copyright

  • The OG Mickey Mouse Finally Hits the Public Domain Next Week

    The OG Mickey Mouse Finally Hits the Public Domain Next Week

    January 1, 2024 won’t just be the start of a new year. It’ll also see Mickey and Minnie Mouse enter the public domain. Come that date, Disney’s exclusive copyright on the two iconic characters’ Steamboat Willie incarnations from 1928 will have run out, after which anyone can do anything they want with them. So if…


  • Australia’s Copyright Law Can’t Handle ChatGPT

    Australia’s Copyright Law Can’t Handle ChatGPT

    ChatGPT and other generative AI tools which draw on large language models (LLMs) are a hot topic. Released in November 2022 by OpenAI, ChatGPT is a chatbot – it generates text output refined through user prompts. What makes it special is just how sophisticated and impressive that output is. The stratospheric rise of generative AI…


  • An AI-Illustrated Comic Has Lost a Key Copyright Case

    An AI-Illustrated Comic Has Lost a Key Copyright Case

    When Kris Kashtanova attempted to copyright their comic book Zarya of the Dawn, the United States Copyright Office originally granted them the rights. Later, the agency put the book under review because of Kashtanova’s social media, where they said that they had produced the images using the AI-image generator Midjourney. Now, the Copyright Office has made a…


  • Destroy the Gatekeepers of Art, Free The People’s Joker!

    Destroy the Gatekeepers of Art, Free The People’s Joker!

    A new Joker film had its first — and probably last — showing earlier this month at the Toronto International Film Festival. The People’s Joker, described as “a queer coming-of-age story complete with a copyright-defying array of villains and heroes,” was screened once and only once. Future screenings of the film have been pulled due…