Having spent some time at Disney University we had some discussion about their copyright enforcement.
The way it was explained is they if they let someone go for putting Mickey Mouse’s image on a birthday cake—and it could be shown that they did nothing—they would lose the right to enforce it later. It is an all or nothing proposition.
The headline is that the little guy is being sued for $30,000. The settlement is for a lot less. In the bar situation there is usually a blanket ASCAP payment. My guess is that they were not paying at all...or had let their contract lapse.
This stuff happens all of the time.
Yep, and probably told the ASCAP rep to go [blank] themselves when they told the owner they needed to sign up.
A local Putt-Putt style golf course, been in business since the 60’s, named Goofy Golf. They had a sign that had a ‘Goofy’ character on it that looked like Disney’s Goofy. They had to get rid of the sign, but could keep the name................
Exactly what I was just trying to post.
Disney really seemed to ratchet-up their enforcement efforts after that bumper sticker that said “Hey, Iran...” with Mickey flipping them the bird took the country by storm in the late 70’s.