Honestly does anyone really care about Mickey anymore? He’s a mascot with no value outside of that sphere of use. It’s not like it’s Spiderman or something.
They do. Or at least they have in the past. That’s why they spent so many years and so much money and political capital screwing up our copyright law. Heck they even traded Al Michaels for a pre-Mickey cartoon Walt had done working for Universal.
Of course these days maybe not. The Disney empire is now so big that the actual “Disney” stuff is just a small fraction. And with the currently screwed up laws most of that stuff isn’t hitting public domain this century. We’ll find out in the next 18 months.