Is it legal ? I have seen a lot of this stuff (“Aquarell do Brasil”, “The Old Mill”, etc.) on Youtube, and I know that Disney is VERY adept at defending its copyrights. In fact, I heard of a local business that was sued, by using a Mickey Mouse picture without their permission. So, are these postings illegal?
IIRC, any footage under three minutes falls under “fair use”. Things over 8, like “The Old Mill”, likely have escaped notice.
It may be some of the studio’s best work, but “The Old Mill” and “Ferdinand the Bull” aren’t exactly raking in the dough compared to Mickey and Donald. I’d imagine it’s a combination of being under the radar and having Disney’s radar pointed elsewhere.
(The free exposure doesn’t hurt. It’s hard to get your hands on the old shorts.)
Nope.
–Cliffy
I wonder about this as well – lots of the Mickey and Donald shorts are up there too. I figure it’s mostly that Disney’s changed its mind about enforcement of its copyrights. Note that the infamous incident with the day care murals was 20 years ago – almost all the officers of the corproation and the staff of the legal department have turned over. It shouldn’t surprise us when a corporation that has the same name but is now staffed by almost entirely different people changes its mind about something.
The other possibility is that some of the shorts are in the public domain. Under the old regime, when you copyrighted something you had rights for 28 years and could then renew for another 28. For material of this age that had been renewed, the term has been extended and is still in force. But if they didn’t renew it after the first 28 year term, it would have entered the PD at that time. That said, my understanding is that Disney was always diligent about that sort of thing.
–Cliffy
I’d be surprised if the shorts were in the public domain, but Disney probably came to the same conclusion as Warner Brothers – they can’t beat 'em, so they’ll pretend they’re not up there.
The market for the shorts is pretty small, and Youtube stokes it for now.
The length of the portion copied in relation to the total work is one of the criteria used in determining whether something is “fair use” (note that there are no hard-and-fast rules for any of the fair use criteria, just guidelines). So a three-minute excerpt from a two-hour work might arguably be fair use, and it’s possible a judge has so ruled at some time. But if the entire work is three minutes long, then you can’t post those three minutes, since it’s not just a small portion any more, it’s the whole thing.
I think Disney is more worried about the trademarking now. They still don’t want you to use Mickey in your own work, but they don’t care as much if you are showing an old short and not really making money off of it. Sure, it’s easy to get stuff taken off of YouTube, but then the people who want to see them will just go somewhere where it is much harder, and may cost more than it’s worth.
They still will send DMCA notices to fan art–particularly if they are portraying the characters doing anything that they don’t want them to do. I know a site that likes to look at what search engine requests lead people there, as they are quite asinine. One linked to him making fun of Disney porn, and so he again made fun of the person by showing two fan drawn Disney characters, and having a link to seeing them do certain things to each otehr but the image would just make fun of you for clicking it. He got a takedown notice that specifically cited how he was using the characters was the problem. He later used that letter one year for a April Fools’ Day prank, making people believe the site no longer existed, unless you were an uber fan and read that they changed their mind when he explained the purpose.
On YouTube, to get a short pulled all you do is have to notify them that the short is up there and is violating your copyright and it’ll be pulled.
This is the key. YouTube isn’t proactive. The reason for this is legal, but to simplify greatly, what it is, is if you start looking for copyrighted materials the onus falls on you. By refusing to look but complying ASAP if the short is copyrighted the onus falls onto the copyright holder.
This has actually led to YouTube pulling videos that are in the public domain, because the copyright holder of the rest of the videos will tell them. For instance, if a public domain episode of “the Beverly Hillbillies” is on YouTube, the copyright holder will tell YouTube to pull the video, even though it knows well and good, THAT particular episode is in the public domain.
This is the way eBay works too. You may have an item that is in violation and get it pulled, while another person doe not. What happened? Someone reported your auction and not the other guy’s auction.
My question has always been why Craig Ferguson’s Late Late show has never been pulled. He jokes about it being on Youtube all the time(well, he says internet but means youtube) and yet it is never pulled.
I suspect Worldwide Pants (Letterman’s production company) knows the exposure is more valuable in the long run, so doesn’t raise a fuss.
Disney will still go after people using Disney characters to sell their own goods and services. The problem Disney has is that once they’ve allowed one person (like a day care center) to use their characters without permission, they’ve set a precedent and then have a much tougher time in court if they go after somebody else doing it.
As far as YouTube and the 'net go, though, it’s much easier for them to turn a blind eye. And cheaper. Disney most likely took the position that it’s just not either cost or time effective to go after everyone who posts a Disney picture or video. (As opposed to Fox, who loyally went after everyone who dared post a picture from The Simpsons. The snpp had a bad problem with this at the beginning, but they seem to have relaxed a bit.) After all, it really boils down to being advertising for them. I’ve had discussion with other unofficial Disney webmasters and the consensus seems to be that Disney lets you get away with it as long as you’re portraying Disney in a positive light and aren’t infringing their trademark.
You do not have to defend copyright. Trademark must be rigorously defended, at the price of losing the trademark. These cases are relatively rare, but they happened to high profile companies and lawyers will watch out for trademark violations.
Copyright is different. Copyright means controlling the right to copy. The holder can take vigorous action or not, either on principle or on whim. No rights are lost if some examples are let go.
That said, I’m still surprised that Disney hasn’t made more of a fuss about this. Or maybe they have and can’t keep up with the number of re-posters.