As from today, Popeye – that happy little sailor spinach dwarf fella – comes out of copyright in the EU. But not the US. It’s 70 years to the day that his creator (Elzie Sagar) died, so out of copyright he comes, and we can all use his picture to sell our homegrown spinach. (Does anybody market homegrown spinach any more?) Just don’t import it to the states, you’ll get sued.
By the way, he still generates around $1,5 billion in annual sales, so somebody is having a really rotten new years. Ya boo.