New Year’s Day now doubles as Public Domain Day, when a fresh trove of vintage artistic creations becomes available each year for anyone to use, adapt and exploit as copyrights expire. And at least emblematically, the big game this year is the first cinematic iterations of Mickey Mouse: the poster rodent for extended copyright protections.

To be clear, for most this is not even your father’s Mickey and Minnie Mouse who are entering the grab-bag marketplace of adaptation Monday. The public has gained the right to creatively use the breakout black-and-white Disney characters strictly as they appear in the 1928 animated short film Steamboat Willie, as well as that year’s silent version of the short film Plane Crazy.

Washington Post