The oldest Disney movie ever has entered the public domain.

Kicking off 2024 and literally on the 1 of January, Steamboat Willie entered the public domain. If you don’t know what the public domain is, it basically means anyone can use it. Yes, literally ANYONE and EVERYONE can use it. I’ve already seen one YouTube channel that I am subscribed to uploading the entire Steamboat Willie movie, unedited for everyone to see.

That’s simply the glory of the public domain, you don’t have to do anything special to use it, it’s there for the taking.

The public domain is so great in fact, that Mr. Van Winkle, our journalism teacher, uses pictures from the public domain as thumbnails for our articles. His work is cut out for him today.

It’s important to explain how the public domain works so that people don’t start going around stealing pictures and videos and thinking it’s “public domain.”

Images and videos enter the public domain if it is ineligible for copyright or the copyright on an image or video has expired. In the case of Steamboat Willie, the copyright had expired. Far into the future more and more iconic images and videos will enter the public domain, it’s simply the law.