Tommy Davis                             Opinion

“MICKEY MOUSE MISUSE”

In 1976, the Government made copyright duration 75 years and The steamboat willie version of Mickey mouse was going to go into the public domain.

As the date was approaching, Walt Disney lobbied Congress for another extension called the “1988 Copyright Term Extension Act”, or what many refer to as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act”. 

Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse was initially set to enter the public domain in the 70s, after a roughly 50 year term. An expansion in 1978 pushed the date forward to 2004. Then, in 1998, it was delayed until 2024 by the Copyright Term Extension Act. Finally,  Jan. 1, 2024 Mickey Mouse entered the Public domain after many failures by Disney to extend the copyright. 

Now you might be wondering what the public domain even is, let me explain. The public domain is basically when creative works with copyrights that have lasted for decades finally get released of their copyrights, meaning that anyone can use those characters, stories, pieces of music, and concepts in pretty much whatever creative way they want.

 For example, in 2022 the copyright for the book version of Winnie the Pooh and his characters and world, (except Tigger who was released into the public domain in 2024) was released to the public domain. This means that our beloved bear could be used in movies and other  commercial reasons and Disney wouldn’t be able to sue you. 

Now, there were a couple legal rules with this. For starters, you can’t do anything with Winnie the Pooh if he has a red shirt. This is because Winnie with a red shirt is the Disney version, made after the books were published. This means that the copyright for Winnie with a red shirt will not be released for a long time. Winnie the Pooh’s copyright being lifted started a terrible trend of Horror Projects that will plague the movie and storytelling industry for years to come. In 2022 shortly after Winnie the Pooh and friends went into the public domain, a new Winnie the Pooh slasher horror movie was announced. This led many (including myself) confused because of how quickly the announcement came out after the public domain news. The movie was announced to release Feb. 15, 2023 With a low budget but intriguing premise, the film was a box office success of 5.2 Million worldwide.  While you shouldn’t really be listening to Rotten Tomatoes due to the fact many critics there are paid to give good scores, the Rotten Tomatoes score is 3% and is regarded as one of the worst movies of all time. 

Likewise, as Steamboat willie mickey mouse has entered the public domain, we have seen the announcement of 2 Horror movies and 1 Horror video game. The two horror movies coming out are called: “Mickey’s Mouse Trap” and “Mickey mouse Horror House”,  which sounds as interesting as watching paint dry. As the copyright dates for many nostalgic characters are coming to a close, you can’t deny that this sets a dark precedent for public domain  properties going forward. You can do anything  commercially cool with these characters, but these wannabe filmmakers just want to have people be shocked by the overdone concept of “innocent character is evil and a serial killer”. You could write a comic book, make a 2D Platformer game, or make an action adventure movie with Mickey and other characters. Mickey Mouse is a positive, optimistic character that never gives up in the name of good. Be like Mickey and make something good.