He even threatened Hedenkamp with legal action if the young scholar openly advanced such claims.
"With respect to your plans to otherwise promote these as being in the public domain," Meisinger added, "please be advised that slander of title remains actionable under California law for both compensatory and punitive damages."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday, August 23, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 59 words Type of Material: Correction
Mickey Mouse: The headline for Friday's Column One on a copyright controversy over Mickey Mouse referred to a claimed "trademark" goof. In fact, it should have said "copyright" goof. Also, the article and a graphic caption transposed the name of the company that recorded the "Steamboat Willie" cartoon. It should have said Powers Cinephone System, not Cinephone Powers System.
Nonetheless, Hedenkamp let the genie out of the bottle, spelling out his arguments in the Virginia Sports and Entertainment Law Journal, a publication of the University of Virginia's law school. It attracted little attention off-campus.
--
Although losing Mickey would be the greatest rights setback for the world's biggest family entertainment company, it wouldn't be the first.
One of Walt Disney's earliest creations was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. After the cartoon proved popular, a New York distributor used an advantage in its contract to take control of Oswald, then hired away many of Disney's artists. Mickey was the product of a desperate comeback attempt by Walt and his brother.
After that painful experience, the Disneys "held on to everything they did with a ferociously strong grip," former company Vice Chairman Roy E. Disney said recently.
Disney's carefully controlled licensing pioneered a sweeping business strategy that today uses television to promote movies that sell toys and bring people out to theme parks.
Though Disney sees itself as the hero of a corporate Cinderella story, the company's aggression in copyright cases has verged on the cartoonish.
There was the time that it threatened to sue three Florida day-care centers for painting Disney figures on their walls. And this year, Disney did sue a home-based business for $1 million after a couple put on children's parties with ersatz Eeyore and Tigger costumes.
Ironically, the company has mounted international efforts to claim some characters for the public domain -- such as Bambi and Peter Pan -- even as it defends Mickey Mouse. Many of Disney's most famous figures were the creations of others, including Cinderella, Pinocchio, Pooh and Snow White, though it has vigorously protected its depictions of them.
In such battles, Disney has been known to employ arguments every bit as arcane as anything raised against it by Brown.
Take the saga of Bambi, by Austrian Felix Salten. The story of the fawn was first published in Germany in 1923 without a formal copyright notice, which wasn't required there. Three years later, Salten republished it with a notice.
