Technology
Welcome to the public domain, Mickey Mouse
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25178954/1920_51_107_720.jpg?ssl=1 "Welcome to the public domain, Mickey Mouse")
It’s finally happened: after nearly a century, Mickey Mouse has slipped off Disney’s copyright leash. The first versions of the iconic cartoon character, seen in Steamboat Willie and a silent version of Plane Crazy, enter the public domain in the US on January 1st, 2024. (An early version of Minnie Mouse is also fortunately included.) There’s still a complicated mess of protections around Mickey, but today is a moment public domain advocates have awaited for decades — and there are plenty of other exciting new entries as well.
Duke Law School’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, as usual, has a roundup of prominent works whose copyright protections lapse in the US today. The list includes sound recordings from 1923 and works in other media that were published in 1928. Among other things, that covers:
You can find a slew of public domain sound recordings for download at the Library of Congress National Jukebox. And if you’re inspired by the above media or any other works entering the public domain this year, Techdirt will be hosting its sixth annual Public Domain Game Jam to celebrate making games based on them.
For ongoing characters like Mickey Mouse, of course, copyright law is particularly complicated. The public domain version of the character doesn’t include significant design changes made in later works, like Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mickey from Fantasia in 1940. And you can’t produce a work that falsely represents itself as a Disney production or a piece of official merchandise, since Mickey Mouse is also a registered Disney trademark. Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain director Jennifer Jenkins has a far more comprehensive explanation of the law on Duke’s blog.
The public domain is supposed to be the final destination of any copyrighted work — it’s part of a compromise that acknowledges the benefits of letting artists and thinkers control and profit from their work in the short term while freely building on each other’s ideas in the long term, a balance Disney itself relied upon when making fairy-tale adaptations like Snow White and Cinderella. (It’s also a vital factor in letting archivists preserve old media after its creators die or can no longer be found, since it allows making copies without legal concerns — and only a tiny sliver of copyrighted works remain commercially valuable for the entire term of protection.) But it was frozen for 20 years in the US thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which was derisively dubbed the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” for delaying Steamboat Willie’s entry into the public domain. Though despite the nickname, Disney was far from the only company lobbying for its passage.
The result is that Mickey Mouse has become a symbol of extended copyright protections and (with varying degrees of fairness) Disney’s vested stake in intellectual property law. When Disney angered Republican politicians by criticizing Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, for instance, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) proposed a nigh-nuclear IP law rollback in the name of stripping “woke corporations like Disney of special copyright protections.” We may well see legal fights over the precise limits of public domain Mickey, the way we have other characters like Sherlock Holmes — but today, it’s a good day to think about new uses for old media.
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The LG CLOiD robot and the LG OLED evo AI Wallpaper TV are displayed onstage during an LG Electronics news conference at CES 2026, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas, Jan. 5, 2026. (REUTERS/Steve Marcus)
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Welcome to Fox News’ Artificial Intelligence newsletter with the latest AI technology advancements.
IN TODAY’S NEWSLETTER:
– CES 2026 showstoppers: 10 gadgets you have to see
– Construction giant unveils AI to help prevent job site accidents: ‘It’s essentially a personal assistant’
– Fox News gets exclusive look at company helping businesses nationwide harness AI-powered robots to boost efficiency and fill labor gaps
CES 2026 put health tech front and center, with companies showcasing smarter ways to support prevention, mobility and long-term wellness. (CES)
FUTURE IS NOW: Every January, the Consumer Electronics Show, better known as CES, takes over Las Vegas. It’s where tech companies show off what they’re building next, from products that are almost ready to buy to ideas that feel pulled from the future.
SAFER SITES: Construction equipment giant Caterpillar has unveiled a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool designed to improve job site safety and boost efficiency as the industry grapples with labor shortages.
FUTURE OF WELLNESS: The Consumer Electronics Show, better known as CES, is the world’s largest consumer technology event, and it’s underway in Las Vegas. It takes over the city every January for four days and draws global attention from tech companies, startups, researchers, investors and journalists, of course.
FUTURE OF WORK: As artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving, Fox News got an exclusive look at a company helping businesses nationwide harness AI-powered robots to boost efficiency and fill labor gaps. RobotLAB, with 36 locations across the country and headquartered in Texas, houses more than 50 different types of robots, from cleaning and customer service bots to security bots.
The LG CLOiD robot and the LG OLED evo AI Wallpaper TV are displayed onstage during an LG Electronics news conference at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, Jan. 5, 2026. (REUTERS/Steve Marcus)
COMPUTE CRUNCH: The price tag for competing in the artificial intelligence race is rapidly climbing, fueling demand for advanced computing power and the high-end chips that are needed to support it. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) CEO Lisa Su said demand for AI computing is accelerating as industries rush to expand their capabilities.
AI GONE WRONG: A California teenager used a chatbot over several months for drug-use guidance on ChatGPT, his mother said. Sam Nelson, 18, was preparing for college when he asked an AI chatbot how many grams of kratom, a plant-based painkiller commonly sold at smoke shops and gas stations across the country, he would need to get a strong high, his mother, Leila Turner-Scott, told SFGate, according to the New York Post.
DR CHAT: ‘The Big Money Show’ panelists weigh in on a report on people turning to ChatGPT for medical and healthcare questions.
‘FUNDAMENTALLY DEFLATIONARY’: OpenAI Board Chair Bret Taylor discusses artificial intelligence’s potential to change traditional work and its increasing use in healthcare on ‘Varney & Co.’
MIND TRAP ALERT: Artificial intelligence chatbots are quickly becoming part of our daily lives. Many of us turn to them for ideas, advice or conversation. For most, that interaction feels harmless. However, mental health experts now warn that for a small group of vulnerable people, long and emotionally charged conversations with AI may worsen delusions or psychotic symptoms.
A California teenager sought drug-use guidance from a ChatGPT chatbot over several months while preparing for college, his mother told SFGate, according to the New York Post. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
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These AI projects include Prometheus, the first of several supercluster computing systems, which is expected to come online in New Albany, Ohio, sometime this year. Meta is funding the construction of new nuclear reactors as part of the agreements, the first of which may come online “as early as 2030.” These announcements are part of Meta’s ongoing goal to support its future AI operations with nuclear energy, having previously signed a deal with Constellation to revive an aging nuclear power plant last year.
Financial information for the agreements hasn’t been released, but Meta says that it will “pay the full costs for energy used by our data centers so consumers don’t bear these expenses.”
“Our agreements with Vistra, TerraPower, Oklo, and Constellation make Meta one of the most significant corporate purchasers of nuclear energy in American history,” Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, said in the announcement. “State-of-the-art data centers and AI infrastructure are essential to securing America’s position as a global leader in AI.”
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