Comment by 🚀 stack
By then Disney's revived head will have extended copyright to 1000 years.
2025-09-07 · 8 months ago
4 Later Comments ↓
☕️ tenno-seremel [OP] · 2025-09-07 at 16:43:
@stack There is a possibility, yeah…
🐦 JustASillyBird · Feb 07 at 11:51:
Pokemon is a work-for-hire - that is, one produced by a corporate entity. The first games were published in 1996, along with the G1 pokemon designs. So, baring further extensions to copyright terms, they'll go public domain in Japan in 2066. This will also put them public domain in any country that implements the rule of the shorter term. A list which does not include the US. In the US and most other countries, the copyright will expire in 2091.
There is a further complication though: Pokemon's copyright is an absolute legal mess, being split between three different legal entities, one of which represents an individual. In practical terms that means that even when the term has nominally expired there will be enough legal screwing-around that The Pokemon Company or Nintendo could easily crush any smaller company through legal fees alone, and any lawyer would advise people looking to use the nominally-public-domain characters not to touch that with a bargepole.
And that's just the copyright. There's also trademark law. You might be able to use the pokemon designs, but you couldn't call them that. You couldn't even call them by any of their original names, as those could be considered a trademark too.
We'd basically be looking at the current Micky Mouse situation. Yes, the character is public domain now. But do you see a rush of small studios looking to make their own Micky cartoons, movies or games? No, because the unstoppable might of Disney lawyers would come down upon them regardless, arguing a hundred different technicalities until any such upstart is driven in to bankruptcy by the legal fees and publication delays. If they could even find a distributor.
In law, always remember the golden rule:
He who has the gold makes the rules.
☕️ tenno-seremel [OP] · Feb 08 at 11:18:
@JustASillyBird Interesting! 🤔
At the rate it's going our children won't be alive to see it either
Original Post
Public domain — One day Pokémon will enter public domain and it will be a glorious moment. Too bad we won’t be alive to see it, though…
💬 6 comments · 3 likes · 2025-09-07 · 8 months ago · #thoughts