In A Couple Of Weeks Mickey Will Be Free*; And Our Public Domain Game Jam Will Be Open
It's that time... Get ready for the Gaming Like It's 1928! public domain game jam! The game jam, like all our public domain game jams, runs from January 1st through January 31st, and we're eager to see what kinds of games, both digital and analog, you'll make by building on newly public domain works. As always we'll have awards in six different categories: best analog game, best digital game, best adaptation, best visuals, best remix, and best deep cut.
In January 2019, work in the US from 1923 entered the public domain. It was the first time in decades that works in the US had entered the public domain, as certain copyright interests, led by the Walt Disney Company, had continually pushed out the term of copyright again and again and again.
A while back Tom Bell coined the term the Mickey Mouse Curve" to describe how copyright extensions seemed to keep happening just before Mickey Mouse would be entering the public domain.
However, in part because of widespread activism and the calling out of this curve, the legacy copyright industries admitted in the late teens that they were pretty much done with copyright term extension and that, finally, Mickey Mouse might enter the public domain. 2019 was the first year in decades (thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act two decades earlier) that anything went into the public domain: works from 1923.
At the time, we launched our very first public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1923. We've done one every year since then. Here are the 1924, 1925, 1926, and 1927 versions. But this year is the big one.
The very first Mickey Mouse short, Steamboat Willie, was released in 1928. Leaving aside that Steamboat Willie itself was a clear play on the film Steamboat Bill that also came out in 1928 and used the song Steamboat Bill from 1911, it's pretty incredible that this one short from 1928 was the basis on which so much culture and content was locked up.
Until... just a few weeks from now. And, so we're certainly expecting a few Mickey-themed games for the game jam this year, and we welcome them all.
Our friends over at Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain have put together a nice guide to what it means for the 1928 Mickey to be in the public domain, which includes explanations of what you can and cannot do with Mickey. It includes a lovely graphical representation that you might like:
There are, of course, lots of other works entering the public domain on January 1st, and we're always excited to see what interesting and unique works people find and remix for use in the submitted games. Copyright Lately has a good starter list for some of the many other works entering the public domain. It includes things like the Peter Pan play (which has a tricky copyright history as it was performed long before 1928, but not officially published until then).
We know that John Oliver got a bit of a head start on using Mickey Mouse a bit early, and as far as I know, Disney's lawyers (for once!) actually sat on their hands and did nothing about it. But, on January 1st all of you will be able to use Mickey and lots of other newly public domain works, and we hope that you'll try to come up with some games for our jam.
If you're looking for inspiration, please check some of the earlier game jams, each of which have the various winners listed, and check out our spotlight posts for last year's winners. And we look forward to what you'll be creating this time, whether or not it includes some variation of Mickey. Head on over to the game jam page on Itch.io to sign up and see all the rules and details.
* As explained above, Mickey is only partially free, as new works must be based on the original Mickey, not later updates, and you have to make sure there are no trademark issues, such that anyone would think that your use was an official Disney offering.