You Have Entered the Public Domain (Steamboat Willie Riff)

Written for Aliayta Foon-Dancoes, violin, and j clancy, drums
Video editing, music production, and composition by Bobby Ge
Dedicated to Nicolas Berge
Completed March 7, 2024
Premiered April 16, 2024 at Taplin Auditorium, Princeton University
No art exists in a vacuum. Everything owes its existence to something earlier, and this cycle of ideas forms the backbone of creativity. The public domain - the body of work free from copyright restriction - is one of the most important fixtures of today’s creative landscape, providing a rich library of source material for artists of any medium.
The Disney Corporation has long had a difficult relationship with the public domain. Most famously, when their copyright on Steamboat Willie was set to expire, Disney aggressively lobbied the US government to pass the Copyright Act of 1976 (derisively called the Mickey Mouse Protection Act by its critics) to dramatically extend copyright term limits for all intellectual property.
The law’s worst effect was to cast the public domain as a villain to be guarded against, a stance that could not have been less prescient. The world was on the cusp of the digital era, a time of unprecedented availability of information, and such a newly protectionist approach to IP would eventually lead to the kinds of headaches artists of all kinds face today - from remixes getting ‘copystruck’ by content monitors to exclusivity restrictions that vary confusingly from country to country.
In 2024, Steamboat Willie finally ran out its copyright limit. Hundreds of thousands of memes sprang up to crassly mock Disney, and this piece - as much as it is a joyous celebration of the public domain - is proudly suffused with that same kind of over-the-top, meme-worthy contempt.
It was an absolute delight to create this piece, and I must also give credit to Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, and John F. Kennedy for providing such wonderful source material to supplement Mickey with.

[@kevinchen8325]

Can’t believe god let you cook so absolutely with this one

[@bobbycge]

praise be

[@bryshares]

Delightful. I'd contend piracy is just as important as the public domain.

[@bobbycge]

hahaha definitely important in its impact! though in my mind, piracy is much more harmful to artists than the public domain can be

[@G.TranscriptionsDidactics]

Grande complimenti

[@bobbycge]

thank you thank you!

[@emmanuelfernandes5610]

this is amazing. may more people know this!

[@emmanuelfernandes5610]

for some reason yt thought some guy in Brazil should see this vid and now I'm here, nice

[@bobbycge]

​@@emmanuelfernandes5610 hahahahahah thanks so much for watching! praise be to the algorithm

[@XeniaStCharlesIrisLlyllyth]

This is fucking amazing

[@bobbycge]

hhahahaah tyty

[@XeniaStCharlesIrisLlyllyth]

@@bobbycge ywyw

[@AvielMannBallo]

Dizzying!

[@bobbycge]

@@AvielMannBallo lol premiere pro got a workout with this one

[@finnianlong1177]

Incredible!

[@bobbycge]

glad you enjoyed lol!

[@dominikclarke6545]

...definitely put a warning for photosensitive epilepsy on this 💀

[@bobbycge]

hahahah its the first thing in the video!

[@dominikclarke6545]

@@bobbycge oh right you are! i love it haha, wonderfully off-the-rails nutso