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Early Disney Legal Department Revealed To Be A Mickey Mouse Operation
Posted by Seth at 3:45 AM on August 23, 2008
The LAT has a fascinating story today about Gregory S. Brown, a 51-year-old former Disney researcher who's lived in the same one-bedroom apartment in Hollywood for the last 20 years. Brown had once tried and failed to take over Harvey Comics. In doing his research, he discovered an old Ghostbusters lawsuit in which an overlooked copyright claim had allowed Fatso, Casper's sidekick and a dead-ringer for the movie's logo, to lapse into the public domain. Armed with his new knowledge of such loopholes, he returned to the Disney vaults to find similar cases. A failure to renew the copyright on the 1933 Mickey Mouse cartoon The Mad Doctor led to a business selling knockoff cels from that film. Disney sued him, and won a $500,000 settlement. Now something of an early-animation copyright expert, Brown went back to the stacks to research his defense; it was then that he learned something truly astonishing: Thanks to some shoddy legalese, just about anyone could move Disney's cheese.
It was on the title card at the beginning of a "Steamboat Willie" cartoon that had just been re-released on a 1993 LaserDisc honoring Mickey's 65th birthday. It said in full:
"Disney Cartoons
Present
A Mickey Mouse
Sound Cartoon
Steamboat Willie
A Walt Disney Comic
by Ub Iwerks
Recorded by Cinephone Powers System
Copyright MCMXXIX."For Brown, it was as if the glass slipper fit him perfectly. The key was location of the word "copyright" in relation to the name "Walt Disney." There were two other names listed in between — Cinephone and Disney's top studio artist, Ub Iwerks. Arguably, any one of the three could have claimed ownership, thereby nullifying anyone's claim under arcane rules of the Copyright Act of 1909.
Disney's lawyers dismiss the claim as "frivolous," though there's good reason to believe Brown might be on to something, so long as he continues to plead his case in public and isn't soon discovered at the bottom of It's a Small World asphyxiated with Pluto's collar. The very thought of a world in which there is free Mickey for all—fine, not the familiar Sorcerer's Apprentice-looking Mickey, but the far more rodent-like version steering the tugboat—fills us with hope. We pray Disney relents and frees the famous critter from his glue-trap-like copyright constraints, allowing him to stand alongside Uncle Sam, Lady Liberty, and that sailor on the Cracker Jack boxes as a universally recognised symbol of American can-do spirit—his smiling face adorning everything from Bangkok sex emporiums to Al Qaeda bowling team T-shirts.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
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IamXenu!
Posted 4:31 AM 23/8/08
to Mymoustache -
Those were all my old-timey favourites. But don't forget the cute little bigot we love to hate: Klu Klux Klown.
IamXenu!
Mymoustache
Posted 4:22 AM 23/8/08
Its my understanding that Moshe the Usurious Rat, Franklin the Black Faced Minstrel and Beaner the Lazy Turtle are also all in the public domain.
Mymoustache
Oxycontinmoron
Posted 4:10 AM 23/8/08
All Gregory Brown has acheived is raising movie ticket prices $1 to counter the exhorbitant legal bills Disney will no doubt incur researching, filing, counterclaiming, suing, injunctioning, and whatever other fancy-schmancy legal words they can come up with. THANKS, GREG!
Oxycontinmoron
clarknhilldale
Posted 5:14 AM 23/8/08
@majikthise: Uh, yup. That's how plenty of movies fell into the public domain, right up through the 1960s. It wasn't as common as rights holders forgetting to file the proper paperwork when copyright renewal came up, but it happened. Now, thanks to the Sonny Bono act and GATT etc., nothing ever falls into public domain. Unfortunately.
clarknhilldale
NoGrumpys
Posted 5:09 AM 23/8/08
Completely Goofy
NoGrumpys
majikthise
Posted 5:02 AM 23/8/08
a copyright holder should be a copyright holder, regardless of where it's written on any particular document. i assume the holder's name is properly registered in the appropriate archive. IMHO that trumps any frivolous claims due to "typos"!! can you imagine losing the rights to something you created just because your typesetter or administrative assistant misplaced a comma?
majikthise
WGARefugee
Posted 5:00 AM 23/8/08
I love stories like this and I know of an even better one. (Be prepared to say sayonara to two hours if you start reading it)
WGARefugee
WatTooSoon
Posted 5:23 AM 23/8/08
@Oxycontinmoron: Disney doesn't waste money on lawyers. Congressmen are cheaper and they deliver results.
WatTooSoon
Unrequited Narcissism
Posted 5:21 AM 23/8/08
@majikthise: Keep in mind Disney has itself taken advantage of shaky copyright paperwork. The God Pluto was reputedly livid when he lost legal claim to his name to Mickey's dog because of clerical error.
Unrequited Narcissism
clarknhilldale
Posted 6:33 AM 23/8/08
@Unrequited Narcissism: Heh. That reminds me of a real incident: Some small toy company was going to market Hunchback of Notre Dame models; the stuff didn't look like Disney's version, and, um, the source material is public domain, but Disney leaned hard and the product was renamed "Bellringer of Notre Dame." Smell the brimstone?
clarknhilldale
DeadIrishWriter
Posted 6:13 AM 23/8/08
Man, too bad Ub Iwerks isn't around anymore to rape Disney for all it's worth. He's the guy who actually first drew Mickey Mouse.
DeadIrishWriter
Oxycontinmoron
Posted 6:50 AM 23/8/08
Doctor: Now Mickey, why do you think Minnie's crazy?
Mickey: I didn't say she was crazy. I said she was fucking Goofy!
Oxycontinmoron
WGARefugee
Posted 6:48 AM 23/8/08
@denominator: Sorry! There's a book version on Amazon too. Makes a great gift for intellectual property lawyers.
WGARefugee
RonMwangaguhunga
Posted 6:48 AM 23/8/08
"GORDIE: Alright, alright. Mickey's a mouse. Donald's a duck. Pluto's a dog. What's Goofy?"
RonMwangaguhunga
nojo
Posted 6:48 AM 23/8/08
@Oxycontinmoron: So, $40 million marketing budgets are off the hook?
nojo
denominator
Posted 6:36 AM 23/8/08
@WGARefugee: I'm on part four. You've absolutely murdered my workday. I know, I know, you warned me.
denominator
Wendy_Kroy
Posted 8:03 AM 23/8/08
Not to be all lawyery or anything, but even if the copyright on Micky Mouse lapsed into the public domain, Disney would still have trademark rights in it, so you still couldn't use the image in any merchandise or advertising.
Wendy_Kroy
Calraigh
Posted 7:55 AM 23/8/08
So finally, we figure out what ''taking the Mickey'' meant, all these years later.
Calraigh
Jeff from LA
Posted 11:40 AM 23/8/08
I am a lawyer, but I don't think we even need to go into the legal issues here to realize his advice is completely unreliable. First of all, this guy just lost a $500k settlement to Disney, that's Exhibit A as to why I wouldn't call him a copyright expert. Exhibit B - he lives in a freaking one-bedroom in Hollywood. Exhibit C - He's not even an attorney (or at least he's not a member of the CA Bar): [members.calbar.ca.gov]
Jeff from LA