Has Disney sent a cease and desist letter about using public domain Mickey?
They semi-recently made an entire show using the old character styles presumably to muddy the legal waters and allow them to do exactly that…so I would assume so.
They also have been using the steamboat Willie clip as part of their intro, presumably for the same reason.
Trademark doesn’t have an expiration if they’re still using it, so they would argue that you’re violating their trademark instead of their copyright.
Leaving us hanging…
Or authors could preëmptively declare their works to be in the public domain upon their death.
I wish Creative Commons had a license like that. Something like
CC PDD
(Public-Domain-on-Death) which would activate upon the creator’s death, allowing them and publishers to freely monetize their work while they’re alive, but which would release the work into the public domain immediately after.It might even incentivize music and book publishers to get their artists health insurance. 😃