<story><title>Mickey Mouse and Batman will soon be public domain</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/a-whole-years-worth-of-works-just-fell-into-the-public-domain/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>riskable</author><text>This article is making a big legal mistake I think... You &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; be free to make a Mickey Mouse doll with modern colors and white gloves after Steamboat Willie enters the public domain because those would be &lt;i&gt;derivative works&lt;/i&gt; (of the original). The colors of the character&amp;#x27;s clothes can certainly be &lt;i&gt;trademarked&lt;/i&gt; but after the initial copyright expires any and all color combinations should be fair game (legally speaking).&lt;p&gt;If this were &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; the case the entire body of case law on derivative works would be turned on its head. The entire &lt;i&gt;point&lt;/i&gt; of derivative works law is that there&amp;#x27;s an original that everything else is based on. If the original is public domain &lt;i&gt;any variation thereof&lt;/i&gt; is also public domain from that point forward except for &lt;i&gt;exact replicas&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Meaning: You can produce all the Mickey Mouse stuff you want as long as you&amp;#x27;re not literally copying something that&amp;#x27;s still under copyright. Mickey Mouse dolls are fine as long as your artwork wasn&amp;#x27;t literally copied &amp;amp; pasted.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Buge</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s copyright law and trademark law. Copyright law might be ok with something but trademark law might ban it. The ban takes precedence.</text></comment>
<story><title>Mickey Mouse and Batman will soon be public domain</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/a-whole-years-worth-of-works-just-fell-into-the-public-domain/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>riskable</author><text>This article is making a big legal mistake I think... You &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; be free to make a Mickey Mouse doll with modern colors and white gloves after Steamboat Willie enters the public domain because those would be &lt;i&gt;derivative works&lt;/i&gt; (of the original). The colors of the character&amp;#x27;s clothes can certainly be &lt;i&gt;trademarked&lt;/i&gt; but after the initial copyright expires any and all color combinations should be fair game (legally speaking).&lt;p&gt;If this were &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; the case the entire body of case law on derivative works would be turned on its head. The entire &lt;i&gt;point&lt;/i&gt; of derivative works law is that there&amp;#x27;s an original that everything else is based on. If the original is public domain &lt;i&gt;any variation thereof&lt;/i&gt; is also public domain from that point forward except for &lt;i&gt;exact replicas&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Meaning: You can produce all the Mickey Mouse stuff you want as long as you&amp;#x27;re not literally copying something that&amp;#x27;s still under copyright. Mickey Mouse dolls are fine as long as your artwork wasn&amp;#x27;t literally copied &amp;amp; pasted.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fattire</author><text>I was thinking the same thing re: derivative works.  Ordinarily a claim could be made if you took a copyrighted work and created derivative material from it (someone sampling your hook in a new song), but what if you start from a public domain work, and add your own changes?  It seems your changes only would be copyrighted.  But can you copyright obvious colors?  If you took B&amp;amp;W, public domain Mickey and had some preschoolers or an AI or something color it in... would this be yours?&lt;p&gt;What Disney should worry about if they plan to defend their colored Mickey is a team of hacktivists creating derivative colored works from the original pd B&amp;amp;W image and claiming copyright on THAT for another 100 years :)</text></comment>