Copyright is a complicated matter and can get you in trouble if you use IPs without licensing them. More recent works are still protected by this, but decades-old content like Steamboat Willie has already entered the public domain this January 1st.
Mickey Mouse Version Enters Public Domain
Even though Steamboat Willie was first released a couple of decades before most of us were born, we recognize it due to the fact that it is also used in the Walt Disney Animation Studios intro, which is queued before the company's movies begin.
Now, that very clip, along with the full 7.23-minute version of it, can be used freely without any legal consequences. That much is clear given that there is already a full video of it on YouTube unedited, posted by a channel that's not under Disney.
Of course, that's only one version of the iconic character that served as the face of Disney all these years. The character has already been redesigned and reimagined many times over, and those later versions are still protected by copyright.
Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain has released an extensive list of all the other copyrighted works, which include sound recordings from 1923 and prominent IPs released in 1928 including books, plays, and films.
As the video of Steamboat Willie enters the public domain, there are still certain limitations that need to be followed to avoid a legal mess. For instance, no one can produce work that will serve as official merchandise, or represent themselves as a Disney production.
Other films that have joined the public domain include "The Passion of Joan of Arc" directed by Carl Theodore Dreyer, "The Last Command" which paved the way for Emil Jannings to win the first Academy Award for Best Actor, and many more.
Why Protected Works Become Legally Free to Use
There are countless content and media out there that you cannot use due to copyright protections, and this serves an important purpose as it prevents others from stealing the intellectual properties that others have come up with.
This legal protection allows creatives to profit from their ideas. It will be a while before something can become free to the public, such as Steamboat Willie, although most eventually end up there so that others may continue to spread the art long after its release.
Disney itself has taken advantage of this, as mentioned by The Verge, as the company has adapted many famous stories to films like "Cinderella" and "Snow White." With more titles being free of copyright protection, we may see classics being rebooted in the future.
There are other ways that intellectual properties become part of the public domain. The most common is its copyright protection expiring, which is what happened to Disney's earliest version of Mickey Mouse.
This may also happen when the owner of the work fails to follow the renewal rules. In other cases, the owner themselves put their work in the public domain, likely because they want others to build on their ideas so that they may live on.
