Mickey Mouse is now public domain (Steamboat Willie specifically). What do you think we will see this year?

BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 241 points –
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I predict a complete overhaul of our trademark and copyright laws that will accommodate Disney's desires.

You know... Basically what they did last time.

Too late for copyright laws, it's in the public domain and can't go back afaik. Now trademark laws can be interesting.

Oh, they already managed to "fix" copyright retroactively once.

Actually SCOTUS ruled that extending the copyright pulls it out of public domain in Golan v Holder. Congress passed a law that put some literary and musical works back into copyright from the public domain. A case was brought by some educators and musicians that the removal of these works from the public domain infri get on their free speech, but the Court disagreed 6-2.

Doing that for Trademark law is why they didn't bother lobbying for longer copyright this time. They could protect their Mouse trademark without relying on Steamboat Willy like they did before.