Steamboat Willie’s Mickey Mouse recently entered the public domain, leading to a series of recreations from humorous to horrifying. Several other characters, including J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, also lost their copyright protection on “Public Domain Day.”
With this freedom, which comes after 95 years of rights held in the US, creatives can now use the likeness of affected characters in art, books, games, or films without fear of legal action. According to Duke Law, Walt Disney Co. and other copyright holders vied for more years of protection from the original 56 years, and a modification was made.
Trailers of modified versions flood the internet
Last year, Winnie the Pooh’s public domain launch brought about the horror transformation of the friendly teddy bear into a killer villain in the micro-budget Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey movie, which had a 3% rating on Rotten Tomatoes but is nonetheless getting a sequel.
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This time, trailers of new parody films and video games featuring the ‘20s version of Mickey Mouse have been making rounds online ahead of their debut. One of them, titled Mickey Mouse Trap, portrays a knife-wielding Mickey who attends a surprise birthday party in an arcade.
More remakes
Nightmare Forge Games also produced a survival horror game — Infestation 88 — featuring a scary rodent outbreak. The synopsis via the Steam distribution service reads, “In the year 1988, what was thought to be an outbreak of vermin morphed into something far more sinister. Infestation 88 is an episodic, 1-4 player co-op survival horror game in which you and your friends are exterminators called in to treat these mysterious infestations.”
Other works worthy of note in the public domain include Agatha Christie’s The Mystery of the Blue Train, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, Claude McKay’s Home to Harlem, and The Circus by Charlie Chaplin. In music, “I Wanna Be Loved by You” from Good Boy and Paris’ “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love)” also joined the list. Blues singer Ida Cox’s “Lawdy Lawdy Blues” and “Charleston” by composer James P. Johnson also lost their copyright claims last year.