Today the copyright expires for the original Mickey Mouse and he enters the public domain.

For decades Disney has greased the political wheels to convince the government to keep extending the length of copyright (originally Mickey was supposed to expire in 1984, then again in 2003), but then they kinda just... stopped. Apparently the old-school original Mickey from Steamboat Willie just isn't worth it anymore. So welcome to the latest DaveToon here at Blogography, I guess...

But don't go crying for Disney... they still have copyright protection for a bunch of other versions that came after Steamboat Willie Mickey. PLUS, I'm pretty sure that people will still be going to Disney for all their Mickey Mouse content.

Well, except for Mickey Mouse porn of course.

My favorite Mickey is a tie between Public Domain Mickey and the white-faced, red pants, yellow shoes Mickey which followed Public Domain Mickey. Everything that came after that... Peach-Faced Mickey, Caucasian Mickey, 3-D Mickey (essentially every Mickey which has white around his pupils)... I don't like much at all. Though I do kinda like the brand new Throwback Mickey that Disney is currently using because they've gone white-faced again. Mickey belongs to everybody and shouldn't be Caucasian.

In the coming years more and more of Disney's original characters will start collapsing into the Public Domain like dominoes. Donald, Pluto, Goofy... all of them. Well, except "Hans" from Frozen. Nobody is going to want anything to do with that asshole.

UPDATE: Well send me to Disneyland and call me Minnie... apparently Red Shorts Mickey IS in the public domain. There was a poster advertising him in 1928!

I prefer him with yellow shoes and white gloves as he would later be depicted, but I still like this better than any caucasian version of Mickey, so this is great news! I wonder if it's allowable for me to change the colors and consider it "artistic license?" Maybe!