Mickey Mouse and public domain????

[Bob O]

I read a article in the jacksonville business journal about the battle over the rights to winnie the pooh and also in the article is about disney trying to have congress pass a law extending for another 20yrs their exclusive rights to use Mickey Mouse. According to the article in 2004 disney's right to Mickey Mouse expire in to public domain so anybody could use Mickey Mouse without paying disney. The article stated disney could lose 4 Billion over this as well as lsoing billions more if they lose the pooh lawsuit. What are your thoughts about disney losing exclusive rights to Mickey Mouse and the damage it could cause the company.
I think it would be a terrible loss and could hurt their (mickey mouse) icon status. I also feel that if someboody creates something they should have sole rights to it unless they sell them but apparently you only keep sole copyrights for 75 yrs in current law.
What do you think???

 

[johare]

Here's a good article on this...http://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/DailyNews/mickey980508/

If Disney suceeds then maybe they should think about paying the Lewis Carroll estate for their use the of the Alice in Wonderland characters...not to mention all the other 'public domain' characters that Disney has profited from over the years...

Here's another interesting article ...and a quote: "Lessig cited as an example the 19th century collection Grimms' Fairy Tales, which Disney has adapted and presented in various forms over the years. "Now, because of lobbying, companies like Disney are saying no one can do to Mickey Mouse what they did to the Grimms' Fairy Tales," Lessig said."

 

[maleficent1959]

Aside from the dollars, part of the argument is to maintain strict control over the use of the image of Mickey Mouse. Who wants to see a decal in the back of some car window of Mickey urinating like the popular one of Calvin? Or some risque shirts of Mickey and Minnie in various positions like some other shirts we've seen? Mickey on a Big Johnson shirt? I think that would bother some people.

 

[larworth]

If allowed to expire you have to assume it will make a pretty good size dent in their licensing revenue. I have to assume Walmart would take a pretty quick look at the roylaties they pay and would have some third-party supplier on the phone pretty fast. And sadly, you know there would be plenty of people who would find it funny to present Mickey is some un-Mickey like environments.

I don't know what the original logic was behind 75 years. If we contrast that with patent rights (closer to 20 years) it does seem like a reasonably long time to profit from one's creations. But than again, the monopolistic damage to free enterprise from inventions does seem much greater from these types of intellectual property rights.

I think Disney is going to have a hard time with this one. A related Pooh question. If Pooh's rights were sold in 1929 wouldn't they be expiring soon as well, regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit (1929+75 = 2004)?

 

[Bob O]

Im think that if you create something, you are your heirs should benefit from it forever!!!!! Why after a certain number of years should everybody be able to use your creation without your agreement or your ability to benefit financially??? The article i read they joked of using mickey mouse to market rat poison so you can just imagine what will do done.

 

[JustBob]

I'm at such a loss with this. I think that the Disney company should retain all of the control of Mickey - including the ability to sue for improper use or depiction of the Main Mouse.
I also think that services like Napster should not be allowed to be used to share copyrighted music. For goodness sake - when people go to the trouble to creat something it should stay theirs and they should be the ones that benefit from any revenues.

 

[raidermatt]

Very interesting point in both articles. My humble opinions:

1- Disney probably has a good shot at successfully using the trademark laws for Mickey. But that won't help when Minnie's time comes, and Donald, Goofy, etc.

2- Should they be unable to protect themselves with trademark law, the impact will be significant in dollars. Disney will still sell significant merchandise in its parks, but those licensing deals with other companies will be in jeopardy. Mickey would become more visible, but I don't think we would be seeing him in all sorts of "unflattering" places. You'd see it a little more, but the market for that kind of stuff is extremely limited.

3- The fact that it is acceptable to grant rights after the creator's death says that it is only a matter of how long. Current law seems arbitrary in its imposition of 75 years, 50 years beyond death, etc. If its ok to grant rights 50 years beyond death, why not 51? 55? 1000? Its all a matter of opinion as to what the right timeframe is. So I doubt the Supreme Court would stop Congress from extending the timeframe. (though I am hardly an expert on Supreme Court decisions)

4- I don't really have too much sympathy for those who cannot make money off of material if the deadline is extended. They are just looking to make money off of somebody else's creation. That's fine, but hardly a God-given (or Constitutional) right.

5- While Disney will benefit with regard to Mickey if the copyright is extended, it will also negatively impact their ability to use other stories/characters that would have expired.

6- Ultimately, I think Congress passes the extension, not so much because they believe it is the right thing to do, but to pass the buck for another 20 years.

 

[JeffJewell]

...Disney is not losing (even should the case go completely against them) the ability to benefit from Mickey Mouse... they are free to make as much new Mickey material as they please. It simply doesn't please them to make much new Mickey material.

The only thing they might really lose is the exclusiveness of their ability to sell cheap crap with a crudely drawn mouse on it for designer label prices.

I see no reason to assume that everyone down the family tree into forever should get to coast on one idea some forefather had. Walt had his lifetime to parlay Mickey's profits into financial security for his family, the Disney Company had decades after his death to make new creations to continue to entertain and profit. Instead they whittled the company's creativity to nothing and sold out the mouse to all and sundry.

Jeff

PS: raidermatt, I find your point #6 particularly noteworthy because I think it's the first time I've ever agreed 100% with something in one of your posts...

 

[johare]

Im think that if you create something, you are your heirs should benefit from it forever!!!!!

And if that were the case, Disney would be paying heavy licensing fees to the heirs of the creators of Cinderella, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Mr. Toad, Pinnochio, Peter Pan and probably a bunch of others I can't think of off the top of my head. The fact is that Disney has profited greatly from the 'public domain' works of others and shouldn't be crying now that the same rules are being applied to one of their characters.

 

[raidermatt]

raidermatt, I find your point #6 particularly noteworthy because I think it's the first time I've ever agreed 100% with something in one of your posts...

Well, you know what they say, Jeff. Put a monkey in front of a typewriter and eventually I'll, errrr, it will type a novel.


johare said:

The fact is that Disney has profited greatly from the 'public domain' works of others and shouldn't be crying now that the same rules are being applied to one of their characters.

No matter how much Disney cries, its up to Congress. The playing field will remain level. Everybody gets 95 years, or whatever, for their material. Its particularly noteworthy that the MPAA's lobbyist is leading this charge. Some valuable movies start coming up in the not-to-distant future. Disney is far from the only party hoping for this change.

 

[Bob O]

I think disney should have paid money to the heirs of the people who created the charachters they used. Why shouldnt a person who is creavtive and uses his ability to create something unique like mickey mouse for example be able to profit from his creation his lifetime and the pass it down as a inheritance???? Why should somebody be able to benefit from the works of others and not pay a royalty to the creator. I believe that if you create it you should have sole use of it unless you sell it away!!!!! And should be able to pass it on when you dies the same as you pass on your other possessions. Why should other people be able to benefit from your work without giving you proper compensation??? And i think you will find alot of groups using mickey in very crude ways. Would it be good to see mickeys likeness on cigarrettes/beer/booze or any other number of things you wouldnt associate with him. If somebody can make a buck off of it they will.

 

[johare]

Could get more interesting now...

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/Business/Intellectual_Property/

 

[airlarry!]

Johare, I don't mean to pick nits, but Disney did buy the rights for works like Peter Pan, 101 Dalmatians, etc. In fact, there is a very famous lawsuit going around about how much Disney owes to somebody over a very lovable bear.

The issue is complex because it comes down to two things:

One. We do not like monopolies because we want people to make things better. Let others take a stale idea and breathe new life into it and make money at the same time.

Two. We like monopolies because we don't want to see Mickey Mouse in a nude cartoon (at least I don't) or selling cigarettes.

I'm still trying to make up my mind which is right.

 

[FergieTCat]

The biggest loss to Disney would be the fees they receive for licensing their characters to other companies for reproduction. Other companies already produce items with Disney trademarked characters (like Fisher Price toys), but they pay large amounts of money for the right to do so.

 

[raidermatt]

Fergie- Disney also is able to approve the products in advance. With no protection, not only would Fischer Price not have to pay Disney for the rights, D-Con would be free to use Mickey in their advertising. Six Flags could use Mickey in their parks. T-shirts with Mickey giving the finger, or whizzing (a la Calvin), or doing any other un-Disney like thing would be legal. Us old fogies may still be able to differentiate between the real Mickey and the one on all of these other products, but a child doesn't understand such subtleties and could grow up with an entirely different view of Mickey than you or I.

Bottom line is that it still comes down to lost revenue for Disney, either through lost royalties, or diminished brand value. But the only real reason anyone is challenging this is so they can make money for themselves off of something they did not create. Sure, there's a few professors out there who are doing it for idealistic reasons. (Actually its probably for publicity, but that's just a hunch). But those idealistic few have always been there, and through all of the past extensions, the law has not been seriously challenged. But now, any average Joe can sell stuff on the Internet. And with all of the movies coming up, they will be able to make perfect digital copies and sell them. Hardly idealistic.

 

[DanG]

Many fail to appreciate that historically intellectual property rights have been far more narrowly granted by Congress than today and that substantial debate occurred during the drafting of the Constitution as to whether any protection should be afforded at all. Copyright and patent protections exist solely to incent development and the free flow of ideas by providing a government sanctioned monopoly for those ideas and/or there expression.

The corollary to this is that these same rights artificially inflate prices to consumers by limiting competing suppliers and retard the evolution of ideas and progress.

For example, some of the greatest proponents of extending patent rights are the pharmaceutical companies. When formularies come off patent, prices drop as much as 75%. The patent system has been the greatest contributor to progress in America's leadership in medical and scientific research. But it is also the reason why health care costs increase 10% each year.

Disney (and the motion picture/entertainment industry generally), Time Warner (and other publishing companies) and other like companies have successfully extended the duration of copyright several times this century, to the detriment of consumers. Microsoft and software companies are new participants in expanding copyright rights (often to nefarious, anti-competitive and anti-consumer ends).

Cut and paste the URL below to read an excellent historical treatment and analysis by Stanford law Professor Lawrence Lessig, one of the foremost authorities in this area and a major proponent of limiting copyright and patent terms.

http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,16071,00.html

 

[johare]

I think a lot of you have the wrong impression of what would happen here. The Mickey Mouse character would be in the public domain, but not the likeness of the trademarked Mickey Mouse character that Disney uses on it's t-shirts, theme park characters, etc... For example, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and Pinnochio are all public domain characters and anyone who wants to is probably free to use them, however they cannot use the exact likenesses of the characters that Disney has created. Same with Mickey...someone could create a mouse character, call it Mickey and put it on a tshirt, but it could not have the same appearance as the trademarked Disney character. I may be wrong on this, but I'm pretty sure this is how it works.

 

[FergieTCat]

Raidermatt - Good point!

Johare -- I was thinking that same thing myself, but I couldn't think of an example. The only thing I can think of is that many companies produce items with "The White Rabbit" or "The Cheshire Cat", but no one is allowed to use Disney's depiction of these characters without Disney's permission. Same thing would go for the "Wizard of Oz". There have been products with a Tin Man, a Scarecrow and a Cowardly Lion, but only items licensed by MGM/Warner Brothers can use the likeness of the characters as seen in the movie.

Also, isn't there a company called "Good Times" that puts out videos and DVD's with titles like "Hercules", "Aladdin", etc? These are entirely different movies than the Disney version. So maybe the stories are in the public domain. I won't even get into "Simba, the White Lion."

I have always been fascinated with trademarks and copyrights.

 

[Sarangel]

Just as a side note, since he's shown up in a couple of posts, Calvin is not a licensed character. Bill Watterston, Calvin & Hobbes' creator, deliberately chose not to go the Licensing route & has *not* authorized any of the Calvin (or Hobbes) merchandise that you see on the streets. He probably just hasn't had the energy to sue these people who are making illegal copies.

Sarangel

 

[raidermatt]

I'm hardly an expert, but here's what I know/think I know:

Most of the stories, Aladdin, Cinderella, etc, are part of the public domain. They were written/developed centuries ago and any protection has long expired. That's why Disney could use them without obtaining permission, and that's why other companies are free to make their own Cinderella cartoon if they so wish.

My understanding about trademarks is that its much more difficult to get protection for these. In other words, I'm pretty sure Disney cannot simply trademark every character in every film/short and prohibit anyone from using those likenesses. Of course, I could be wrong. The reason I'm not convinced by the Tin Man/Scarecrow example is that the copyright has not expired on that movie. I "think" that is why nobody can use those likenesses.

So if the copyright law should be overturned, its my belief that Disney would have a pretty good shot at getting Mickey protected as a trademark in his various iterations. But I'm not so sure about all of the other characters. If it were that simple, why would all of the companies like Disney and AOL/Time Warner be concerned?