• Disney retracts copyright claim on a YouTuber’s “Steamboat Willie” video, allowing it to be monetizable and shareable worldwide.
• The claim had previously demonetized the video and restricted its visibility and embedding options.
• This move by Disney may signal its recognition of “Steamboat Willie” being in the public domain.
The law is only as powerful as people are willing to enforce it.
Just because it’s a “goddamn motherfucking law” doesn’t mean shit if powerful corporations are willing to spend unholy amounts of money to make you prove it in court.
The “Happy Birthday” song was believed to be in the public domain for centuries but Warner Brothers was able to convince people to just pay them a license fee in order to prevent going to court. It was only in 2016 that a court ruled that it was in the public domain.
So yeah…Disney could have been real douches about this. But they are, uncharacteristically, being nice about it.
I think it’s indicative of Disney’s character that this worries me more than anything else.
I’m actually not too worried about it. A lot of people were watching the whole “Steamboat Willie” copyright sunsetting with great interest since it was what drove Disney to lobby congress to push legislation to protect it.
So there would have been a pretty large outcry if Disney decided to sue people for it, especially after it had expired. Given the fact that they are already fighting PR battles with DeSantis and the “anti-woke” crowd, they are probably being pragmatic and not fighting a battle that they’d pretty much lose in court as well as in public opinion.