I find the rhythmic undulation of his gills to be very sensuous. 
Meh. The only Mickey Mouse even worth mentioning is Floyd Gottfredson’s comic strip Mickey.
It’s not a ‘gotcha,’ it’s to protects artists. The written music i.e. sheet music by Bach is in the public domain, since he’s been dead for almost 273 years and copyright “only” lasts 70 years after the the creator’s death•. The recording is protected in order for musicians, arrangers, record companies ASF will get paid for their work.
• If Macca were to die today, most of Beatles music will be protected to 2093.
But Disney still owns the patent on Mickey, right? 
It may not be the mouse having sex, but the boat. It’s right there in the title: “Steamboat Willy”
Ah, Winnie the Pooh. Disney should burn in hell forever for the travesty he made of those books.
Granted, he did use some other mediocre books as a starting point for decent movies.
But not Winnie…
Don’t worry, the new movie is more realistic.
I really thought that was just a joke trailer. But no, that’s an actual movie.
Give it a year and see what they do to Steamboat Willie.
Super low budget movie that was trying to go for the “movie DIsney doesn’t want you to see” campaign. Disney was smart to just completely ignore it. Looks like it opened #13 last weekend.
I believe that the Winnie the Pooh movies may be Disney’s most under rated classics. Are they as good as the books? No. But they’re right up there with Disney’s best movies.
I think this is at least partially incorrect. As in the Winne the Pooh horror movie above, they should be able to make derivative Mickey works only using the elements available in Steamboat Willie. In the WtP movie, they couldn’t use things like the red shirt, because that wasn’t added until later books.
So it seems one could create a new cartoon using the Steamboat Willie version of Mickey, but the later iterations or changes to the character would be off limits. This screenrant.com article seems to agree with that interpretation:
I’m trying to recall any recent Disney film projects that used Mickey or Goofy. I’m pretty sure the last film projects were before my childhood in the 1960’s.
The Mickey Mouse Club was revived in the 90’s.
They’re still used as costume characters at the Disney parks.
I don’t know about “films”, but there was a Goofy TV cartoon in the early 00s.
And copyright law would allow you to make works based on the Steamboat Willie version of Mickey, but that’s irrelevant, because Disney could still sue you for trademark infringement. Using the image of Mickey Mouse on any category of product that Disney sells (which is pretty much everything) would create the impression that the product was made by Disney, and therefore Disney has the right to protect such use. And trademark protection never expires, so long as the owner keeps defending the mark (which, in the specific case of Mickey Mouse, will be until the heat death of the Universe).
Sharing, showing, etc. Steamboat Willie itself is pretty much the only thing you can do with Mickey Mouse without Disney’s permission. Trademark law doesn’t stop that, because you’re not giving the false impression it was made by Disney: That impression is true.
Harlan Ellison would roll over in his grave.
So the shirt below (with what is clearly Steamboat Willie) would still be infringement?
Trademark infringement, yes, probably.
He (Krassner) did, and Disney sued and won.
Charlie_Tan covered this, but here’s my take. Bach’s music (as long as it is unaltered) is in public domain as a composition, but a recording may be under copyright for performance. They are not always the same legally.
However, an altered version of Bach, i.e., a new arrangement where new material has been added, may have a new copyright term for this version of the public domain work, as a composition.
Do you have a cite? I’m reading nothing came about.