How is it that (at least some) Warner Bros. Cartoons have fallen into the public domain but older Disney cartoons haven’t?
A couple years ago Disney pushed for a new law that allowed the extension of copyrights for a longer period. Many of the older Disney materials would be public domain soon, because they had almost reached the end of copyright under the old law. Somebody that can provide details feel free to provide them. I only read about this on pages that alert you when things occur that are not in the general publics interest.
Untrue – or at least vastly misstated. Disney has nothing to do with it and the implication that the law affects Disney differently than anyone else is totally false. Plus Disney’s work was still protected by trademark even if not by copyright.
The genesis of the extension was Adolph Hitler. The copyright of Mein Kampf was due to be public domain in Germany fifty years after his death. The German government didn’t want that to happen, so it changed their law to life plus 70. Germany subscribes to the Berne Convention on copyright, and, in order to keep the copyright international, the Berne Convention changed their terms to life plus 70. Since the US subscribes to the Berne Convention, we had to change it, too.
Now, Disney certainly didn’t object to the change, but they didn’t initiate it, especially since the courts had already ruled that even if the work was in PD, Disney had the right to control their trademarks.
As for the OP, I’d be surprised if there were any WB cartoons officially in the PD, but it is possible. If, for some reason, copyright wasn’t renewed on a particular cartoon so that it was in the public domain in 1977 when the copyright act changed, then the work is still PD. I doubt this happened often, since WB knew around renewal time that there was a market for their cartoons on TV, but there is a chance something slipped through the cracks.
In addition, Disney has been very aggressive in protecting their copyrights and trademarks; Warner Brothers may have not bothered for noncommercial use.
The reason is basically that Disney renewed more of its copyrights, I guess. Most of the older Warner Bros. cartoons were sold to an organization called Associated Artists for distribution. Associated Artists eventually became part of United Artists, which became part of Turner Entertainment, which became part of Time Warner, so Time Warner now owns the rights to all of the old Warner cartoons once again. (For many years, you could still see the Associated Artists logo on old Warner cartoons they distributed when they aired on television.) A few of the cartoons have politically incorrect stereotypes that were common at the time, whereas some others are just common Looney Tunes. Here’s a complete list of public domain Warner cartoons, all of which were part of the AAP/UA package. As far as I know, there’s only one Disney cartoon in the public domain: A wartime propaganda cartoon called The Spirit of '43 in which Donald Duck encourages viewers to pay taxes to help the war effort. The title itself dates the cartoon immediately.
Do you have a cite for any of that RealityChuck? I’ve never heard that version of the tale, and you’re wrong on at least one point, and the timeline is kind of questionable.
The Berne Convention requires protection for the life of the author plus 50 years, not 70.
The German term appears to have been changed in 1998, three years after Mein Kampf would have come out of copyright.
Actually, you’re both wrong in various nitpicky ways. 
It wasn’t the Berne convention, but the EEC which in 1993 changed their copyright laws to include the life + 70 provision.
1993 is two years before Mein Kampf* would have come out of copyright.
U.S. law was changed accordingly by the The Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998—alternatively known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
The Act was passed two years before Steamboat Willie would have come out of copyright under the current law.
It is certainly true that Disney lobbied for an extension to the current law to match the EEC. It is equally true that lots of other copyright owners did similar lobbying. Although the Sonny Bono Act was denounced as corporate welfare, it is also true that having the EEC and the US out of sync on the critical issue of when works would enter the public domain would have been a nightmare, enriching lawyers around the world.
As Chuck said, the character of Mickey Mouse has trademark protection that will remain as long as the Disney Company (or its successors) is a viable operating concern. Russia and other non-signatories to the Berne Convention already consider the earliest Mickey Mouse films to be in the public domain and that hasn’t affected Disney very much.
On the other hand, while I can’t find a chronological list of Mickey Mouse cartoons, by 1998 Disney must have been aware of the commercial possibilities of videos and DVDs. Seeing the early cartoons slip away from them one by one as the years rolled by would have been incentive for them to lobby to keep them in copyright.
But they didn’t cause the law to be changed. Once the EEC made its change, the U.S. was forced to adjust. That’s just reality.
*I always find it amusing that everybody universally refers to Hitler’s book as the scary-sounding Mein Kampf. It wouldn’t have nearly the impact if everybody referred to Hitler’s “My Struggle.”
Ask and ye shall recieve : NameBright - Domain Expired
Thanks. I thought a search would be straightforward but I only came up with references to books that had the info. Mind telling me how you found it?
By a quick count, 85 cartoons, the earliest, rarest, hardest to find cartoons, would now be in the public domain. Disney will make good money on those from collector’s DVDs.
But so will the tens of thousands of copyright holders from that period, including literary giants like Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Copyright protects all creators, not just those in giant corporations.
And if you - the general you - dislike the creations of giant corporations, stop drooling over every single thing they do in Café Society. If you dislike corporations lobbying for their own interests, stop proclaiming the wonders of the free market in Great Debates. If you advocate pirating copyrighted works because the law calls it infringement rather than theft, stop. Just stop. Complaining about a corporation making money by pursuing its own interests while encouraging others to steal their works because that’s in your interests is a standard of hypocrisy that I don’t ever want to see matched.
He owns it!
Disney cartoons now in the public domain include:
• The Mad Doctor (1933)
• Minnie’s Yoo Hoo (1930)
• Hooked Bear (1956)
• Susie, the Little Blue Coupe (1952)
• The Cookie Carnival (1935)
By no coincidence, that almost exactly corresponds with the Disney Cartoons I’ve seen on the Canadian digital channel “Movieola”. That must be how you get a TV channel going with a budget of $48.17.
Here’s one - there are others too at archive.org
Except that it also translates as “My Combat” or “My Battle”, neither or which are quite as cute and cuddly.
Thanks, Exapno. The only date I could find on Germany’s copyright law was that the document online was dated with a last revision of 1998.
Cute and cuddly being the first things that come to mind when one thinks of Hitler.
That’s cheating!
snicker
And to use Eutychus’ site to address the OP, this page lists Disney shorts from 1922.
Little Red Riding Hood
The Four Musicians of Bremen
Jack and the Beanstalk
Goldie Locks and the Three Bears
Puss in Boots
Cinderella
Tommy Tucker’s Tooth
According to the US Copyright Office: