p2pnet - rss feed: Is old Mickey Mouse copyright, well, mickey mouse?
p2pnet news view | Movies:- Steamboat Willie, the third animated movie featuring Mickey and the first to be made with sound, was released in November, 1928.
“Disney used Pat Powers’ Cinephone system, created by Powers using Lee De Forest’s Phonofilm system without giving De Forest any credit,” says the Wikipedia, going on:
“The film has been the center of a variety of controversies regarding copyright. The copyright of the film has been repeatedly extended by acts of the United States Congress. However, recent evidence suggests that the film may be in the public domain due to technicalities related to the original copyright notice.”
Now, “Film credits from the 1920s revealed imprecision in copyright claims that some experts say could invalidate Disney’s long-held copyright, though a Disney lawyer dismissed that idea as frivolous’,” says the Los Angeles Times.
“Although studio executives are not yet hurling themselves from the parapets of Sleeping Beauty’s castle, the unexpected discovery raises an intriguing question: Is it possible that Mickey Mouse now belongs to the world - and that his likeness is usable by anybody for anything?
“For the record, any knock-offs would have to make clear that they did not come from Disney, or else risk violating the separate laws that protect trademarks. And the potentially free Mickey is not the most current or familiar version of the famous mouse.
“Copyright questions apply to an older incarnation, a rendition of Mickey still recognizable but slightly different. Original Mickey, the star of the first synchronized sound cartoon, ‘Steamboat Willie,’ and other early classics, had longer arms, smaller ears and a more pointy nose.”
Once upon a time a, “longtime Disney devotee dared awake the dragon in the Disney company’s powerful legal department,” says the story, continuing, “Gregory S. Brown, 51, a former Disney researcher who has lived in the same one-bedroom apartment in Hollywood for two decades, seems an unlikely giant-killer.
“Thin, pale and bespectacled, he looks the part of an obsessive archivist. He has worked little since a heart attack in 1998, getting by mostly on disability payments.”
Brown thought the film might be in the public domain in the US and, “in particular, the original film’s copyright notice had two additional names between Disney and the copyright statement,” says the Wikipedia.
“Thus, under the rules of the Copyright Act of 1909, all copyright claims would be null.”
Arizona State University professor Dennis Karjala suggested one of his law school students look into Brown’s claim, as a class project.
“Lauren Vanpelt took up the challenge and produced a paper agreeing with Brown’s claim,” Wikipedia goes on. “She posted her project on the Web in 1999. Disney later threatened to sue a Georgetown University law student who wrote a paper confirming Brown’s claims.”
Enter Scrooge McDuck
The LA Times has a long, tortuous description of how Brown tried to prove the Mickey copyright was wrong.
Then Scrooge McDuck arrives on the scene.
In 1974, Brown was hired as an assistant to Disney archivist David R. Smith, helping to catalogue correspondence between the Disney brothers.
This meant he had access to other internal records and he was, “struck by the early disorganization of the Disneys,” says the LA Times.
Brown and a friend ultimately staged a takeover bid for Harvey Productions, home of Casper the Friendly Ghost, and, “Conducting a ‘due diligence’ assessment of Harvey’s assets, Brown discovered arvey had failed to renew copyrights covering the company’s ghosts.”
Casper was “public property” and, “Now armed with knowledge about the frequency and implications of copyright confusion, Brown launched a business venture exploiting some of that murkiness,” the story goes on. “He would market recreated animation cels from a 1933 Mickey Mouse short called ‘The Mad Doctor.’ Brown had discovered that the Disneys failed to renew copyright claims on that film.
“But the Disney company sued so quickly that Brown never sold a cel. Although ‘The Mad Doctor’ was indeed out of copyright, that long-ago oversight had not freed Mickey, whose ostensible copyright protection predated the short.
“Brown lost. Worse, he was clobbered with a $500,000 judgment.”
Towards the end of the article, “One of Walt Disney’s earliest creations was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit,” says the LA Times. “After the cartoon proved popular, a New York distributor used an advantage in its contract to take control of Oswald, then hired away many of Disney’s artists. Mickey was the product of a desperate comeback attempt by Walt and his brother.”
It adds »»»
Though Disney sees itself as the hero of a corporate Cinderella story, “the company’s aggression in copyright cases has verged on the cartoonish,” it states, continuing:
There was the time that it threatened to sue three Florida day-care centers for painting Disney figures on their walls. And this year, Disney did sue a home-based business for $1 million after a couple put on children’s parties with ersatz Eeyore and Tigger costumes.
Ironically, the company has mounted international efforts to claim some characters for the public domain - such as Bambi and Peter Pan - even as it defends Mickey Mouse. Many of Disney’s most famous figures were the creations of others, including Cinderella, Pinocchio, Pooh and Snow White, though it has vigorously protected its depictions of them.
In such battles, Disney has been known to employ arguments every bit as arcane as anything raised against it by Brown.
Take the saga of Bambi, by Austrian Felix Salten. The story of the fawn was first published in Germany in 1923 without a formal copyright notice, which wasn’t required there. Three years later, Salten republished it with a notice.
In the 1930s, Salten’s rights were assigned to Disney, which made the famous 1942 movie. When Salten’s heirs renewed the copyright in 1954, they correctly listed 1926 as the year of Bambi’s first copyright.
But in a 1994 dispute over royalties with a small publisher that had acquired the Salten family’s rights, Disney lawyers said the 1954 copyright was void because it was filed three years too late - based on the fact that the story was first published in 1923. A federal judge sided with Disney, ruling Bambi was in the public domain.
Though that finding was reversed on appeal, the legal ordeal bankrupted the publisher.
Meanwhile, Gregory Brown still lives off disability payments, says the LA Times, adding his appeal an he lodged when he was fined $500,000 was dismissed when he missed a filing deadline. Disney then seized $20,000 from his accounts, which Brown says was all he had.
But he, “continues to be charmed by the genius behind Mickey Mouse”.
“If Walt Disney had lived another 20 years, the world today would be a much better place,” Brown said. “I don’t know anyone else I could say that about, except maybe Bobby Kennedy.”
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.Stumble It!
Los Angeles Times - Disney’s rights to young Mickey Mouse may be wrong, August 22, 2008
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August 23rd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Why not just extend copyright ad infinitatem? lol. Copyright is a joke, and should be ignored; it certainly isn’t relevant for today’s populace.
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:22 pm
in canada copyright runs out in 50 years
so any film or intellectual property that is 1958 or older = copyright free
by the time ten years is up some cool movies will be legally copyright free
and once you reach back as far as the 70’s , its real SCI fi/Horror flick time.
ENJOY until they get the new copyright law in, hten any i repeat ANY DVDRIP = 20,000 fine for anti circumvention
that means that the conservatives SAY that its only a 500$ download fine , nope , even old uncopyrighted stuff
that is in dvdrip form will get you a 20,000 fine per each instance
Can’t pay a fine
That will be a maximum of 1 day in jail per 10$
or about 7 years per movie that doesn’t even have copyright.
Does this sound like a section 12 charter violation, you bet.
CRUEL and UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:23 pm
oh its somehting like 75-95 years in the USA
mexico just went 75 years
so all yee pirates migrate to canada and vote against copyright reform…
LOL
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:50 pm
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Copyright_Law_(Macaulay)
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1841, about a proposed law to extend copyright, only final paragraph
“I am so sensible, Sir, of the kindness with which the House has listened to me, that I will not detain you longer. I will only say this, that if the measure before us should pass, and should produce one-tenth part of the evil which it is calculated to produce, and which I fully expect it to produce, there will soon be a remedy, though of a very objectionable kind. Just as the absurd acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be virtually repealed by piratical booksellers. At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot. On which side indeed should the public sympathy be when the question is whether some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe, or the Pilgrim’s Progress, shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a bookseller who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author when in great distress? Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living. If I saw, Sir, any probability that this bill could be so amended in the Committee that my objections might be removed, I would not divide the House in this stage. But I am so fully convinced that no alteration which would not seem insupportable to my honourable and learned friend, could render his measure supportable to me, that I must move, though with regret, that this bill be read a second time this day six months.”
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Brown took over Harvey? And then tried to mess around with an old Mickey Mouse cartoon instead of, oh I don’t know, actually doing something with Harvey? (Some new comics would have been nice.)
August 24th, 2008 at 4:56 am
Further to this discussion, you may like my video on the Future of Copyright: http://gleonhard.blip.tv/file/1028802/#
About the Future of Copyright: 1) An actual distinction between ‘Copy’ vs ‘Performance’ of digital content no longer exists 2) Even if it did: the ‘Selling of Copies’ is no longer a growing business, or a sustainable model 3) The exclusive right to ‘make copies’ is becoming impossible to enforce 3) Criminalization of Sharing and Policing of Web-Access is not the kind of ‘Justice’ our society can afford 4)New Permissions & ‘Usage-Rights’ for Digital Music can and will solve this problem..
August 27th, 2008 at 5:04 am
COPYRIGHT REGISTRATIONS ARE MEANINGLESS IN FEDERAL COURT
Actually, Details on copyright registrations are meaningless. To prove it here is a story.
There is this song named “Borracho Sentimental” (BS), meaning Sentimental Drunk.
In 1964 a music publisher Peermusic (aka Peer, aka Peer International, aka Southern Music) executive sends a letter to another Peermusic executive - we have a copy of the letter - asking that the latter executive get 14 Venegas (gvenegas.com) songs “without the author suspecting” they would be copyright registered under Peermusic’s name.
Clearly the idea of the big music publisher was to steal some Venegas songs. This was pre-Internet age, when music could be registered and used anywhere in the world and the a songwriter would never be aware of it. One of the songs in the list of songs to be robbed was Borracho Sentimental. The name alone says Venegas dis not write the song. Listening the son songs says the same thing. Ah, but we have a letter written by Venegas where he explains that he did not write the song.
A USA federal judge at Puerto Rico District Court heard all possible testimony and evidence of the facts about BS in our lawsuit against Peermusic. And what did the “honorable” judge decide about the song stolen (who knows from) by Peermusic, BS? BS belonged to Peermusic because it timely (whatever that means) copyrighted the song. The other 13 stolen songs were awarded to Peermusic too, because they were timely copyright registered, when in fact most were never even registered.
In short, technical details about copyright registrations are meaningless because federal court judges can do anything they want when the press is not looking, which is 99.9 percent of the time.
August 27th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Every time there is something about copyright, this Rafael character always inputs his $.02.
Well, who cares?????
It is so annoying and has been heard before for 1,000 times.
Listen, your family lost the songs.
Whether or not it was your loss and your fault, it does not really matter. It happened, and it is over, just live with it and do something useful rather than giving your BS, and I don’t mean Boraccho Sentimental.
LOL, if that music were any popular, it would have been pirated on p2p and newsgroups left and right.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
To the above post…. clearly you don’t care or accept how the courts operate in the USA.
If anything is important in any country it is to know there is no corruption in the courts. Too bad you don’t care. Because there are many like you, the country is where it is.
BTW, we didn’t loose BS. The real owner and songwriter is unknown. Certainly the owner cannot be the publisher named as owner by a corrupt federal judge that operate in broad daylight because there are too many people like you, and that includes much of the traditional press.
I do know that the publisher who stole the song BS, Peermusic, actually sued another publisher (Latin American Music) who also stole the song, thinking they were stealing the song from us. In that case, the court did not even know or realize (that is how superficial things are in federal court here) or was told by any of the parties after they became aware that Peermusic did not eve know who the author was.
As to our family loosing the songs, you may not know what is happening. Sure Peermusic and Latin American music, the two publisher we sued because they either stole or infringed our songs think they won some songs. But that is not the end of the story.
BTW again, what has popularity to do with the importance of a case?
August 27th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
To the above post:
I really do not care if music or software gets pirated. It just pisses me off and makes me laugh at the same time when people try to protect their “property” and go pro p2p networks that only exist to distribute stolen material.
So, people, make up your mind: p2p and copyright do not go together! Make your choice, will ya????
August 28th, 2008 at 5:29 am
“p2p and copyright do not go together”
Couldn’t be more wrong.
What is wrong is the suing of the customers.
What is wrong is suing children.
What is wrong is the criminalization of the decent public.
What is wrong is awarding absurd damages 1,000 times higher than actual damages in copyright infringement cases.
What is wrong is the awarding of non actual damages in copyright infringement cases.
What is wrong is the hijacking if royalties for (allegedly) artists and songwriters, when in fact the artists hardly paid a fair share.
What is wrong is the manipulation of the corrupt court system and judges to favor big publishers and big cartels.
What is wrong is the illegal and the so called legal payola (ads) to distort the music and entertainment market.
What is wrong is the payola press (used to promote music and other entertainment crap).
What is wrong is entering people’s computers to see what files are in them.
What is wrong is selling blank media and recording equipment and then prohibiting their use to copy music for private non commercial use.
What is wrong is to have over 100 year copyright duration when that does nothing to promote the creation of more musical and other works.
What is wrong is that one corrupt judge makes 200+ obvious and intentional errors and no one notices or talk about it. Our case.
What is wrong is to put a “save as” or a “save image as” option on browsers and then expect that no one will use the option because it is a act of copyright infringement.
What is wrong is to sell photocopy machines and then expect that no one will use them because their use is almost always an act of copyright infringement.
What is wrong is en expectation to have the copyright law followed when lawyers and judges can hardly agree what the law and the hidden jurisprudence means.
What is wrong is the passing of laws that favor special interest groups after legislative payola (that is what lobbies are) pushed the law.
What is wrong is that justice has become a business. It is all play for pay. No money, no justice.
What is wrong is to have copyright laws that accomplish the opposite of what it is said was intended: less works made available to the people.
What is wrong is the tyranny in the courts.
Etc, etc.
August 28th, 2008 at 11:15 am
OK, listen….No, it is not wrong.
Because business is business.
If something can poissibly make me rich or even richer, I don’t care if someone else is going to be poorer, I really don’t.
What I care about is my own pocket, and that is the way it should be in a society which is money driven.
I don’t care if some Joe Blow is not going to get paid for the album because I downloaded it for free. But if I, myself, is a musician, and I find out that the same Joe stole my piece, I’ll make sure that I will sue his arse so badly, that his grand-grand children will still have to keep on paying me.