New Pooh twist

[daber]

Seems like Disney went behind the Slesinger's backs and had both the Milne and Shepard heirs reclaim their rights to the Pooh characters and have now struck a deal with them. As the Bard said, "Oh what a tangled web we weave........."

 

[Luv2Roam]

Tug-Of-War Over Winnie the Pooh Heats Up
By Gideon Long

LONDON (Reuters) - A woman whose grandfather gave the world Winnie the Pooh is seeking to claw back U.S. commercial control of the honey-loving bear who has enchanted children across the globe for three-quarters of a century.

Clare Milne's move is the latest in a long legal battle over the rights to merchandise Pooh, the docile "bear of very little brain" created by British author A. A. Milne in the 1920s.

Lawyers confirmed Tuesday Claire Milne aims to reclaim the U.S. rights to Pooh merchandise from Stephen Slesinger Inc. (SSI), the American firm which has held them since the 1930s.

"Clare has exercised a termination right which is granted under U.S. copyright law," a lawyer representing Clare Milne told Reuters.

The lawyer, from British law firm Brown Cooper Monier Williams, declined to give further details.

Slesinger leased the rights to Pooh to Walt Disney Co. in 1961, but later said the media giant shortchanged it on royalties and started legal action against it in 1991.

Disney, which reaps around $1.0 billion each year in worldwide revenues from Winnie the Pooh merchandise, denies the charges. It says it is currently paying Slesinger $230,000 a week in Pooh-related royalties.

CONFLICTING CLAIMS

Monday, Disney said that if Clare Milne succeeded in her bid to wrest the rights to Pooh from Slesinger, she would then lease them to Disney.

"She is recapturing her rights from SSI and she is regranting them to the Walt Disney Co.," U.S.-based Disney spokesman John Spelich said.

However, Slesinger said it was unaware of the move.

"We don't know what Disney is talking about," Slesinger lawyer Bonnie Eskenazi said. "The Slesingers bought the rights from the Milnes, and the Milnes have no right to divest the Slesingers of those rights."

Clare Milne's lawyers in London declined an immediate comment on the conflicting claims of the two companies.

Disney said Minette Hunt, granddaughter of original Winnie the Pooh illustrator E. H. Shepard, was also seeking to wrest control of merchandising rights from Slesinger.

The Hunt family's lawyers in London declined to comment.

Pooh was born in the late 1920s when A. A. Milne, a former British army officer who served in World War One, found inspiration in the stuffed toys of his son Christopher Robin.

As well as Pooh, he created a menagerie of other characters including Pooh's diminutive best friend Piglet, Eeyore the melancholy donkey and Tigger, a hyperactive tiger.

Milne's books have been a staple for British children for generations and have found a world audience thanks in large part to Disney's blockbuster Winnie the Pooh films.

 

[lrodk]

It ain't over til the fat lady sings. I wouldn't start celebrating just yet. This case has been shifting from one side to the other for years. If Disney indeed gets away with this latest ploy it would indeed be a major coup. Here's a link to MotleyFool.com's report:

http://www.fool.com/news/take/2002/mft/mft02110502.htm

 

[Sarangel]

I guess what I don't understand is that if the royalty payments aren't that big (as Disney keeps asserting, and keeping in mind that this is by mega-corporation standards), why don't they just give the Schlessinger's the money? It should be relatively straight forward, they must have the revenue tagged in someway, so why don't they just cough up the numbers, apply the royalty percentage & shell out what they owe?

My fear is that Disney has been shading the deck in their favor and doesn't want to admit (in this post-Enron economic climate) that they've been skimming & that it may be *much* worse than we've been allowed to see in the press...

Sarangel

 

[ohanafamily]

If I recall, the argument is over the video licensing. Disney says that they don't owe for it, especially on the new adventures.

(subject to the correction of someone with all of the details)

 

[Another Voice]

Disney’s basic stance on all of its contract from the pre-video days is that “recording” only applied to vinyl records – video tapes, computer games, DVDs, Internet, talking dolls using microchips, CDs, the whole of technology from 1980 aren’t. Therefore, anything Disney did to existing properties was free of royalties.

For a couple decades now there has been a constant stream of artists, creators and rights holders that have taken Disney to court over this matter. And each and every time Disney has lost. Rumors are that legal fines, fees and punitive damages has cost Disney scores of times the cost of the simply paying the legitimate royalties. What’s also very interesting is that Disney was excessively eager to sue their own licenses for royalties Disney thought they were due. I remember one case where Disney sued to demand one set of royalties for creating a VHS version of a film, and a duplicate payment for creating a Betamax copy of the same film.

The Pooh case started out in the same fashion more than a decade ago. The rights holder said they were owed royalties from videos, cable showing, computer software and the like. Disney said that since they were not specifically spelled out in the contract (even though the technologies hadn’t been invented at the time), they owed nothing and could do whatever they wanted. The court disagreed and ordered Disney to turn over financial records so the court could determine the amount of money Disney owed.

In one of the dumbest moves of all times, Disney destroyed a lot of those records after the court ordered them surrendered. Worse yet, the documents that were saved showed Disney’s profits from the disputed items were much higher than they told the court during the first trial – and Disney was cheating on the royalties they were paying as well. After being fined and admonished by the court, Disney was then found to be supplying false information to the court appointed accountant who was trying to figure out the case. THEN Disney was found trying to influence the case as well through consulting fees, payments, and “meetings” held without the rights holders in clear violation of the court orders. The judge in the case through the accounting firm off the case (and barred from them for the future) and fined Disney yet again.

Around Hollywood, a town famous for taking advantage of the little guy, this case amazes everyone as to the depths that Disney will sink and the stupidity Disney shows. There is no one around town that thinks the Bear will be working with the Mouse in the future. In the world of Enron, Global Crossing and Worldcom there isn’t a court in the republic that is going to let Disney get away with what it’s done.

The recent press release about “reclaiming” rights is nothing but a smoke screen. Most of the commentary around this morning says the heirs in question are wrong in their legal stance. And everyone says the announcement was simply part of the “good news” campaign to blunt the impact of tomorrow’s earnings release*. Much like inviting Steve Jobs to the World Series, it’s a rather silly attempt to hide the real problems.



* - Speaking of which, it’s rumored that ABC will post a $500 million loss for the year. Maybe Disney really is that desperate to save a few thousand dollars by screwing over a widow.

 

[ukcatfan]

I do not have a stance on if Disney is right or wrong in the case, but saying that the deal with the Slesingers is "taking advantage of the little guy" is a little stretch of the truth. Those people have not worked are real life day's work in their lives off the money they have already been paid by Disney. Everyone also knows that Pooh would be nothing right now if Disney had never taken an interest in it. The Slesingers would never have been able to market Pooh on their own or find anyone else that could have even done half of what Disney has done with it. It sounds to me like that have just become too greedy themselves. They should be thanking Disney instead of suing them.

 

[Another Voice]

Riigghttt... The Slesingers are nothing but a pack of lazy American money grubbing lay abouts that seek only to steal money from the saintly Disney corporation and bring pain and misery to pin traders throughout the world. Disney did all the work (if you ignore the books, the illustrations and the fact that Pooh was a well known and beloved character on both sides of the Atlantic for decades before Disney got the rights).

The Slesingers MUST be stopped before their defense of the law forces Disney to live up to the terms of the contracts that it signed. If Disney had to bother with actually obeying courts, upholding agreements and following the law things they could miss out on profits!

But why stop with Winnie the Pooh. There are so many other greedy obnoxious people who think they’re owed money by Disney. Like that children’s hospital that owns the rights to ‘Peter Pan’. Those lazy ingrates do nothing but lounge about all day because of Disney’s hard work! What have THOSE kids done to make ‘PP’ profitable? Nothing! TAKE THEIR RIGHTS AWAY. Turn the hospital into something productive like a plush factory. MAKE THEM WORK!

And the estate of P.L. Travers – Everyone knows ‘Mary Poppins’ would have been nothing if it wasn’t for Disney and it’s not like the old bag did anything once the movie was made (other than create the character and write the best selling series). Why should her wishes restrict Disney from putting on a Brittany Spears remake? NO. Burn her mansion to the ground and take what is rightfully Disney’s!!!

And how about ‘Harry Potter’? Hey, Disney could do a much better job at marketing the stuffing out of ‘HP’ than Warner Brothers can. So let’s make a bunch of Potter movies anyway! Hell – let’s just steal the print of the latest one and slap a Disney sticker on it and take the money!!!! Warners should be THANKING Disney for stealing their movie.

We’re DISNEY. WE’RE ENTITLED!!!!!!!!!

 

[raidermatt]

I have no idea what type of people the Slesingers are. Maybe they are lazy good-for-nothings who are just living off of the rights bought from Milne. Maybe they're not. Whatever.

The point is that Disney has a contractual obligation to live up to. I'll admit that you never know how its going to work out until its over, but there is very little reason to think Disney is going to get off scott-free in this. Its pretty clear that at the minimum they will have to fork over a significant amount of cash.

As to why not just pay them off and be done with it, if Disney really feels it is right about most of the areas of dispute, paying them off would result in them not only paying for the past royalties, but also paying more in future royalties. There is a lot at stake for them, and again, if they think they are right, they should fight.

But so far, it doesn't look like Disney is right about at least some of the stuff.

Still, even if they lose an initial verdict whenever it comes, I'm sure it will be appealed.

Can anyone with a legal background speak to the part of the "termination right which is granted under copyright law?"

 

[airlarry!]

Monsieur ou Madame ukcatfan,

What an unusual attitude for someone who allegedly frequents a Rumors & News board where the minutae of the World of Disney is debated hotly, where the color of a road sign and the removal of butter are enough to cause people to jump in and out of moving vehicles...

I for one appreciate reading a post from anyone who has an insider's take on the world of Disney, and I try my best to read every post that scrutinizes and analyzes each insider's take no matter where the posters loyalties lie.

 

[Another Voice]

A disgruntled lawyer? Nope, just someone who used to help Disney do these kinds of things.

But I'm better now.