David Edwards
The original version of Disney’s Mickey Mouse, featured in the 1928 animation “Steamboat Willie,” recently entered the public domain and quickly became the most popular nonfungible token (NFT) on the OpenSea marketplace.
This happened as the copyright for this particular version of Mickey expired, a century after its first appearance, in line with U.S. law that limits copyright duration to 95 years.
As a result, three NFT collections inspired by this classic version of Mickey soared in popularity on OpenSea. The “Steamboat Willie Public Domain 2024” collection claimed the top position with a trading volume of approximately $1.2 million. It was followed by another collection named “Steamboat Willie” and then by “Steamboat Willie’s Riverboat,” each securing the second and third spots in OpenSea’s 24-hour trending list, respectively.
