Sao Paulo
With the start of the new year, works of art from a wide variety of languages will become publicly available. A longawaited event in the field of copyright law will take place in 2024. The Mickey Mouse design is no longer used exclusively by The Walt Disney Company.
Under American law, a work loses its copyright protection if 95 years have passed since it was created. It was an update in 1995, when the time limit was then 70 years.
Last year, Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri threatened to change the law to bring forward the end of Disney's rights to Mickey Mouse. Hawley put forward a text that would limit protection to 56 years and make the law retroactive.
Not every version of the Disney mascot is free to use. Only Mickey from the 1928 cartoon “Streamboat Willie” is in the public domain.
In Brazil, intellectual property rights are no longer subject to restrictions on use after 70 years since the work's conception, consistent with ancient American law.
This first version of Mickey still represents the mascot in black and white and without a voice. The remaining versions of Mickey will continue to be exclusive to the Disney brand and cannot be changed.