I have two questions, how can a company like Disney own fairytales that they stole from folklore, doesn’t that fall under fair use or public domain?
Also, how does Disney still own copyright for their characters pass the 50 year copyright statue of limitation?
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There’s a running joke that Disney has more lawyers than animators. They are notorious for aggressively defending their Intellectual Property.
In the early 90’s Disney started to lobby Congress heavily for copyright reform. The earliest Mickey Mouse Cartoon ‘Steamboat Willie’ was released in 1928 as a result was in danger of become public domain by the end of the decade.
This would mean that Disney would no longer have airtight copyright protection over it’s famous mascot.
The resulting changes to copyright law extended Disney’s (and several other companies) copyrights by 20 years, and it’s expected that Disney will continue to lobby to extend their copyright protection moving forward.
Resulting copyright reform was nicknamed the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” by critics as it was clearly passed to appease Disney and other mega media companies without little thought to the public good.
Copyright legislation will be in the news soon as the copyright extensions will soon expire and Characters like Batman, Superman, Mickey Mouse, and others are at risk of becoming Public Domain.
Copyright however refers to specific incarnations. The current appearance of Mickey Mouse will still be protected, while his appearance in Steamboat Willie will become public domain.
As for fairytales, Disney can’t copyright a concept like Robin Hood but they can copyright their own version of it. So the anthropomorphic characters in Disney’s Robinhood are what are copyrighted, not the story itself.
Similarly the recent trend of live action remakes of Disney movies is actually a deliberate plan to extend Disney’s copyright on these concepts for a further 50 years.
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