Earliest Versions of Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Minnie to Enter Public Domain in 2024

Phroobar

Phroobar

Well-Known Member
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J

jrhwdw

Well-Known Member
EPCOT-O.G. said:
This is a perfect example of why copyrights should expire. Mickey’s been terribly underutilized by Disney, maybe someone will finally do something interesting with him for the first time in decades
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This is NOT the way!!!!!!!!!! People are SICK!!!!!!!!!!

What's Fueling all the Horror stuff?!?!?!? The love for Universal's HHN????????? Maybe THAT should be looked into!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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wtyy21

wtyy21

Well-Known Member
Well, giving that Steamboat Willie's Mickey is now a public domain, there might be the colorized version of the short (Made by Condor Creations), although they could not using the actual color references of Mickey because Disney still has the copyright for Mickey Mouse in color until 2031.
TEASER:


First two minutes:


Here's quote from vaquerant at YT comment:
None of that stuff can really be applied to the newly-public domain Steamboat Willie. Anything that came in the decades after still has its copyright owned by Disney, so anybody looking to colorize this needs to do so without using later works as reference. Mickey Mania is less than -20- (*EDIT:* 30) years old and Get a Horse! is only about 10, so it'll be another 65-85 years before any of that material becomes useful unless we get substantial copyright reform before then (let's hope).
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There was a 1932 Technicolor short which could be used for color reference starting in 2028, but Disney hadn't locked in Mickey's color scheme by then anyway; Mickey is in green pants and yellow gloves. All of the shorts from 1935 (public domain in 2031) have Mickey in red pants with tan gloves, so they're closer. However, around this time you also start seeing things like posters and merchandise which do feature white gloves, so you could reference that stuff for color to start getting Steamboat Willie to look more like people expect Mickey Mouse to look. That's just from a quick Google, there might be earlier red pants, white gloves, yellow shoes Mickeys floating around that could be used sooner than 2031.
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Consumer

Consumer

Well-Known Member
wtyy21 said:
Well, giving that Steamboat Willie's Mickey is now a public domain, there might be the colorized version of the short (Made by Condor Creations), although they could not using the actual color references of Mickey because Disney still has the copyright for Mickey Mouse in color until 2031.
TEASER:


First two minutes:


Here's quote from vaquerant at YT comment:
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Could an argument be made that since Disney has never released Steamboat Willie in color, any color added to the cartoon would be an original interpretation of the public domain material?
 
Tha Realest

Tha Realest

Well-Known Member
Consumer said:
Could an argument be made that since Disney has never released Steamboat Willie in color, any color added to the cartoon would be an original interpretation of the public domain material?
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I don’t know. I think the challenges then bump up against later-copyrighted iterations of the character as well as possibly some trademark issues.

Essentially, throw him in some red shorts and I think Disney would argue the use violates an existing copyright.
 
Disney Irish

Disney Irish

Premium Member
Consumer said:
Could an argument be made that since Disney has never released Steamboat Willie in color, any color added to the cartoon would be an original interpretation of the public domain material?
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The main problem with that though that I can see, I'm not a lawyer so can't say legally, as I understand it if its to be sold for commercial use it has to be a transformative changed from the public domain work in order to be seen as an original work. In this case it also cannot be made to seem like its released by Disney. So I don't know if just adding color is a transformative enough change, and of course they can't use the same title card from Disney.

But so long as its just a passion project with no monetary gain it could be ok to just release it to Youtube.
 

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