Which they will do. Immediately and with the force of a thousand suns.

Just draw Mickey Mouse and caption it "This is Pikachu."

So when are we getting a dark Mickey? The dark Winnie The Pooh came out pretty fast after that copyright expired...

No reason to fight it? How about keeping Mickey locked behind copyright to be sold and licensed for another generation? Maybe not as popular as it once was, but it's one remake away from being a new smash hit again.

The fix is easy. It's already in the constitution. A 14yr initial term, then one 14 yr optional extension. That's it. You can profit from your good idea for 30 yrs, the good idea the culture around you helped ferment, then every one else our nation can share in it, enriching us all.

Thats the compromise the founders made between society and inventors when it took 6 months for a letter to travel across an ocean. With instant information access, copyright lasting for 140yr (lifetime of creator + 70yrs) and counting makes zero fucking sense.

Disney loses an iron grip on mickey mouse? Good. Gives others a chance to create wonders with an old idea, a character that is far past part of everyone's cultureal heritage. A charector that should not be constrained to one entity forever. The exact same way disney used someone elses fairy tales to create its wealth, we should be able to use the fairy tales they created nearly 100 yrs ago.

If they need more money, they can keep innovating. Hitting gold in 1936 should not carry on into 2023.

You're thinking of trademarks, which require an ongoing usage in order to maintain.

Copyright and patent have limited terms in order to achieve their intended purpose, which is to advance the arts. If you create something new, you get a monopoly on using it for a limited time. If you want to keep selling your art after that time, you have to make new art. This was more obvious when the copyright term was 14 years. Thanks in part to Disney, it's now become so long that I think it has the opposite effect. Big creators know they will have such a long monopoly--the lifetime of the author plus seventy more years--the incentive isn't to make new art, but to reuse existing art. Fuck Disney.