Mickey Mouse does not need your protection
Since Mickey Mouse became public domain, I’ve seen some really wild takes and misinformation going around. Yes, Mickey Mouse is public domain. No, you do not need to protect him. It’s fine if people other than Disney make Mickey Mouse stuff, even if you don’t like the things that are made.
You are not protecting Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse is not real. Even if he was, you STILL wouldn’t be protecting him. You’re just sticking up for a megacorporation. Disney has more money and resources than you will ever have and they horde them. You shouldn’t be trying to help them do it.
Disney is a company that loves using public domain properties to make things. They have just tried their absolute hardest to make sure that nobody else could do the same thing. If you think Mickey Mouse should only be used by Disney, you should be upset that Disney made money off public domain stories like Snow White and Rapunzel.
What about things like Winnie the Pooh? Disney didn’t come up with him but they were happy to make money off him. They bought the rights to him and then didn’t share.
‘Ah!’ I hear you say. ‘But Winnie the Pooh actually helps prove our point! When Disney – that poor poor super rich company that should be protected – lost the exclusive rights, a Winnie the Pooh horror movie was made! That’s not in the spirit of the original character!’
Firstly, you can just ignore that movie if you want. I did. Nobody is making you watch it. You are responsible for your own media consumption.
Secondly, there are nice Winnie the Pooh stories out there that aren’t by Disney or the original author. The Pooh books by Jane Riordan are lovely. Her stories are much more in the spirit of the original character than a lot of the Disney comics were.
This is an official Disney comic with Winnie the Pooh
This is a picture from one of Jane Riordan’s Winnie the Pooh books
One of them is sweet, kind and in the spirit of the original character. The other is Disney owned and approved.
What would the original author A.A. Milne think of the different adaptions and new works? Well, we don’t know because, at the end of the month, he’ll have been dead for 68 years. However, I can quote one of the original Pooh books about sharing,
And really, it wasn’t much good having anything exciting like floods, if you couldn’t share them with somebody.
Thirdly, Disney does not respect authorial intent.
PL Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books, did not want Disney to make a movie based on her work. She got coerced into letting them make one. She hated the movie and refused to let them make any more.
What happened after she’d died, the ban on them making more Mary Poppies movies ran out and they got their hands on the rights? They made a sequel.
I think you should be more upset that Disney went against the direct wishes of an author than the fact regular people can now use a character that megacorporation uses. PL Travers was a person. Disney is a company. There is a difference.
I love the original Mary Poppins movie. I don’t care about or like the sequel. However, PL Travers died in 1996. People should be able to use the character now, no matter how you or I feel about those newer stories. Again, you can just ignore them if you want.
The original stories are still there.
Royalties are different to public domain. The profits from PL Travers original books go to her descendants and the Cherry Tree Foundation. They will continue to go there for 80 years after her death and then the royalties will be shared out among any decedents who are alive at that time. The money from those books will continue to go there, no matter what new stories with Mary Poppins get made.
You all seem okay with Disney making money off public domain stories and buying the rights to other stories. Why can't you extend that right to other people?
No one has stolen Mickey from Disney. Disney can and will continue to make money off him. All that’s change is that other people can now do that too.
