The decline of Marvel

[Bobby Henderson]

Plus they have more or less buried the "Old Disney" completely. This was evidenced on Disney's Christmas morning special. No Mickey, no Mouse ears. The only old Disney thing I saw was Goofy for about ten seconds. Overall, I'd give that special one and a half stars. Children of today have no idea what Disney once was and stood for.

Disney might be giving Mickey and other classic characters the embargo treatment, making that IP scarce, in order entice more families to visit their theme parks. There is always a sales angle with everything they do.

The original Mickey Mouse is about to lose copyright protection and enter the public domain. Maybe that could be another reason why the "Old Disney" is not as visible. I don't know the full situation; I don't have a Disney+ subscription (or Huly, Apple TV, etc). I think I'm going to cancel Netflix and just stick with Max and Prime Video.

I feel sorry for kids growing up in this era. They seem more sheltered or locked up -thanks largely to how our fucked up media has conditioned parents. Fear, anger and paranoia are over the top. Kids can have various digital pacifiers like big screen TV sets, tablets, smart phones and game consoles. But they have less access to the outdoors and in-person interaction with other children their age. Kids today can only dream about the level of independence I had when I was a kid.

Many of the people running Disney are closer to my parents' age. It has to be an enormous challenge for anyone with a Boomer or Gen-X perspective to get in touch at all with what really speaks to an 8 year old kid now.

[Frank Cox]

The original Mickey Mouse is about to lose copyright protection and enter the public domain.

Disney has been putting a Steamboat Willie logo on the start of at least some of their animated movies for a year or two:

image011-copy.png

I suspect that's so they can make some sort of a trademark claim on that character even after the copyright has expired.

[Mike Blakesley]

Disney has been putting a Steamboat Willie logo on the start of at least some of their animated movies for a year or two:

They've been using the Steamboat Willie logo since 2007. It differentiates between their in-house animations and the Pixar ones. The first movie to use it was "Meet the Robinsons."

There's also another one "DisneyToon Studios" (I believe), that they used for movies that were meant for straight-to-video but got a theatrical release. Things like "A Goofy Movie" and "Planes." I'm not sure if that's still active or not.

The original Mickey Mouse is about to lose copyright protection and enter the public domain.

While that's true, the operative phrase there is "original." The Steamboat Willie Mickey will indeed be public domain, but the more modern versions will not. There will be a ton of rules on how he can be used and you can bet Disney's got a whole building full of lawyers sharpening up their pencils to start writing cease-and-desists to any one overstepping the strict boundaries. I don't quite understand all the ramifications either, but after an initial flurry of activity, I don't think it will be a Mickey free-for-all that a lot of people are expecting. Personally I think somebody should open a weed store featuring a stoned-looking Mickey and call it "Mick's Bake Shop."

[Frank Cox]

I found this article: https://jipel.law.nyu.edu/of-mouse-a...-live-forever/