On November 18th, 1928, Mickey Mouse made his debut in an animated short named “Steamboat Willie.” Disney made over 1 million dollars in revenue every year within 5 years.
The copyright act of 1790 stated that a creator had 14 years of protection and could renew for another period of 14 years. An 1831 act was passed, elongating the period to 42 years, then another act was passed in 1909, making the time 56 years. Mickey Mouse was going to enter the public domain in 1984. Because Mickey was worth billions of dollars in revenue for Disney, it wanted to keep him in an iron grip. Nearing the date of expiration, Disney went to Congress to lobby them to change the policy. In 1978, the policy was aligned with the European standard, which is 75 years. That extended Disney’s copyright on Mickey Mouse to 2003. Again, Disney began to feel the impending deadline and took action by going to Congress again. “In 1997, Congress introduced the Copyright Term Extension Act, which proposed to extend corporate copyrights again -- this time, from 75 to 95 years. To ensure the bill passed, Disney cozied up to legislators,” says Zachary Crockett on Priceonomics.com.
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Even when and if he enters the public domain, he still will be mostly unusable because of the 22 trademarks to his name, video game, television show and much more. Trademarks never expire, so Disney has a virtual monopoly over Mickey mouse and the world of cartoons. "There's no evidence suggesting that a longer term is going to produce any more art, literature," Chris Sprigman of the NYU School of Law says. "The only reason to extend the term is to give private benefits to companies like Disney or Time Warner that have valuable properties like Mickey Mouse or famous