That would only work as far as retaining the trademarks, not the copyrights.
For those who might not know the difference:
Trademarks are, to a great extent, a use-it-or-lose-it situation; a company has to keep the trademark in active use in order to not have it expire, or be declared "abandoned" and available for some other entity to acquire. The period on this is actually relatively short -- typically 3 years of non-use is enough to consider the trademark abandoned. Trademarks are also very specific; Disney's trademarks on the specific versions of the Peter Pan, Robin Hood, etc. in their particular movies, for example, does not give them blanket rights over the *idea* of the characters or all possible versions thereof.
Copyrights don't actually have to be used to retain them -- they exist for a fixed period of time, whether you publish, reprint, or reissue the work or not. A reprint or reissue during that time doesn't extend the copyright term -- and nor does simply mentioning or briefly using one or more of the characters from that particular work in an entirely different one.
So, pulling an "IP dump" might help Disney retain the *trademarks* on their own specific versions of the characters as they appeared in their own movies, but it's not going to keep the *copyrights* on those movies (or cartoon shorts, TV shows, etc.) from expiring on schedule.
That would only work as far as retaining the trademarks, not the copyrights.
For those who might not know the difference:
Trademarks are, to a great extent, a use-it-or-lose-it situation; a company has to keep the trademark in active use in order to not have it expire, or be declared "abandoned" and available for some other entity to acquire. The period on this is actually relatively short -- typically 3 years of non-use is enough to consider the trademark abandoned. Trademarks are also very specific; Disney's trademarks on the specific versions of the Peter Pan, Robin Hood, etc. in their particular movies, for example, does not give them blanket rights over the *idea* of the characters or all possible versions thereof.
Copyrights don't actually have to be used to retain them -- they exist for a fixed period of time, whether you publish, reprint, or reissue the work or not. A reprint or reissue during that time doesn't extend the copyright term -- and nor does simply mentioning or briefly using one or more of the characters from that particular work in an entirely different one.
So, pulling an "IP dump" might help Disney retain the *trademarks* on their own specific versions of the characters as they appeared in their own movies, but it's not going to keep the *copyrights* on those movies (or cartoon shorts, TV shows, etc.) from expiring on schedule.