Fire Up Your Silk Screen: Mickey Mouse Might Be in the Public Domain

The title card that started this whole thing.Copyright Disney Enterprises.
OR IS IT?!?!?!?!?!?
But now legal scholars — acting on a discovery by a disgruntled ex-Disney archivist — are arguing that the copyright on the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, might be null and void owing to sloppiness in that film's title card.
Disney, of course, doesn't think this is nearly as hilarious as we do, denying repeatedly that there's any uncertainty about Mickey's copyright — and even threatening one curious law student with a slander suit if he published his research. All in all, it's a pretty damning case that Mickey — or at least 1939 Mickey with his ugly, ratlike face — is free and clear. Who's ready to see Mickey Mouse T-shirts in porny American Apparel ads?
Disney's rights to young Mickey Mouse may be wrong [LAT via Defamer]

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