(DailyAnswer.org) – After the copyright for Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, expired on January 1st, 2024 placing it in the public domain, a trailer has already surfaced for a slasher horror film based on the classic cartoon from 1928.
The expiration of the original’s copyright now means that the first versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse are now in the public domain. Other films and works of literature from 1928 also entering the public domain include Charlie Chaplin’s the Circus, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, AA Milne’s the House at Pooh Corner, which introduced Tigger, and German Expressionist film the Man Who Laughs, which is notable for inspiring the design of the original Joker from the Batman comics.
Another character that inspired a Disney classic, Peter Pan, also enters the public domain as the copyright expires on J. M. Barrie’s original, first published for copyright purposes in 1928. Congress extended the copyright terms for 20 years after they were originally set to expire in 1984, leading to another 20-year extension before the 2004 expiry date.
Disney has vowed to protect its characters amidst any confusion over copyright and against any unauthorized usage. As the public domain only applies to the original Steamboat Willie versions of the characters, later versions of Mickey such as that in Fantasia are not entering the public domain, and Justin Hughes from Loyola Law School suggested that there could be some legal battles despite Disney losing the copyright, particularly concerning the classic image of Mickey at the helm of the boat, which features on both the opening sequence of every Walt Disney Animation Studios film and Disney merchandise.
The trailer for the slasher film, Mickey’s Mouse Trap, was released on the very day the copyright expired. The producer stated that they wanted the film to be the complete opposite of the original and that another family-oriented film based on the classic would not cover any new ground. A trailer for a Mickey-inspired horror game, Infestation: Origins, featuring the mouse covered in blood, was released on the same day.
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