I only hear about it in passing in replies, is this news actually true? Are they trying to hide this fact from others?
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Media agendas aside, part of it is that they've only lost copyright to the oldest versions of those characters. The versions most familiar to the public are much newer and still copyrighted.
Yeah, the immediate loss to Disney is more academic than not. It's important that they haven't managed to pervert copyright laws even further to retain rights indefinitely, but these specific versions of characters were not significant to their bottom line.
Far more important was them voluntarily turning their still protected IPs into worthless radioactive garbage, and that is probably part of the reason they lacked the political clout to keep their copyright shenanigans going even longer.
Which is something a lot of us thought would never happen. It was a pretty common belief 10+ years ago that the public domain essentially ended with the release of Steamboat Willie, and that nothing made after would ever enter it.
Yeah its like the Winnie the Pooh thing.
Yellow bear Pooh is open to the public, but most wouldn't recognize him without added context anyway. Red Shirt Pooh is the most recognizable and he is still owned completely.
Remember when Winnie the Pooh visited San Francisco and the poop disappeared overnight?
POOH MAGIC IS REAL!
Pretty sure it's that they have they current versions registered as trademarks.
Yup. Steamboat Willie has no commercial use now other than awareness. So why not let it expire? You get your puppet press to talk about how magnanimous Disney is for giving it to the public, and suddenly everyone is reminded about Disney in relation to something that isn't controversial for a change.
That may be true on paper but as far as 'pulp' culture is concerned, it's the same mouse.
By the same token I'm positive Disney will only be able to tolerate so many images of steamboat dubya being sodomised by Pete before they do something more overt. I give it 3 months before his likeness just won't be generated by AI tools anymore, as an example.