Welcome (Sort Of) To The Public Domain Mickey Mouse!

• Published date: 11 January 2024
• Subject Matter: Intellectual Property, Media, Telecoms, IT, Entertainment, Copyright, Broadcasting: Film, TV & Radio
• Law Firm: Cullen and Dykman
• Author: Karen I. Levin, Ariel E. Ronneburger and Ciara Villalona-Lockhart

On November 18, 1928, the black-and-white animated short film Steamboat Willie premiered.¹ The film featured the first iterations of Disney's beloved Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, who are two of the most iconic animated characters in the world. On January 1, 2024, Steamboat Willie entered the public domain, meaning the original versions of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse are now available for public use, subject to certain limitations.

When a copyright, trademark, or patent is lost or expires, the intellectual property which it had protected becomes part of the public domain.² The term "public domain" refers to creative works that may be used without payment, attribution, or permission.³ When a creative work enters the public domain, the public is not limited to using only exact replicas of the public domain material.⁴ Creative works in the public domain can be used to make derivatives by adding to and/or recombining elements of the public domain materials.⁵ Once a creative work enters the public domain, no individual, not even its original creator, may copyright it.⁶

The freedom, however, to make new works based on public domain materials ends where the resulting derivative work comes into conflict with a valid copyright.⁷ This means that if material related to certain characters is in the public domain, but later copyrighted works add new aspects to those characters, a derivative work developed from the materials in the public domain could potentially infringe on the later copyrighted works.⁸

Steamboat Willie, and Disney's aggressive lobbying efforts to protect its intellectual property, have long been a topic of discussion in copyright law.⁹ Generally, the term of a copyright for a particular creative work depends on several factors, including its date of first publication.¹⁰ Initially, under the Copyright Act of 1909, Steamboat Willie was entitled to copyright protection for twenty-eight years from the date of publication, with the option for renewal for another twenty-eight years of copyright protection.¹¹ Steamboat Willie, therefore, was originally only entitled to copyright protection until, at the latest, 1984.¹²

With Disney's lobbying efforts, Congress passed the Copyright Act of 1976, which displaced the Copyright Act of 1909.¹³ The Copyright Act of 1976 extended copyright protection for Steamboat Willie until 2003.¹⁴ Disney again lobbied Congress and, in 1998, Congress passed The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998.¹⁵ This Act...