Fleischer Studios Criticized for Claiming Betty Boop is Not Public Domain

Here it is - Betty Boop's first appearance, which became public domain on Thursday. It's a 60-second song halfway through a longer cartoon about a restaurant titled Dizzy Dishes. (The first scene makes it clear this is a restaurant of anthropomorphized animals - which explains why the as-yet-unnamed character has floppy dog ears) So Fleischer Studios has now warned that claiming Betty Boop is public domain "is actually not true." Very often, different versions of a character that...