According to Guardianthe mouse would enter the public domain in the year 2024, nearly 95 years after its creation on October 1, 1928. This is the set time period in which copyrights on an anonymous body of artistic work expire or pseudonymous.
Although legend has it that Mickey Mouse was created by Walt Disney in 1928and that his official name was Mortimer but changed to Mickey, the strongest version points to the cartoonist ub iwerks as the child’s father.
Iwerks drew him at that time at the request of Disney: Walt would only have to be credited with the voice, personality and character of the mouse.
What does the law say that will remove Mickey from Disney
Lawyer Daniel Mayedaassociate director of the UCLA Law School Documentary Film Legal Clinicwith the expiration of rights, “you can use the character of Mickey Mouse as originally created to create your own stories of Mickey Mouse or stories with this character”.
But he cautioned: “If you do it in a way that makes people think of Disney, which is likely because they’ve been invested in this character for so long, then Disney might say you violated their trademark.”
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The lawyer stresses that Disney has extended their term for Mickey and other characters, “but I doubt they can get additional extensions. I think this is going to be the end of the line.”
“Copyrights have a time limit. Trademarks No. So Disney could essentially have a trademark in perpetuity, as long as they continue to use various things as trademarked, whether that be words, phrases, characters, or whatever,” he expanded.
Source: Ambito
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