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After nearly a century, Mickey Mouse has escaped the strict limitations of Disney copyright law and entered the public domain on January 1, 2024. This means that from now on everyone can use and rework the image of Mickey Mouse (and Mickey Mouse) in the first version of 1928, in which we see the famous mouse without gloves, with a circled body and eyes without pupils, like her whistling aboard a small steamboat and fighting to take Minnie on board, against the wishes of Pete, who in time becomes Gambadilegno.
The loss of rights is a consequence of US copyright law, according to which works registered since 1923 can be protected for a maximum of 95 years. The list of fictional works that are exempt from the copyright that protects them also includes books that have made literary history, such as Virginia Woolf's “Orlando”; and DH Lawrence's “Lady Chatterley's Lover” or films like Charlie Chaplin's silent romantic comedy “The Circus”. There is also the first volume of The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which features Tigger.
What is public domain?
The public domain is the final destination of every copyrighted work: it is part of a compromise that recognizes the advantages of letting artists and thinkers control and profit from their work in the short term, but in the long term anyone can Taking art into your hands It is in the public domain to rewrite it, subvert it and treat it as if it were our legitimate heritage.
Even commercially. A custom that Disney itself relied on when creating adaptations of fairy tales such as Snow White and Cinderella, which were also in the public domain. Ironically, the public domain in the United States has been frozen for 20 years thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, sibyllineally known as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act,” which has delayed the release of Steamboat Willie into the public domain. In fact, Disney itself is known to have lobbied hard to shape America's current laws, ensuring that art was kept away from the public for decades longer than in the past.
What happens to Mickey and Minnie now?
The rush to exploit Mickey Mouse's image for profit has already begun. A few days ago the trailer for the horror film Mickey's Mouse Trap was released, shot and directed by Jamie Bailey, in which a 21-year-old struggles with the murderous delusions of a masked killer with the facial features of the first Mickey Mouse.