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: <1989Sep3.122223.2707@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu>
Date: 3 Sep 89 12:22:23 GMT
References: <21726@cup.portal.com> <5251@alvin.mcnc.org> <1989Sep2.122906.17844@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu> <3973@phri.UUCP>
Reply-To: sean@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu (Sean McLinden)
Organization: Decision Systems Laboratory, Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA.
Lines: 26

In article <3973@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
:In <1989Sep2.122906.17844@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu: I wrote:
:: Disney had no choice but to block their unlicensed use of the characters
:
:	It seems they could have done this in one of two ways.  The first
:is the way they chose, i.e. make the school paint over the dwarves.  The
:second would have been to license them to use the dwarves for the specific
:purpose of decorating the wall in this one building, for, say, $1 per year
:(and, as they always say in these sort of contracts, "other valuable
:considerations").  Seems like the latter would have satisfied the
:requirement to defend their copyright without having to play the bad guy.

Agreed. Notice that I said "block their unlicensed use", not "sue". I
debated whether to add comments which reflect the point of view that you
have but elected not to because I had only knowledge of what was reported
in the news (*always* an unbiased and reliable source of information). The
news accounts did not mention whether Disney had actually made other
attempts prior to the lawsuit (which would not have been newsworthy). I'm
inclinded to think that they did because 1) it's a lot cheaper to send
a letter requesting that the nursery either license the characters or
remove them than it is to enbroil onesself in a lawsuit. After all, there
are probably thousands of examples of unlicensed use of Disney characters.
2) Disney is, after all, a huge public relations firm. What do they do
besides sell fantasy? It would have been pretty bad business to jump
right into the courts against a whole bunch of cute smiley kids if there
weren't some other way. But, of course, this is sheer speculation.