From Mark Lezama, a patent attorney, about recent announcements that Steamboat Willie (aka Mickey Mouse) will be starring in several horror films now that Disney's copyright has expired:
The main thing is to be sure you’re not using Mickey in promotional materials in a way that would make someone think the film came from Disney. I don’t think that should be too hard, especially if Mickey is portrayed as a bloodthirsty sadist.
Hmm. How tastes change. I assumed hard core porn would be first. On the other hand, John Oliver is probably very interested.
Remember the "Disney Orgy" poster put out by Paul Krassner back in the sixties? It was suppressed, but widely circulated and adorned many a college dorm room.
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That was my era, but I never saw it until today.
Was that in "The Realist"?
Drawn by Wallace Wood, which is why the characters look so good. For those who don’t know, Wood is considered one of the greatest comic book artists but also a very troubled soul.
A commentary on today's capitalistic society?
Mickey was already done as a blood thirsty sadist in South Park, a Viet Nam veteran suffering PTSD on a YouTube cartoon, the friend of a loan shark plush toy again on YouTube...
Before the expiration.
whatever.
I'm 57. I have never seen a complete Mickey Mouse cartoon in my life.
Mickey Mouse fundamentally no longer exists other than as a Disney employee dressed up in a Mickey suit, posing mute with tourists.
I already spent my life through my mid-40s pretending Elizabeth Taylor was an actress - she effectively retired around 1968, when I was 2, and became "famous for being famous."
Spare me.
Re: Liz. I had never seen an attractive Elizabeth Taylor in my lifetime ... until I happened to see some of her more ancient movies. For years, I'd wondered what all the fuss was about. She just appeared to me as an aging tart with WAY too much makeup and overly permed hair.
I'm sure you looked better when you were 19 too.
I dare you, or anyone -- man, woman, or child -- to watch A Place in the Sun (1951) and not be blown away. Great movie and great performances all around.
Well, sure. Obviously, there's a difference between youthful stars at their most popular, and aging celebs who still hang around the social circuit, and get divorced, remarried, divorced, remarried...
She gave a fun performance in "The Mirror Crack'd" (1980), in which she played a washed-up temperamental former star. That suggests at least some level of self-awareness.
An interesting article on the subject of copyright:
Lee says emerging AI-driven services like DALL-E2 and ChatGPT may push the boundaries of current copyright and intellectual property laws. The legal definitions for copyright, trademark, and other terms for intellectual property rights are not well suited for AI-generated works. Copyright protection requires work to be "original and creative."
"But how do we determine if an AI-generated work is original and creative?" she said. "Does it matter if the AI uses existing data that may be combined in new ways? If I put a prompt into ChatGPT and it cranks out a haiku or poem, is that mine? Do I own it or does the AI company?"
In addition to addressing whether a copyright should be granted for an AI-developed work, Lee says there is a question of who should own that copyright. Does actual ownership go to the person who designed or programmed the AI, the person who provided or selected the data inputs for AI's use, the person who used or operated the AI, or none of them?
https://hub.jhu.edu/2024/01/02/mickey-public-domain-copyright-holders/
Remake of The Ring, but with black and white Mickey.
Think about it!
Phone rings. A voice whispers, "95 yearrsss."
can't wait for rick, morty and mickey
but mickey needs a different voice; brando? cagney?
Something AI generated that doesn't quite cross the uncanny valley, like a blonde woman on Fox who's been shot in the head but isn't quite dead and is mumbling random words from her vocabulary.
Which is what Mickey's voice sounds like now, now that I think of it. That's his accent.
Pee Wee Herman.
What about Felix the Cat?
According to Wikipedia: "In 2014, Don Oriolo sold the rights to the character to DreamWorks Animation via DreamWorks Classics, which is now part of Comcast's NBCUniversal division via Universal Pictures." Oh. That clears it up.
At least some of Krazy Kat must be in public domain as well.
I would assume the earlier versions of Felix are in the public domain. The newer version created in the 50’s (the one with the bag of tricks) probably isn’t.
Growing up in SoCal in the 70s and 80s, I always associated Felix the Cat with the big Felix Chevrolet dealership off the 110 next to USC and the Shrine Auditorium, which had a big sign by the freeway prominently featuring the character standing astride the Chevrolet logo. It was only years later that I learned that it was based on an old-timey cartoon of the same name..
Around the same time I realized the Cal Worthington ad jingle was saying "Go see Cal! Go see Cal!" rather than "Pussy Cow! Pussy Cow"
Most people don’t know that Olive Oyl was created long before Popeye. I assume her character is currently in the public domain. Popeye first appeared in 1929 so I suppose that his early likeness will be in the public domain soon.
And Popeye was based on a real guy!
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/frank-rocky-fiegel-popeye/
If you go to the Santa Monica Pier which terminates Route 66 you will see a display that commemorates that fact.
According to this,
https://www.hhhistory.com/2015/08/santa-monica-pier-and-boardwalk.html
that's a different story than Snopes found, but I think both could be true.
Someone had a Winnie-the-Pooh slasher flick ready to go as soon as he went into the public domain.