Copyright
Copyright according to the US Copyright Office is “a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, US Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works.”
copyright-review-flow-chart-v3x.pdfSo you want to show a movie via streaming, DVD or digital copy at school.docAbove Image found: https://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/files/2007/12/copyright-review-flow-chart-v3x.pdf
Time to explain public domain characters!
What is "Public domain"? A public domain fictional character is a character that either does not belong to anyone or whose copyright has worn out. Such characters include but are not limited to:
Characters of fairy tales
Frankenstein's Monster
Dracula
Dorian Gray
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Characters of ancient mythology are all in the public domain. Companies like Disney / Marvel can only trademark their particular depictions.
When Sony was doing Hotel Tranyslvania Universal studios tried to bully them by sending a list of "Dracula traits" that they had "Trademarked" for thier own depiction. This includes red lining in the cape and widow's peak hairline. I am certain Sony could have easily won against these claims in court since a naturally occurring hairline can't really be trademarked and non-Universal depictions of Dracula have worn a red lined cape. But nevertheless Sony caved. That's why Adam Sandler's Dracula has a pink lined cape and why his hair doesn't have the widow's peak.
Disney owns a trademark on their own depiction of Snow White but they don't actually own Snow White. Back in the 1980s Disney (knowing copyright law) still tried to sue a tiny company for making a snow white movie called Happily Ever After. The film eventually got released in 1993 but the company lost almost all their money standing up to Disney. Disney knew the case was frivolous but sued anyway to cause trouble for what they saw as competition. It was very sleezy.
A few years ago someone on Redbubble (or a similar site) was trying to sell a Low-Key T-shirt. What they didn't tell anyone is that the shirt was identical to one the comic book version of Loki wore on the cover of a 2019 issue of a Marvel Loki comic book. It even had the same colors and font.
When Disney had them take down the shirt listing the person created a short Internet panic (that lingers) claiming Disney was copyrighting the characters of Norse mythology / the Asatru religion. It was so wide spread that even Neil Gaiman was asked about it on Tumblr and if he'd stand up to Disney against it since he used "Low-Key" as an alias of Loki first.
Disney can't own the mythological figures. They can only trademark their own depiction. And that shirt was depicted first being worn by Disney's version.
It would be like selling Belle's ball gown and going "But Beauty and the Beast is public domain!" It is but Disney's ballgown is not. That's trademarked.
So in short, yes, Neil Gaiman can still use Loki and Thor. Lots of people still do, including Asylum films (The mockbuster company).
