Disney & copyrights are really interesting. The linked site has a lot of info about why releasing to public domain doesn't harm content. But is there a Mickey/Disney equivalent internationally? I can't think of one, but I'm American...
It seems your "but" has the hidden assumption "since the US has longer term copyright", but in fact, when Mickey was created and for a long time, the US was actually one of the countries with shorter copyright terms. The Berne convention, which sets the copyright length to Life + 50 years, was signed by most developed countries before 1930, but the US only did so in 1988: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St...
This doesn't prove that Disney hasn't benefited enormously from extended copyright terms. Their stock growth is huge since '88, but it's impossible to say how much of that growth would have occurred without their copyright [0]. We can speculate, but it's hard to even imagine how Disney would be different today without certain copyrights. That's why I was looking for a comparable media empire internationally.
Of course Disney benefited enormously from extended copyright. But what it does show is that long copyright terms are neither necessary nor sufficient for a Disney to appear and become successful, since the US at that time didn't have them.
What I don't understand is what finding a comparable media empire internationally would give you, since most of the world has the same copyright terms as the US, and so it wouldn't be helpful to judge the results of different terms.
