A whole movie made just to flip the bird to Disney? Really?
It’s not the first:
I haven’t seen it, but I understand that it’s less about attacking Disney and more about being able to use the beloved character in a way that was previously forbidden.
Nah, their primary intention is almost certainly to make money, and it’s probably going to succeed with that.
A different group did the same with Winnie the Pooh with “Blood and Honey”, which made enough that the sequel should be out this year sometime with intentions to do some kind of shared cinematic universe featuring other popular children’s entertainment with expired copyright
ETA: Ninja’d!
Any actual information about this movie? A link or something?
Just from the title, I’m guessing that they’re going to be sued into oblivion, because that’s a pretty clear infringement on IP rights that Disney still holds.
That’s one of the top 10 greatest cartoon mouse adaptations of Lady Chatterley’s Lover that I’ve ever seen.
I’m pretty sure titles are outside the protection of copyright. Here’s a trailer. I looks pretty lawyer-safe to me.
Yes, and? Copyright isn’t the only sort of intellectual property, and they’re well inside the bounds of trademark.
To put it simply: When I saw the title of this thread, my first thought was “Oh, Disney is making a new Mickey Mouse movie?”. Because that’s the natural inclination of someone on seeing that title. The title (deliberately) creates the impression that it’s created by Disney. Which is exactly what trademarks are for.
But “Mickey’s Mouse” is not a registered trademark.
Trademark-wise, they should be ok. They don’t use “Disney’s Mickey’s” .
And they can hardly trademark the name of the character to try to assert property rights to the character by extension. Just as people can’t trademark their own names - and some people have certainly tried to assert this to try to curtail negative press articles.
Now, if they use the Disney font (Waltograph) as well, that’d be a different matter - the font would be a visual way of associating the product with the company specifically in a deliberately misleading manner.
ETA: Just to note, fictional character names can be trademarked but if the character isn’t entirely owned by the company, as in this case, it can’t be used as a backdoor to maintain total control. Usually it’s a combination of name and likeness that is necessary. If the movie uses a modern Mickey character design - say red shorts even - they’ll be hearing from some lawyers. But that’s highly unlikely to happen. They look like they’re sticking with “Steamboat Willie”, which is the safest way to play it.
“Mickey Mouse” is a registered trademark, first registered in 1928.
That opens up the issue of “Likelihood of Confusion” in trademark law, which can prevent registration of similar phrases:
Trademark confusion can in turn be the basis for an action by the holder of the trademark, arguing the other party is infringing the trademark.
Not my area of law, but “Mickey’s Mouse” strikes me as something that could raise a likelihood of confusion.
I doubt the makers of this film intend to register a trademark.
Note, the situation with “Winnie the Pooh” is probably how Disney is going to play this as well. They didn’t do much about “Blood and Honey” and not likely to do much here.
Disney also owns that trademark (along with “Roo” and “Eeyore” and “Piglet” among others), though the initial copyright also expired as in this case. But Disney isn’t really testing the waters. They probably think the public backlash is not worth it, especially since they still control more recent versions of the AA Milne characters
Disney can’t use the trademark to maintain total control, because they don’t have the copyright to Steamboat Willie any more. And you can’t use a trademark on a name to stop people from using that trademark to refer to your product, because the whole point of a trademark is that it refers to your product. I could use my DVD burner to make all of the copies I like of the Steamboat Willie movie, and sell them online, advertising it as “Disney’s first Mickey Mouse movie”, and I’d be completely in the clear: I wouldn’t be infringing on copyright, because the copyright is expired, and I wouldn’t be infringing on trademark, because the product I’m referring to is in fact Disney’s product.
The fact that you can’t use trademark protection to extend a copyright indefinitely, however, does not mean that you can’t use trademark protection at all once a copyright expires.
@Chronos I mean, I guess it’s possible that they’ve been waiting this long to release this movie, but didn’t check with their lawyers about how to do it safely. But that seems unlikely to me.
Especially since I would have expected them to have instantly gotten a cease and desist from Disney if they could. When dealing with trademark, they have to defend it.
True but not really relevant. This production company isn’t exactly trying to confuse people into thinking they’re making a Disney product. They’re also not likely to hear from any lawyers as long as they’re careful, just as in the Winnie the Pooh case.
True, but there is still the possibility of litigation over trademark infringement. Confusion is one of the things that can be used to support an infringement action.
South Park just shoved Mickey in years ago, along with all of Disney’s properties they could find.
There is also a satire/parody exception of the copyright laws…which South Park is definitely invoking.
Just being pedantic (outside of FQ)
The red shorts and yellow gloves should be public domain, because they were shown in a now-public-domain poster from 1928.
(Not my original thought, and not my conclusion, just passing on something I read on the Internet, but it seems likely to be true, for as much as I know about copyright.)