Posted on 02/06/2020 9:15:57 AM PST by Behind Liberal Lines
The Disney Corporation isn't making any friends at a California elementary school this week. After the Emerson Elementary PTA showed the remake of Disney's Lion King, the school received a bill for $250 from the studio.
The Berkely area school showed the film as part of a "Parents' Night Out" event, with a suggested donation of $15 from movie-goers. When Disney took notice of the unlicensed screening, the studio's licensing agent, Movie Licensing USA, sent a letter to PTA President...Organizations are required to pay a single-use licensing fee of $250 or an annual fee of $536..
The situation has caused quite a lot of buzz online, mostly criticizing Disney and its licensing protocol. At this time, Disney has refused to comment.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbr.com ...
All they have to do is tell Disney that they screened the movie for LGBTQWERTY kids and all is well...................
Disney is famous for this kind of $#!+. When I lived in Japan, they forced a nursery school or two to paint over Disney characters on the stucco wall around their school. The trick was to paint cute artwork which did not quite look too much like the Disney characters.
See their money, Simba, one day it will all be Disney’s.
This is the worst PR blunder by a major corporation since Starbuck’s sued a tiny Russian Orthodox monastery for selling a “Christmas Blend” coffee, a description for which Starbucks claimed proprietary rights
“A proposed ballot initiative to reform California’s seminal Prop. 13 could mean millions more in fees on theme parks like Universal Studios and entertainment headquarters, aiding public schools. Will progressive Hollywood fight it?
For more than a century, Hollywood studios and networks have been among the largest land-owning entities in Southern California and, as such, have benefited from Proposition 13, the state’s seminal, voter-approved amendment that caps taxes at 1 percent of a property’s assessed value at purchase.
That could all change this year. An effort to overhaul Prop. 13 is gaining steam with the help of a coalition of backers that includes Mark Zuckerberg and the California Teachers Association. If the ballot measure is successful, it could slap The Walt Disney Co., along with WarnerMedia, Fox Corp., ViacomCBS, NBCUniversal and Sony, with tens of millions of dollars more in taxes. In 2019, Disney forked over an estimated $55 million-plus in property taxes for Disneyland alone.”
Public educational entities have very liberal “Fair-Use” exceptions to copyright restrictions.
Besides just the optics of this, Disney really is over-reaching on crap like this.
And imagine how much violation of Copyright Disney probably “tolerates” from China.
I don’t see anything wrong with Disney’s request. If you wanted to rent that school’s gym for an event, you’d have to pay a fee. So the school should have to pay a fee, especially since they charged admission.
Oh, wait. This happened in California, the something-for-nothing state. Never mind.
I am not a fan of Disney. But businesses must (by law) defend copyright or trademark infringements or risk losing any claim to them. It does make them appear as Goliaths fighting Davids but honestly they kind of have no choice. One obvious solution is for Disney to waive fees they charge for such screenings when it shown at a school or non-profit.
$250 ???
It's hard to beat Disney/ABC for greed, I actually know of only one company that does......Apple, especially under Jobs!
We had only one malcontent which wanted his pound of flesh as well. He backed off when we told him how things worked in Japan and we would give him the payment and release him to find someone else to represent him going forward. He got his wire transfer for a little over $200 but never did business in Japan again,
Don’t mess with the Mouse!!!
School just needs to pay the Osama Tezuka estate since da Mouse stole it’s Lyin King from his Kimba the White Lion Manga.
Correction: He considered backing off, but the client he represented wanted his pound of flesh anyway.
A local putt-putt golf place here is called ‘Goofy Golf’ and has been in business since the 60’s.
Disney made them paint over a ‘Goofy-like’ character on their sign, but could not make them change their name................
You may not know it, but Tezuka was famous for saying that imitation is the highest form of compliment. I don’t think he ever tried to collect a dime from Disney.
I’m wondering if the school brought this on themselves by using the screening as a fundraiser. No “fair use” exception should apply in that case.
Tezuka was such a fan of da Mouse his heirs just gave them the nod over Kimba/Simba rip off. The Japanese have such class and let that stand in contrast to these stinking assholes running Walt’s company now.
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