Since Mickey Mouse was first debuted in 1928, does this mean that Mickey Mouse will become public domain in 5 years if the copyright law doesn't change?
Mickey has been on the verge of entering the public domain for decades now. Every time it gets close Disney and other companies are successful in re-writing copyright law to whatever they want it to be. No, Mickey probably won't be in the public domain in 5 years.
No, but trademark protections are very limited compared to copyright protections. For instance, if you wanted to make a movie like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but with cartoon characters, once Mickey Mouse's copyright has expired you would be free to use his character in the movie, you would just have to avoid using him in advertisements for the movie in a way that would mislead people into thinking the movie was affiliated with Disney.
> When that expires, Steamboat Willie can be given away, sold, remixed, turned pornographic, or anything else. (Mickey himself doesn’t lose protection as such, but his graphical appearance, his dialog, and any specific behavior in Steamboat Willie—his character traits—become likewise freely available. This was decided in a case involving Sherlock Holmes in 2014.)
And at the end :
> And in 2024, we might all ring in the new year whistling Steamboat Willie’s song.
Talking of Sherlock, this has been problematic in the past but people have come up with inventive ways to get around it. For example, Maurice Leblanc wrote a set of stories about a “gentleman-thief” named Arsène Lupin[1] (you may have seen a Miyazaki film of the same name starring the character’s grandson). The last story in the first compilation co-starred Sherlock Holmes, much to Conan Doyle’s consternation, and he threatened legal action if it happened again. Leblanc’s cunning workaround was to title his next collection of Lupin stories Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes[2] :)
I am not a lawyer, let alone an imaginary property specialist, however I do not believe that second point is technically true.
Trade marks are intended for consumer protection. As long as you made it abundantly clear (everywhere) that your work was NOT a Disney work, and that it was instead a distinctly branded other work which happened to include Mickey Mouse (even in a leading role), based off of the features of the public domain version of the character (and possibly mixing in elements obvious to contemporary authors in a generic sense), then it would PROBABLY be worth talking to an actual trademark/imaginary property lawyer to see if the idea is uniquely expressive enough to be a new work.
I'm not a lawyer either. You make a good argument. If anyone wants to try it, be prepared for a long, expensive court battle with many appeals. There are many other arguments and I don't think the law is clear enough.
No. The cartoon steamboat Willie should enter public domain. You should be able to create a character based solely on steamboat Willie but none of the other films. But you couldn't call him Mickey mouse was he is (and sighs be) protected by trademark
