Mickey, Disney, and the Public Domain : a 95-year Love Triangle | Duke University School of Law
▻https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/mickey
ATTENTION : ceci n’est pas valable en France, car le copyright s’étend 70 ans après le décès (Walt est décédé en 1966) et non 95 ans après la création.
What can I do with Mickey Mouse as of January 1, 2024?
The answer, ironically, is distinctly mouse-shaped! Here is a diagram.
A green circle with black text and words
As explained by Karyn A. Temple, former United States Register of Copyrights, the public domain “is part of copyright’s lifecycle, the next stage of life for that creative work. The public domain is an inherent and integral part of the copyright system…It provides authors the inspiration and raw material to create something new.”
Steamboat Willie and the characters it depicts – which include both Mickey and Minnie Mouse – will be in the public domain. As indicated in the green circle, this means that anyone can share, adapt, or remix that material. You can start your creative engines too—full steam ahead! You could take a page out of the Winnie-the-Pooh: the Deforested Edition playbook and create “Steamboat Willie: the Climate Change Edition,” in which Mickey’s boat is grounded in a dry riverbed. You could create a feminist remake with Minnie Mouse as the central figure. You could reimagine Mickey and Minnie dedicating themselves to animal welfare. (The animals in Steamboat Willie are contorted rather uncomfortably into musical instruments. PETA would not approve.)
You can do all of this and more, so long as you steer clear of the subsisting rights indicated by the orange circles, namely:
Use the original versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse from 1928, without copyrightable elements of later iterations (though not every later iteration will be copyrightable, as I explain below) and
Do not confuse consumers into thinking that your creation is produced or sponsored by Disney as a matter of trademark law. One way to help ensure that your audience is not confused is to make the actual source of the work – you or your company – clear on the title screen or cover, along with a prominent disclaimer indicating that your work was not produced, endorsed, licensed, or approved by Disney.
So, is January 1, 2024 doomsday for Disney? No. Disney still retains copyright over newer iterations of Mickey such as the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” Mickey from Fantasia (1940) as well as trademarks over Mickey as a brand identifier. People will still go to its theme parks, pay to see its movies, buy its merchandise. Its brand identity will remain intact.
In sum, yes, you can use Mickey in new creative works. There are some more complex peripheral legal issues, but here is your guide through them.