Steamboat Willy in the Public Domain
If you’ve been paying attention, then you’ve heard that Steamboat Willy, the original version of Mickey Mouse, has entered the public domain. That means we will begin seeing Steamboat Willy shown in new movies, shows, and commercials featuring the classic mouse.
Intellectual Property (IP) law is complex, but one thing that’s clear is that the left has understood the power of controlling intellectual property in a way that Christians have not. It takes years to develop IP into a cultural institution. Look at DC (Est. 1935), Marvel (Est. 1939), James Bond (1953), Pixar (1979), or even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1983). It takes time to develop cache for any sort of intellectual property. (We are witnessing Star Wars prove how long it takes to ruin that cache in real time.)
Christians have produced some very important cultural IP: Narnia (1950), Middle Earth (1937), Dungeons and Dragons (1974). But we have given over control of each of them to unbelieving institutions, and it has been disheartening to see them used against the purpose for which they were created. Even Howard the Duck (1973) is still on his original mission. It’s critical that we keep control of Christian IP.
Christians have the most popular IP of all time in the Bible, as well as some of the most important and popular historical IP (Dante, Milton, Bunyan, Chaucer, Shakespeare). There are many possibilities there, but creating new IP and, more importantly, retaining control of that IP, is something that we need to plan for now so that, in 50 years, when our IP is a cultural institution, it is still being used for the mission for which it was created.
That is why we are careful to write contracts that leave the ownership and control of IP in the hands of the creator. We need to build new multigenerational IP and protect it. And we at Loor believe that when the original creator retains their IP rights, this offers the best protection.
It’s time to think long term. Let’s not settle for one blockbuster now. We need to aim for 200 cultural institutions in 50 years.
