Quite honestly: nothing. Some folks might deliberately use Steamboat Willie in some content because they can, and Disney will likely try and attack some of those people in court based on trademark law if applicable.
But I don’t really see a lot of actual utility in the Steamboat Willie character, outside of Disney itself. Any use of it is ultimately just referring to the “I can do this now” aspect of having just entered public domain, which frankly isn’t that interesting.
If you look what happened with pooh I’m guessing we may see the same thing happen here. There will definitely be testing of the waters on what people can do
Saw ONE design of the character on Twitter that actually made for an interesting idea that could be expanded upon, there IS space for someone to do smth cool about it but I honestly don’t think anyone will. Hey, Toontown Rewritten could model this Mickey and use it for something I guess.
A veritable orgy of uninspired crap taking advantage of the fact that people want to feel subversive but don’t actually want to subvert anything or say or do anything interesting, because all of those things are hard.
Basically the same thing as the Pooh-but-not-tigger comics you see posted on here that people pretend are funny.
That is the thing I’m seeing the most this past year and it’s already starting up for this year - there seems to be little thoughtfulness being put into things online. It’s just a firehose of high-engagement, low-impact, low-thought chaff.
Tbh when it comes to stuff like the pooh movie. I think that probably could count as fair use anyway. Ultimately I’ve been hoping for more things to enter public domain for historical preservation via piracy. Just look at Nintendo not only have they done nothing to preserve older games but they seem to go out of their way to make sure they get erased. Because how dare someone get a product you don’t even sell anymore. I just see these parody? films and think the only reason they exist is because copyright life has been extended for soo far that people are giddy that they can now use and distribute old content.
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