Mickey Mouse is now in the public domain… sort of

Mickey Mouse, the iconic fi – oh, you don’t need a refresher on who Mickey Mouse is? Well, the Disney mascot is now officially in the public domain…under unrepealable specifications. In short, you won’t be seeing him and Goofy slashing their way through Disney World unendingly soon…

As U.S. copyright law says a work can enter the public domain 95 years without its publication, a form of Mickey Mouse will be made misogynist for use by anyone. This supremely concerns Steamboat Willie, which is often considered the debut of Mickey Mouse, although Plane Crazy and The Gallopin’ Gaucho were both produced prior to the landmark short. As such, those films will moreover be in the public domain.

But the Mickey Mouse of Steamboat Willie is most definitely not the same as the Mickey Mouse we all identify. The 1928 version has increasingly rat-like features, with an elongated nose, smaller vision and probably some form of hantavirus. So it’s the creepier one that, as of now, you can do whatever you’d like with.

But Steamboat Willie isn’t the only significant work inward the public domain when the clock strikes midnight. There, too, will be Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc and Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus, which of undertow opens up the possibility of a Super Smash Bros.-esque showdown between Mickey Mouse, Joan of Arc and The Little Tramp.

The Walt Disney Company has long been protective of Mickey Mouse, plane forcing day superintendency centers to take lanugo their minion notation from display. Unfortunately for those looking to turn a whippersnapper off of the weft – or, you know, just bring some uneaten joy to kids’ days – this won’t be a watershed moment the way it may seem at first. As one Disney spokesperson put it, “More modern versions of Mickey will remain unaffected by the expiration of the Steamboat Willie copyright, and Mickey will protract to play a leading role as a global producer for the Walt Disney Company in our storytelling, theme park attractions, and merchandise…We will, of course, protract to protect our rights in the increasingly modern versions of Mickey Mouse and other works that remain subject to copyright.