Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!cadre.dsl.pitt.edu!sean
From: sean@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu (Sean McLinden)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: disney
Message-ID: <1989Sep2.122906.17844@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu>
Date: 2 Sep 89 12:29:06 GMT
References: <21726@cup.portal.com> <5251@alvin.mcnc.org>
Reply-To: sean@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu (Sean McLinden)
Organization: Decision Systems Laboratory, Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA.
Lines: 23

In article <21726@cup.portal.com> alex@cup.portal.com (Alex D Seiden) writes:
<Disney will --definately-- sue your b*** right off if you try to
<use their very much copyrighted and defended characters in any 
<way shape or form.  The story about them suing a nursery school
<in Florida is true.  The may even try to stop you from naming your
<machines after the characters.  Very sensitive people.

Enough Disney bashing, please. The fault lies with the law not with
Disney. It is beholden on the copyright owner to protect the copyright
(there are no copyright police), and if you fail to do that you can
lose your rights to damages under copyright law. All that this requires
is that a defendent be able to demonstrate that you had, in the past,
been *aware* of other violations of copyright and did nothing to stop
them.

Such is the case with the nursery school. Disney had no choice but
to block their unlicensed use of the characters else they might have
lost, forever, their right to damages if, for example, Donald Trump
had started a Mickey Mouse airline.

You can bet that Lucasfilms, Ltd., would do the same thing if the
St. Vincent DePaul Society started making collection boxes in the
likeness of C3PO and distributing them all over Marin.