it's insane when people on reddit defend disney in that bullshit lawsuit about how they HAVE to sue a daycare for using its characters in a mural, they HAVE to in order to keep their other bullshit going. i've seen multiple posts! acting like it's smart business!
So IANAL but my brother used to do IP law before it broke him. The way he explained it to me was that it's not that it's a business decision, it's that they can lose the trademark if they don't try to defend it. So if something comes to their attention, they aren't really allowed to pick and choose who gets to infringe on their IP rights.
I'm sure there's a better explanation out there but I'm a tax guy, but an IP guy.
That being said, the situation you described (I am unfamiliar with the case) sounds like such bullshit. The point of trademark is to avoid confusion. Unless that daycare was in Anaheim, Orlando, or Burbank I wouldn't assume any connection to Disney (and if it was in those cities I'd assume the connection was that they'd hired a Disney artist to paint their wall). There's gotta be a fair use defense here.
it’s that they can lose the trademark if they don’t try to defend it
So the copyright and trademark system needs to change then.
Also, those laws were essentially ghostwritten by Disney and the like, so I very much doubt that wasn't an intentional thing so they can go "look, we have to sue you, our hands are tied!"
they can lose the trademark if they don’t try to defend it
This is true, but that's if another company is using a similar logo as their own. Like, if a pet store used the Mickey Mouse logo, of course they're going to be sued.
If a daycare uses Mickey Mouse to decorate their classroom, Disney doesn't have to sue because the trademark isn't be used separate from Disney. The Daycare, and kids, are using it because it's Disney, so there is no confusion about trademark ownership.
At the very least, Disney could simply write them a letter allowing them to use depictions of Disney characters inside the school so long as it's not for advertising or commercial purposes and the art is done by a student or teacher.
No really such thing as fair use in trademark but it's definitely possible to not be an asshole about it. You can definitely allow use, the question is whether you assert control over use of the mark or not.
You wouldn't want to allow extreme cases (a daycare Disney-theming itself completely associating itself, unilaterally, with all your IP and by extension looking like a Disney-licensed and associated daycare) but "as minor part of a larger artwork, or a single mural of a single character not publicly visible" avoids damage to the mark's image.
From the other POV, as a daycare, you should only ever do murals of Mickey if he's holding a giant cookie.
The standard for losing a trademark essentially boils down to "no reasonable person would expect the public to know it's a trademark, so any infringement can be assumed to be accidental". So things like dry ice, heroin, escalator, gasoline, trampoline, flip phone, and teleprompter. Common words where the fact that they were once trademarks is obscure trivia. The more commonly cited examples of genericized trademarks like Kleenex or Band-Aid are not actually genericized, that's a myth, they're in no danger of being genericized because people know they're trademarks.
There’s a subset of the population that is absolutely fine with businesses fucking over regular people in the name of profit in no-harm crimes like you mention. Heck, they even want certain political figures to screw over regular people because they’re great businessmen.
Of course they’d probably change their tune if they’re the ones getting screwed over.
This image would go great on a t shirt
I could image myself taking this imagine and printing it on a shirt!
The clarifying language, oddly enough, gives it protection as protest art.
I wish I could have this on a T-shirt! That would be so funny and cool
I want this on a mug so bad
I would pay money to see this on a mousepad!!!
Don't put this on Lemmy, you're compromising all the instances who download it! These guys can't afford the legal defense.
Mickey (Steamboat Willie version) will be public domain next year...
Congress will extend copyright again, they always do.
Disney seems to have seen some writing on the wall and pivoted into a trademark focus instead of endless copyright extensions. This is probably why they've been using Steamboat Willy more in some logos in the past few years. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see another extension, but it's never gotten this close before and they don't seem to be campaigning to extend it at the moment.
There is no way that happens at this point. It's not procedurally possible for Congress to pass one by the end of the year. Even a Congress that can get things done faster than the Congress we actually have would not be able to do it. Disney would have to have started the process 5 years ago.
And there's a very good reason for that. Since the last copyright extension, Disney can get everything they want with trademark law instead of copyright. They also saw what happened with public outrage over Net Neutrality; the Internet was nascent the last time copyright was extended, but grassroots mobilization would rise up against them this time around. The fight would be expensive, and they don't need to have it. They can let Steamboat Willy go into public domain on Jan 1 without any great loss.
I've been saying this for three years now: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/lbyttl/comment/gm00zl0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
And 5 months ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/12yh7to/comment/jhnj7k4/
People seem to be convinced that the worst thing that can happen will definitely happen. It shows little understanding of how copyright and trademark works, how Congress gets things done, and why Disney doesn't need to pick a fight on this issue. Their lawyers are evil, but not dumb.
Oh my sweet summer child.
Can you point to any effort in Congress to extend copyright? Remember, they have less than 3 months.
I would also buy this on a shirt. Where can I buy this? I want to buy this. This shirt I want to buy.
Just steal the picture and have it printed on some bootleg shop.
If you didn't know, I believe this image was made in response to specific bots that would throw up a link to an automated listing, with stolen art copy pasted on a t-shirt jpeg, whenever people on twitter said "I want this on a shirt".
Small artists had trouble defending their art from being stolen by these bots, and this image (and subsequent comments like "I want to buy this shirt") was a trap to get these bots in trouble with disney.
If you knew all this and I'm just rambling, ignore me
Is this guy not public domain yet, I thought that was coming up. Maybe next year? John Oliver did a whole bit on it
T shirts, mugs, hoodies, body pillows...
Michael Rodent, and his girlfriend, Minerva
Girl friebd
Mortimer, and Minerva Mouse.
Regardless of what it says on the image this is 100% a parody.
I think maybe you're out of the loop here. This is part of a trend to screw over bots that automatically steal art and sell it on random sites. That's why others are commenting stuff like "I'd buy this on a t-shirt!".
The tactic has already been proven to work several times, when people post stuff like this, and then report the shops that steal it to Disney's legal team. It's a clever way to leverage Disney's lawyers to protect regular artists who couldn't afford to sue all these random websites.
It's a parody just like this statement is false
the problem is that I would actually purchase this on a t-shirt, but there is no way to legitimately purchase it from the original creator (if i even knew who that was) for obvious Disney-suing-to-the-ground reasons.
You/they could do it for free.
Wow! Does anyone know where i can get this? A link to a site that steals my credit card info perhaps?
fuck disney
