The Skeleton Dance will be entering public domain next year. Yea, that one. Other ones of note:
- The original depiction of Popeye
- farewell to Arms
Really? I knew it was old but didn’t realize it was THAT old. The more you know…
Popeye was a spinoff of a comic from the 20’s.
It wasn’t just that, Popeye was introduced in the tenth year of Thimble Theatre and was so popular the entire strip was renamed Popeye.
Which is still going today!
Popeye is going to be a fun one.
2034 - Superman as seen in Action Comics #1.
Which is almost identical to the standard Superman that we all know. Here’s a pic of Superman from action comics #7
Differences are subtle. OG Superman couldn’t fly, that’s where we got the whole “leap tall buildings at a single bound” and so on.
Flying was added for the Fleischer Brothers cartoons from '41 to '43, which, oddly, are already public domain.
Are superpowers protected under copyright tho? I think its just image/likeness
Absolutely no clue…
Once the superheroes start to go it gets weird, because at some point the likeness is the least of the issues there. You’d probably want to redesign the costume anwyay. Once you can publish stories with Superman or Batman and use the names and at least some of the core cast why stick to the rest of the package, given how constantly it cycles.
Only it’s all still going to be a minefield. Famously the Sherlock Holmes guys were out there trying to sue Netflix for having their Holmes be too emotional, which they argued was still protected. I mean, they lost, but outside of the fan productions that already exist are you gonna bet your business on that?
Whenever you see a fandom link, replace the “fandom” in the url with “antifandom” or “breezewiki” and you will be redirected to a privacy-respecting alternative. Fuck fandom with a rake.
Q: When does the copyright on the next version of Mickey Mouse expire? (Steamboat Willie has no gloves and is black and white, I expect that will be how Disney protects the more modern versions of Mickey.)
There is apparently a 1928 poster of Mickey Mouse already with the white gloves, which, if verified, would place them in the public domain.
The Shadow is coming up in a couple of years. Conan is up in a few. I think Peter Pan and Poirot were in this batch already, too. Tintin would be due next year, but for all the crap Disney gets, apparently its term is longer because it only starts counting after the author dies.
I remember reading that the UK has assigned a perpetual copyright to Peter Pan because royalties fund a children’s hospital. Maybe it’ll be public domain worldwide but copyrighted in the UK?
Copyright laws are by country. Some countries have treaties to respect each other’s copyrights and some don’t.
So, it is entirely possible to have something considered “public domain” in the USA still be protected in the UK.
…But given the relative economic weight of the two countries, simply banning the export of your locally-infringing Peter Pan/Steamboat Willie slash fic novel would be pretty easy.
Maybe? Copyright is completely broken if you ask me. Right now we seem to operate on a “don’t enforce unless we feel like it” worldwide framework across the board and everything is weird and bad.
