademark Security System" or TMSS, which worked in pretty much the same way, but then lost in a US court case against Accolade as the judges deemed that anything strictly required for games to work could not be protected by copyright or trademark law. Despite the precedent however, the same idea kept popping up in many subsequent consoles and even some non-gaming products: - The original PlayStation reads the logo that gets displayed on the startup screen from the first 16 sectors of the disc. Notably, US consoles will not validate the logo against a known good copy - possibly hinting at the fact Sony was aware of the TMSS case - but Japanese and late European models will. - Similarly, PS2 games must contain a bitmap of the startup screen logo in the first 16 sectors of the disc, and PS3 games are required to have a PNG of the original PS3 logo in their filesystem. - Xbox 360 hard drives must have a PNG of the Microsoft logo in their "security sector", which among other things contains a digitally signed copy of the drive's serial number to ensure third party drives cannot be used. - macOS will refuse to boot in a VM or on non-Apple hardware unless the BIOS can provide a supposedly copyrighted (but otherwise well known) 64-character string. - The handshaking process for establishing a connection to an Oracle database server involves sending a string that clearly states it is property of Oracle and protected by copyright law.
kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
The copyright will expire no matter what. Using the rubber hose Mickey establishes it as an active trademark. That will make it challenging to sell derivative works but the films themselves will be public domain.
chaostheory 3y ago
Disney has also released a bunch of cartoon shorts in Mickey’s original style within the last 10 years. While I like the series, I felt that its main purpose was to preserve the original copyright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_World_of_Mickey_Mouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_World_of_Mickey_...
nikanj 3y ago
You can use Steamboat Willy if your legal budget is larger than Disney's
- getwiththeprog 3y ago
  See if you can find a copy of "The Year of the Mouse" by Norman Spinrad.

humanrebar 3y ago

I always thought it would be establishing "Willie" as precisely a trademark to invoke that side of IP law.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago

> could claim you're violating their copyright on their bumper That's not how it works, the use of Steamboat Willy in the bumper and public domain use just share the same source material, and Disney can't claim copyright on that source material since they no longer own it. Someone would have to copy the actual bumper to make it copyright infringement.

tga_d 3y ago
They presumably meant trademark, not copyright. I.e., if you use Steamboat Willie in anything that Disney could plausibly make with Steamboat Willie, they could argue that the character isn't being used as a character, but to imply endorsement by Disney, violating the trademark.
- BizarroLand 3y ago
  I'd take that bet. I know 3 different law firms with deep pockets that know that when Disney loses the case they will have to pay all of the lawyer fees. After all, that portion of Mickey Mouse will also be entering public domain, so Disney won't own Mickey exclusively anymore either. Same as the non-red shirt version of Winnie the Pooh.

CSMastermind 3y ago

This reminds me of the copy protection on the original Gameboy. So Nintendo makes the Gameboy, and they only want authorized games to be used in the system. But how can they stop someone from looking at the hardware and making a compatible game without paying a license fee? Well, they build a check into the hardware for a specific set of assembly code on the cartridge. If your cart doesn't have that exact assembly it won't boot up. The code? It displays the Nintendo logo on the screen and plays their jingle. That way, if you did make an unauthorized cartridge, you'd have to infringe on their trademark in order to make the game playable.

sn00tz00t 3y ago
damn thats big brain
- andrewxdiamond 3y ago
  It also didn’t work, both technically and legally > This has however been rendered pointless once the courts ruled in Accolade's favor in Sega v. Accolade, where Sega's trademark enforcement system was questioned as being monopolistic, and bypassing it by third parties on the grounds that it is for the purposes of lawful interoperability was ruled as fair use. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/CopyProtection/Nintendo https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/CopyProtection/Ninten...
spicyjpeg 3y ago
Nintendo wasn't actually the first company to implement cartridge logo checks. Sega did it first with their "Trademark Security System" or TMSS, which worked in pretty much the same way, but then lost in a US court case against Accolade as the judges deemed that anything strictly required for games to work could not be protected by copyright or trademark law. Despite the precedent however, the same idea kept popping up in many subsequent consoles and even some non-gaming products: - The original PlayStation reads the logo that gets displayed on the startup screen from the first 16 sectors of the disc. Notably, US consoles will not validate the logo against a known good copy - possibly hinting at the fact Sony was aware of the TMSS case - but Japanese and late European models will. - Similarly, PS2 games must contain a bitmap of the startup screen logo in the first 16 sectors of the disc, and PS3 games are required to have a PNG of the original PS3 logo in their filesystem. - Xbox 360 hard drives must have a PNG of the Microsoft logo in their "security sector", which among other things contains a digitally signed copy of the drive's serial number to ensure third party drives cannot be used. - macOS will refuse to boot in a VM or on non-Apple hardware unless the BIOS can provide a supposedly copyrighted (but otherwise well known) 64-character string. - The handshaking process for establishing a connection to an Oracle database server involves sending a string that clearly states it is property of Oracle and protected by copyright law.

kevin_thibedeau 3y ago

The copyright will expire no matter what. Using the rubber hose Mickey establishes it as an active trademark. That will make it challenging to sell derivative works but the films themselves will be public domain.

chaostheory 3y ago

Disney has also released a bunch of cartoon shorts in Mickey’s original style within the last 10 years. While I like the series, I felt that its main purpose was to preserve the original copyright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_World_of_Mickey_Mouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_World_of_Mickey_...

nikanj 3y ago

You can use Steamboat Willy if your legal budget is larger than Disney's

getwiththeprog 3y ago
See if you can find a copy of "The Year of the Mouse" by Norman Spinrad.