Disney’s Steamboat Willie Tokenized As An NFT Shortly After Entering Public Domain

Updated: 01 January 2024

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Truth Labs, the parent company behind the infamous Goblintown non-fungible token collection, has partnered with Manifold Labs to tokenize Steamboat Willie, as an NFT collection. The NFT appeared just a few hours after the short film entered the public domain.

Disney’s Steamboat Willie Tokenized As An NFT

In a January 1 blog post, Alexander Taub, the co-founder of Truth Labs, confirmed partnering with Manifold Labs to tokenize the Steamboat Willie as a non-fungible token collection. The Steamboat NFT collection has minted in just a few hours.

Steamboat Willie just became Public Domain at midnight.

I set up a @manifoldxyz mint for the original image of him.

It's a collection with a supply of 2,000 and price of .001 ETH (~$2). If it doesn't mint out it closes in 24 hours.

The first mint was at exactly midnight, the… pic.twitter.com/KmIqgxR6hh

— Alexander Taub (🔺👁🔺) (@ajt) January 1, 2024

Established in 2022, Truth Labs is a web3 company behind projects like Goblintown, Illuminati and Grumpls. The digital asset firm came to the limelight after launching Goblintown, a 10,000-strong collection of generative NFTs exclusively hosted on the Ethereum blockchain network.

Released in November 1928, Steamboat Willie is an animated short film featuring early non-speaking versions of Mickey and Minnie. The cartoon film previously owned by Disney is widely seen as the iconic moment that transformed Disney’s fortunes and made cinema history.

Earlier today, their images became legally available to the United States public after Disney’s copyright expired. It means creative cartoonists and digital asset firms like Trust Labs can now rework and use the earliest versions of Mickey and Minnie.

According to United States copyright laws, the rights to characters can be held for only 95 years, which means the characters in Steamboat Willie animated film entered the public domain on Monday, January 1 2024. In that context, those works can now legally be shared, performed, reused, repurposed or sampled without questioning.

Steamboat Willie NFTs Sold Out In Just Hours

Truth Labs and Manifold Labs grabbed the first chance and mint Steamboat Willie as an NFT at midnight ET on January 1, 2024. The NFT team created a limited edition of 2,000 NFT collections on the Ethereum blockchain. The NFT collection rapidly gained traction among traders and sold in just hours.