I saw this via Facebook: Mickey, Disney, and the Public Domain: a 95-year Love Triangle. It should walk you through what people can and cannot do with the Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse, starting Monday. Short version: copyright (which will expire for that Mickey) regulates if you can use something; trademark (which will not) prevents others from using material misleadingly. To use an example from the text: you can’t slap a Nike swoosh on your shoes and make people think your shoes are from Adidas, but Adidas can’t stop you from using or referencing the word ‘Nike.’ Also, the courts are actually pretty strict about not letting trademark law do end runs around copyright law. Because people have tried to do exactly that.
Read the whole thing. It’s good information, and God knows there’s enough bad info out there. I once had somebody tell me I couldn’t use the word ‘orc’ in a story, despite the fact that Tolkien pulled it himself out of Old English! …Not that I want to start ranting about this.
Much.