New Copyright Alliance Formed In D.C.

Fans of the Mickey Mouse Protection Act will be glad to hear that a new copyright alliance has been formed, intending to further strengthen copyright laws. (Regular slashdot readers will not be surprised to hear . . . “I for one welcome our copyright-law-promoting overlords!”)

Those of us who are not great fans of the MMPA, on the other hand, may be a tad concerned that things are going too far. Lautreamont once wrote “Plagiarism is necessary. Progress demands it.” The Qlipoth blog has an interesting commentary on this quote:

The type of plagiarism needed is taking up, a making one’s own of ideas. Just as in the best experiences of drugs, riots, music, sex, and perhaps others – the boundaries of where one begins and another ends become blurred, but not erased – plagiarism must do the same. Plagiarism as detournement, but directed less at changing the original than at producing the new.

As society becomes increasingly post-modern, so must art. Did Andy Warhol commit plagiarism by re-appropriating the famous Campbell Soup can? Are mash-up videos inherently plagiarist? Where is the line, and who gets to draw it?

Video of Chinese Fake Disney Park

Have any doubts about whether Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park is a Disneyland knockoff? Just watch this:

Man, seeing those beloved characters represented through ill-fitting, cheaply-made fur costumes . . . and when they take their heads off in front of Guests . . . I can’t help but shudder.

But does anybody else find this all a bit amusing, especially in the context of the Mickey Mouse Protection Act? And the fact that many of Disney’s best-loved classic characters are based on public-domain folklore?

And there’s more on the Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park situation today from DIS News:

Disney bosses are in crisis talks with the owners of a ‘fake’ Chinese version of the famous amusement park.

The Shijingshan Amusement Park included a raven-haired woman with seven men in elf suits, a ‘Mickey’ mouse and other Disney-style characters.

Deputy general manager, Yin Zhiqiang, said: “The characters in our park just look a little bit similar to theirs. But the faces, clothes, sizes and appearances are different.”

“We do not have any agreements with Disney.”

How Can Disney Own “Bollywood”???

I’ve had this article in my blogreader for a while, and I just keep re-reading it in disbelief: wdwinfo.com reports that Disney now owns the word Bollywood.

First it was neem and Basmati that US companies wanted to register. Now it’s ‘Bollywood’ which has been granted as a trademark to Disney Enterprises Inc. It got the ‘Bollywood’ trademark from the Indian Trademarks Registry.

So, you can soon be drinking Bollywood beer wearing a Bollywood branded sweat shirt and shoes — all owned by US-based Disney. Thus, all sites on the internet containing the word Bollywood, makers of films like Bollywood Hollywood, all albums containing the Bollywood name, and magazines like Bollywood Masala could also be in for a legal battle.

Disney has filed for registration under 7 classes of Schedule 4 of the Indian Trade Mark rules as well which pertain to paper products and film and film equipment. The patent was filed by Delhi-based Anand & Anand Associates for Disney Enterprises, Inc.

(Confused? Don’t know what Bollywood is? Check out this wikipedia article for some context.)

Now, I’m no expert on US copyright law . . . much less Indian copyright law. But I can’t help seeing this in the context of the 1998 Mickey Mouse Protection Act.

Mickey’s Infinite Copyright

David Goodger has posted some great, subversive graphics in protest of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, aka the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.

(Re-distributed under the Creative Commons license posted here.)

Looks like this would make a great t-shirt, eh? It might be a bit tricky to stencil . . . but since it’s open-source, it’s licensed so that you can modify and redistribute, as long as you comply with the license terms linked above.

Mickey’s infinite copyright is particularly ironic in light of the fact that many Disney classics never could have come to pass had similar protections been in place to protect folk tales such as Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella, all of which were published first in the Kinder- und Hausmärchen, aka Grimms Fairy Tales, but had previously circulated in un-protected, re-distributible form.