Steamboat Willie, a 1928 short film featuring early non-speaking versions of Mickey and Minnie, is widely seen as the moment that transformed Disney's fortunes and made cinema history.

Their images are now available to the public in the US, after Disney's copyright expired.

It means creatives like cartoonists can now rework and use the earliest versions of Mickey and Minnie.

In fact, anyone can use those versions without permission or cost.

But Disney warned that more modern versions of Mickey are still covered by copyright.

"We will, of course, continue to protect our rights in the more modern versions of Mickey Mouse and other works that remain subject to copyright," the company said.

US copyright law says the rights to characters can be held for 95 years, which means the characters in Steamboat Willie entered the public domain on Monday, 1 January 2024.

Those works can now legally be shared, performed, reused, repurposed or sampled.

The early versions of Mickey and Minnie are just two of the works entering the public domain in the US on New Year's Day.

Other famous films, books, music and characters from 1928 are now also available to the American public.

They include Charlie Chaplin's silent romantic comedy The Circus; English author AA Milne's book The House at Pooh Corner, which introduced the character Tigger; Virginia Woolf's Orlando; and DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover.