Well that would be different from how it works with Mickey Mouse and Sherlock Holmes, in both of those examples, some works involving the character are public domain and others are still under copyright. As such, people can do their own versions of Mickey mouse as long as it’s the steamboat Willie version of Mickey mouse but not Mickey mouse from more recent works. People can write their own versions of Sherlock Holmes stories as long as they don’t have the characteristics of Sherlock Holmes in later novels.
I suspect the same would apply to Wile E. Coyote if this film went into the public domain, people could use the character as long as it’s the version of the character from this movie and not the version from the '60s cartoons.
There was a weird situation with the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” where the copyright to the movie lapsed into the public domain due to someone forgetting to renew it (when that was a thing), but the story, and characters were still protected. It was basically decided that the still frames were public domain, but since they became story in movie form, not just anyone could legally sell copies of the movie.
I think that only applies if you can make an argument that the two characters are distinct. Your Mickey/Steamboat Willie example is good because they are distinct (slightly different looks, and different names). Another good example is Sherlock Holmes. There was a big lawsuit where the current rights holders tried to argue that the later works are still under copyright just because Sherlock has emotions, and he didn’t in the earlier stories. I don’t remember how the suit turned out though.
Well that would be different from how it works with Mickey Mouse and Sherlock Holmes, in both of those examples, some works involving the character are public domain and others are still under copyright. As such, people can do their own versions of Mickey mouse as long as it’s the steamboat Willie version of Mickey mouse but not Mickey mouse from more recent works. People can write their own versions of Sherlock Holmes stories as long as they don’t have the characteristics of Sherlock Holmes in later novels.
I suspect the same would apply to Wile E. Coyote if this film went into the public domain, people could use the character as long as it’s the version of the character from this movie and not the version from the '60s cartoons.
There was a weird situation with the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” where the copyright to the movie lapsed into the public domain due to someone forgetting to renew it (when that was a thing), but the story, and characters were still protected. It was basically decided that the still frames were public domain, but since they became story in movie form, not just anyone could legally sell copies of the movie.
I think that only applies if you can make an argument that the two characters are distinct. Your Mickey/Steamboat Willie example is good because they are distinct (slightly different looks, and different names). Another good example is Sherlock Holmes. There was a big lawsuit where the current rights holders tried to argue that the later works are still under copyright just because Sherlock has emotions, and he didn’t in the earlier stories. I don’t remember how the suit turned out though.