How Mickey Mouse Evades the Public Domain

For Disney, Mickey Mouse is not just a huge money maker, but the compa­ny’s most cove­ted piece of intel­lec­tual property. Mickey is Disney, and Disney is Mickey: the two are simply one and the same, and nothing is more impor­tant to Disney than his well-being. (“I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I have ever known,” Walt Disney once famously said).

For this reason, Disney has done every­thing in its power to make sure it retains the copy­right on Mickey — even if that means chan­ging fede­ral statutes. Every time Mickey’s copy­right is about to expire, Disney spends millions lobbying Congress for exten­sions, and trading campaign contri­bu­tions for legis­la­tive support. With crushing legal force, they’ve squel­ched anyone who attempts to disa­gree with them.

Zachary Crockett

L’ar­ticle est long mais excellent. Il retrace l’his­toire de la propriété intel­lec­tuelle dans le prisme de Mickey et Walt Disney. À lire.


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