As of today, the traditionally protective Walt Disney Co will have to deal with an onslaught of Mickey Mouse parodies, mockeries and likely rather explicit variations as the iconic character slips into the public domain.
Sorta.
In the sober light of 2024, Steamboat Willie, the 1928 short that effectively launched the empire that Walt built, can now be used by anyone and everyone. The legal status of Mickey and Minnie Mouse from Steamboat Willie and Plane Crazy, from earlier that same year, has been long fought over and probably not something to which Disney was looking forward. Yet, in a new year that also sees Virginia Woolf’s groundbreaking Orlando, Peter Pan, Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus, Buster Keaton‘s The Cameraman and Tigger from AA Milne’s The House at Pooh Corner now in the public domain, if you are anticipating a Steamboat Willie free-for-all, think again.
Besides Disney being notoriously litigious, the color version of Mickey that came into being in 1935’s The Band Concertis a lot different in 2024 than the non-speaking Mickey of Steamboat Willie in 1928. Evolving over the decades, the brand icon that is today’s Mickey has a lot more meat on his bones, is full of many more smiles, has that chirpy voice and a far less rough disposition, wears white gloves, and clearly looks a lot less a rat than the Steamboat Willie Mickey – and, to paraphrase MC Hammer: you can’t touch that.
“More modern versions of Mickey will remain unaffected by the expiration of the Steamboat Willie copyrightand Mickey will continue to play a leading role as a global ambassador for the Walt Disney Company in our storytelling, theme park attractions, and merchandise,” a Disney spokesperson said of the dos and don’ts of the sound-synched film entering the public domain today. “We will, of course, continue to protect our rights in the more modern versions of Mickey Mouse and other works that remain subject to copyright, and we will work to safeguard against consumer confusion caused by unauthorized uses of Mickey and our other iconic characters,” the company added with the Steamboat Willie inspired horror game Infestation 88 having already having dropped a trailer earlier today and many memes rolling out.
Then of course, there is the trademark, which is separate from copyright and has no expiration.
As defined by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, a trademark is “a word, phrase, design, or a combination that identifies your goods or services, distinguishes them from the goods or services of others, and indicates the source of your goods or services. Copyright is “Artistic, literary, or intellectually created works, such as novels, music, movies, software code, photographs, and paintings that are original and exist in a tangible medium, such as paper, canvas, film, or digital format.”
Despite copyright arm-twisting and laws that saw Steamboat Willie’s status extended to this year in 1998 thanks to then-Rep. Sonny Bono and the so-called Mickey Mouse Protection Act, Mickey Mouse the name and Minnie Mouse the name have long been trademarked by Disney. So, any designs on employing those monikers are DOA, regardless of Steamboat Willie entering the public domain at 12:00.01 a.m. this morning.
In 2007, Disney revamped the Disney Animation Studios logo to include a snippet of Steamboat Willie’s Mickey. The Mouse House being what it is (and rightly so), trademarked that logo. That trademark was updated in early 2022, with the description reading: “The mark consists of a motion mark of an animator’s drawings visually flipping one after another and transitioning into an animated clip of a mouse character tapping his foot and whistling while holding a ship’s wheel, followed by the appearance of the wording WALT DISNEY ANIMATION STUDIOS underneath the animated mouse character.”
A top Hollywood attorney notes that in the digital age, Mickey memes and mockery are widespread and has little impact on Disney’s image or bottom line. “Why waste your time playing Whac-a-Mole for legacy characters when you don’t have to?” the lawyer says. “The Mickey Mouse of 95 years ago is almost irrelevant in today’s market.”
“Not saying they should go after the knock-offs and parodies, (but) often companies like Disney give more attention to the infringement by trying to shut it down, instead of just ignoring it,” the Avenue of the Stars denizen states. “Most of these are novelties, a couple of days shelf life. Quickly forgotten.”
In a similar vein, one entertainment finance exec stressed that not many kids clamor for Mickey Mouse these days, especially not the oldest black-and-white Steamboat Willie version. While Mickey still has a vibrant life on Disney+ and various small-screen series like Mickey Mouse’s Funhouse, he said Disney has been great at creating new characters for younger audiences over the years, so any financial hit would be pretty contained. Other parties may try to merchandise Mickey “and Disney will make it very miserable for them…It can’t have color, it can’t look like the modern Mickey.”
The sharpest leghold trap Disney can still put down to snare anyone trying to encroach on its Mickey territory is perception. Even though the original incarnation of AA Milne’s beloved character had slipped into the public dominion in 2022, no one in their right mind truly thought Disney was behind last year’s Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey and getting into slasher flicks. However, if there was to be a version of Steamboat Willie and/or Plane Crazy’s Mickey or Minnie that in any way lead consumers to believe it came from Disney or even implied as much, the Mouse House’s lawyer would shut that project down faster than a nighttime Magic Kingdom parade in a thunderstorm.
Now, Disney being Disney, to take any bite out of pretenders to the throne and make a few bucks themselves, there has also been a boatload of merchandise around the Steamboat Willie Mickey and to a lesser degree Minnie as well – all trademarked. Further mudding the waters for potential infringers: the Bob Iger-run media giant put Steamboat Willie online for all to see free of charge back in 2009, to the apparent delight of over 13.5 million views as of today:
This being Hollywood, there’s a certain irony embedded in the history of all this.
Back in the last years of the Roaring Twenties, one of the biggest box office stars was Buster Keaton, who brought out his Steamboat Bill, Jr on May 12, 1928. Featuring the famous scene of the house façade falling around an unscathed Keaton, the comic genius’ 71-minute film got a rare less-than-stellar reception from the ticket-buying public at the time, but it is now viewed as one of the all-time cinema greats and in the public domain itself since 1956.
Having seen success with the then-Universal-owned Oswald the Lucky Rabbit the year before, Walt Disney and co-director/animator Ub Iwerks wanted a character that it not only created, but controlled and directly profited from.
‘Steamboat Bill, Jr’
Now, neither Walt nor Ub seemingly ever said they were inspired by Keaton’s film, as far as can be determined. Yet, with the November 18, 1928-released Steamboat Willie featuring a similar name and bare-bones plot, it’s hard to believe Walt and Iwerks weren’t aware of Keaton’s silent comedy. It is also a stretch to not think the duo, especially marketing whiz Walt, saw the resemblance as a chance to jump on the coattails of one of the biggest stars of the time.
If you still have doubts, the fact that Mickey is literally whistling in Steamboat Willie the popular 1910 tune “Steamboat Bill,” which inspired Keaton’s film, is as direct a nod as you can get from almost 100 years ago
After all, in 1928 or 2024, copyright or not copyright, as the great Oscar Wilde once quipped: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”
Jill Goldsmith contributed to this report.
