Mickey Mouse Character To Become Available For Public Use

The entertainment giant Disney may soon no longer hold the exclusive rights to several of the characters most closely associated with the brand’s global notoriety, including the mouse that serves as its mascot, as a result of US copyright legislation.

In 2024, nearly 95 years after his conception on October 1, 1928, Mickey Mouse will become a part of the public domain.

This is the time period during which the copyright on an anonymous or pseudo-anonymous body of artistic work expires.

Mickey Mouse Character To Become Available For Public Use

Daniel Mayeda  the ​​associate director of the Documentary Film Legal Clinic at UCLA School of Law, as well as a longtime media and entertainment lawyer. said the copyright expiration does not come without limitations.

“You can use the Mickey Mouse character as it was originally created to create your own Mickey Mouse stories or stories with this character

“But if you do so in a way that people will think of Disney – which is kind of likely because they have been investing in this character for so long – then in theory, Disney could say you violated my trademark.”

The first time we saw Mickey Mouse was in the black and white animated film Steamboat Willie.

The cartoon launched one of the most iconic visuals in film and television because to its use of synced sound, in which motions on screen correlate to the music and sound effects.

According to the National Museum of American History:

“Over the years, Mickey Mouse has gone through several transformations to his physical appearance and personality. I

“n his early years, the impish and mischievous Mickey looked more rat-like, with a long pointy nose, black eyes, a smallish body with spindly legs and a long tail.”

Disney will lose its copyright on this initial rendition of Mickey—which resembles a rat—but Mayeda said the company will keep it for all subsequent iterations in other movies or works of art until they are 95 years old.

Other personalities have previously entered the public eye, and the outcomes have been unpredictable and occasionally shocking.

In an interview with Variety, Waterfield said:

“We’ve tried to be extremely careful. We knew there was this line between that and we knew what their copyright was and what they’ve done. So we did as much as we could to make sure [the film] was only based on the 1926 version of it.

“No one is going to mistake this [for Disney]. When you see the cover for this and you see the trailers and the stills and all that, there’s no way anyone is going to think this is a child’s version of it.”

Disney still retains exclusive rights to the bouncing tiger, Tigger, for one more year since his first appearance wasn’t until 1929 in The House at Pooh Corner, the series of stories written by Winnie the Pooh creator AA Milne.