Mickey's many roles
The mouse has been the Disney company savior, product promoter and copyright target.
Eighty years ago, Mickey Mouse saved Walt and Roy Disney's young company after they lost control of a popular earlier character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Mickey -- who initially bore some resemblance to the rabbit -- was kept secret from all but a trusted handful of employees, because most of the staff was expected to follow Oswald out the door.
Drawn by artist Ub Iwerks and voiced by Walt, Mickey was a smash from his first wide release in November 1928's “Steamboat Willie,” the earliest cartoon with synchronized sound. Almost immediately, the Disney brothers began licensing products that bore Mickey's likeness. Unusual at the time, that created a circular model of cross-promotion that Disney has followed ever since.
For all of his popularity, Mickey rarely dominated a full-length movie. The artists complained that there were too many rules about his character as he became increasingly clean-cut. One short film from 1995, "Runaway Brain," had a Frankenstein theme that put a monster's brain inside Mickey's body, and the result was jarring. Although it was nominated for an Oscar, the short is rarely shown.
Mickey filled other roles instead, perhaps the most important being as a symbol for Disney the company. As Disney's lobbying muscle prompted Congress to repeatedly extend the deadline for copyright terms before Mickey went free, he also came to represent the power of the entertainment industry and copyright holders in general.
In a notable challenge to that power, Stanford University law professor Larry Lessig took a case to the Supreme Court arguing that all the extensions violated the Constitution's enshrinement of copyright protections lasting "a limited time." Lessig lost.
The latest debate, given its fullest form in a law review article(2003).htm by Douglas Hedenkamp, questions whether Mickey ever had a valid copyright to begin with, given the very strict rules then in effect about how the public had to be informed of copyright claims.
It centers on the title cards from the very first films with Mickey -- not just "Steamboat Willie" but two silent films that preceded it. The problem, from the company's perspective, is that Disney's name is not the closest to the word "Copyright."
Copyright law is a labyrinth, and experts have suggested a number of counterarguments Disney could make if the issue were ever brought to court.
