DC Is Already Preparing For Its Heroes' Public Domain Era

The arrival of Steamboat Willie —and with it, the first steps of Mickey Mouse himself—WatchThe Batman Review CCShare SubtitlesOffEnglishOver at Variety the trade has taken a look at what DC can do as the trinity prepares to enter public domain, and once again much as the case has been with Disney and Steamboat, the answer is largely both not much and quite a lot. Warner Bros., DC Comics’ owner, won’t be able to stop these characters from entering the public domain—the time for that has passed after the copyright extensions granted in the Copyright Extension Act of 1998. The fact that DC’s Advertisement “People will make a run at these characters because there’s money to be made,” comics scribe Mark Waid told Variety. “It’s a gray area. But this town works on the speed of capitalism, right? That’s how we work.” AdvertisementBut just as Disney still does when it comes to Mickey Mouse, Warner Bros. and DC will still have a lot of leverage over Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman upon their public domain debuts. Those initial entries will only cover the earliest iterations of these characters—characters who have spent decades undergoing iterations and additions in their histories, powers, and public identities since those debuts that have made them the heroes most people know. Batman is arguably as defined by his supporting cast as he is himself, many of whom won’t immediately join him in the public domain (Beyond character traits and supporting cast members though, DC will also retain several key trademarks for each of these characters—that, unlike copyright, do not naturally expire over time—that will allow it to leverage control, and make any public domain uses of the characters have to distinguish themselves from DC’s own concurrent works, like trademarks it owns for the Bat symbol or Superman’s S, as well as ones on alternate nomenclature like the Man of Steel or the Caped Crusader. It can’t stop them being used outright, but it can effectively stop people from trying to pass off public domain material as if it were from DC and Warner.AdvertisementAs Hollywood continues in its cycles of trends, superheroes will not always be a dominant as they have been for the last decade plus of filmmaking—a light that is arguably already clearly beginning to fade in the wider mainstream eye. But as more and more of these legendary characters pass over into the public domain, resurgences in adaptive use, from sources beyond their original owners, will make a far more interesting, albeit murkier, world to play in. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest

Based on reporting by gizmodo.com.