Mickey Enters the Public Domain: Here’s what you should know, and the First Non-Disney Mickey Mouse Projects.

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At last! As Disney celebrates a century of existence, Mickey and Minnie enter the public domain. With some caveats.

95 years of longing

In the USA, works created between 1928 and 1977 remain protected after their first broadcast, with a copyright lasting 95 years.
As a result, Disney’s short films Steamboat Willie and Plane Crazy are now in the public domain. And with them, the characters they feature.

This announcement may come as a surprise, especially for people reading us from countries such as France where the law theoretically provides protection for works during the 70 years following an artist’s death. One might think that Mickey would still be protected in such a situation. However, the “rule of the shorter term” applies: in short, once a work is no longer protected in its country of origin, it is no longer protected elsewhere either, regardless of local law.

Mickey enters the Public Domain: yes, but…

However, be careful not to rush into a film featuring Mickey without learning about the rules you have to follow.

Firstly, only the designs of these first shorts are now in the public domain: using a later version would expose you to Disney’s wrath.

Furthermore, it is forbidden to use the characters in a way that could lead people to believe that the work are from Disney, or approved by Disney. If your future animated series featuring Mickey and Minnie as space pirates can deceive the public into thinking it is a Disney project, the company could sue you.

We should also add that Mickey remains a trademark, but U.S. law is quite clear on the subject: trademark rights cannot be used to block copyright expirations. Disney, therefore, cannot use this point to attack third-party projects.
For more information, we invite you to read the article published by Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Center for Study of the Public Domain. The article will also give you more information on what can be done with the name “Mickey Mouse” itself.
A good rule of thumb: make sure there is no confusion between your work and Disney. For example, by clearly stating the artist or studio associated with the project, as we will see later on in this article.

A game and a movie!

The game Infestation 88, whose trailer was unveiled on January 1st, on the day the copyright expired, is a good example of what can be done.

This horror game by Nightmare Forge Games managed to garner some attention. The creators were very careful: a text message at the beginning of the trailer highlights the inspiration from the public domain design, insists that the project is not linked to the original authors or a third-party company (and therefore not related to Disney). Moreover, the studio chose not to explicitly mention Mickey’s name, nor that of Disney.
Nightmare Forge Games obviously wanted to go for the safest route possible. They might have been more cautious than they needed to, but this should help them avoid any legal trouble. The game will be released in 2024 on Steam.

Another example is Mickey’s Mouse Trap, an upcoming horror film also scheduled for this year. It will feature a killer disguised as Mickey Mouse.
The movie is directed by Jamie Bailey. The Hollywood Reporter mentions a possible release in March, although at this stage it is not known whether a distributor or streaming platform is involved.

Here again, the choice was made to take clear precautions. The trailer was posted on the Youtube account of actor Simon Phillips (who stars in the film), and the description explicitly states that the project has no connection with Disney.

We can expect to see other projects featuring Mickey gradually appear in the coming months and years.

Mickey & AI

Of course, generative AI specialists also started creating datasets and exploring what can be done with these copyright-free designs. For example, a dedicated model has been shared on Hugging Face. However, as specified on the page, make sure that the result respects the copyright rules. The same goes for your personal creations: for example, generating a Mickey by AI from the 1928 designs, but with a Fantasia magician costume, is not allowed.

We should also note that Pierre-Carl Langlais aka Alexander Doria, who developed this Hugging Face model, also did some research on old Mickey Mouse posters. They seem to establish the presence of the famous gloves as early as 1928. This would make it possible to create pictures of Mickey with gloves without infringing on Disney’s copyright, despite the fact that the 1928 shorts portrayed him without the famous gloves.

Public Domain at the Heart of Disney’s classics

Finally, it should be noted that while Disney has long sought to fight Mickey’s entry into the public domain, with intense lobbying that contributed to the extension of copyright in the USA, public domain has also been very beneficial to the company. Snow White, The Little Mermaid, or even Frozen are examples of animated features directly inspired by tales that are in the public domain.

The end of the copyright for Mickey’s first appearances can therefore be seen as a logical step for a company that has adapted and reused classics to create new pieces of art.