Mickey’s Mouse Trap coming in March

[overgeeked]

For sure. The merest whiff of a misapplied DMCA notice - much less a full lawsuit on the real trademark issue - could easily shut down a small potatoes creator like him.

Disney and other Big Content have done such things before, and won't be stopping anytime soon.

Exactly. They have the money, time, and lawyers to copyright and trademark troll anyone they want.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Exactly. They have the money, time, and lawyers to copyright and trademark troll anyone they want.

There's also going to be a lot of people jumping on Steamboat Willie and the law of averages says that means there will be plenty of them who handle the copyright issues wrong. And then Disney can use them as an example to scare everyone else off.

 

[Dausuul]

According to this old article on the EFF website:

"The Supreme Court ruled in 2003’s Dastar v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. that you can’t use trademark law to extend an expired copyright."

We'll Probably Never Free Mickey, But That's Beside the Point

In a mere 24 months, Mickey Mouse will enter the public domain—right?Wrong.Mickey Mouse is synonymous with copyright term extension, and with good reason. Every time the first Mickey cartoons creep towards the public domain, Disney's powerful lobbyists spring into action, lobbying Congress for a...

www.eff.org

I am also not a lawyer but it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I'm not talking about Disney trying to shoehorn a copyright claim into a trademark suit through legal shenanigans -- I'm talking about Disney claiming straight-up, bog-standard trademark infringement. They could argue something like this:

1. This promo image has a big ol' Mickey Mouse face.
2. Mickey Mouse's face is a Disney trademark.
3. It is being used to advertise a movie.
4. Disney also makes movies and uses the Mickey Mouse trademark on them.
5. This could lead consumers to think the movie was a Disney product.

As I said, I'm not a lawyer and have no idea how well this claim would hold up in court. (Among other things, I don't know if the promo image is close enough to any of Disney's trademarked images to qualify.) But, based on my limited understanding, this line of argument falls squarely within the bounds of trademark law. Copyright doesn't enter into it at all.

 

[General_Tangent]

Featuring Peter Pan, Sherlock Holmes and the Wizard of Oz!

Peter Pan will never enter into the public domain in the UK.

Peter Pan copyright

Great Ormond Street Hospital

www.gosh.org

 

[overgeeked]

Peter Pan will never enter into the public domain in the UK.

Peter Pan copyright

Great Ormond Street Hospital

www.gosh.org

How sad that’s a major source of funding.

 

[Orius]

Yeah, I sincerely hope they get at least a little comeuppance in years to come. They're going to fight long and hard, though. It will be interesting* to see play out.
I wish I was optimistic about the outcome, but tbh, I'm not very.

I eagerly await the day we find the Rat of Burbank dead in a trap.

I have have no sympathy for Disney or our other entertainment corporations and no love for how their desire to lock up IP indefinitely for profit makes older works harder to obtain legitimately as well as how too many works will end up being lost because of it.