Disney In Trouble With Mickey Mouse Copyright Ending In 2024 …And Tigger Too

The first three animated Mickey Mouse cartoons’ copyrights will expire in 2024, and the silent films Plane Crazy and The Gallopin’ Gaucho, as well as the sound film Steamboat Willie, will be released to the public domain. In the quintessential piece of intellectual property and perhaps the most iconic character in American pop culture, Walt Disney‘s first screen release, the 1928 short Steamboat Willie, starring both Mickey and Minnie Mouse, will be free from Disney’s copyright. This means that anyone can use Mickey Mouse as a character, but only up to the 1928 variant.

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For longstanding media companies like Disney and Warner Bros, managing copyrights and preserving the rights to intellectual properties worth billions will continue to be challenging.

Disney has faced legal issues and had a bad run of PR beyond the handling of its current franchises, from forcing a Florida daycare center to remove an unauthorized Minnie Mouse mural in 1989 to threatening to sue a man who wanted to put Spider-Man onto a child’s gravestone, citing the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” in 1998.

Disney has also taken to modernizing the mouse over the years, giving him bigger ears, enlarged pupils, and different shorts. Disney still retains rights to all later iterations of Mickey and any associated registered trademarks, such as the Mickey Mouse ears used in the Disney logo, is still prohibited from use.

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Even if Steamboat Willie is in the public domain, most people lack the financial means to sue Disney in court. Other brands, such as Mattel’s Barbie, used similar tactics to assert ownership of its rights. Creatives and fans can use Mickey’s and Minnie’s likeness in their own works, but with limitations. Ironically, Steamboat Willie included everyone’s favorite musical animal rights song, “Turkey In The Straw,” itself was a public domain song.

Tigger, another famous animal sidekick, will join his friend Winnie the Pooh in the public domain as The House at Pooh Corner, the book in which the bouncing tiger first appeared, turns 96. Pooh, arguably the most famous previous character to become public property, gained that status two years ago when A.A. Milne’s original Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain, resulting in some genuinely, let’s say, unique uses; such as using our favorite honey bear as an avatar for oppressive CCP dictator, Xi Jinping.

Public Mickey could face the same fate.

Here is a List of the more interesting public domain characters coming out in the future: Mickey Mouse 2024 – Tigger 2024 – Pluto 2025 – Minnie Mouse 2028 – Donald Duck 2029 – Superman 2033 – The Hobbit 2033 – Daffy Duck 2033 – James Bond 2034 – Batman 2034 – Captain Marvel 2034 – Bugs Bunny 2035 – The Flash 2035 – Captain America 2036 – Aquaman 2036 – Wonder Woman 2036

Are you surprised that Disney let the canon of their more important character go? Are you excited for future projects that independents will do with the character? Let us know what you think.

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