Paraguay Loves Mickey, the Cartoon Mouse. Disney Doesn't

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/14/world/americas/paraguay-mickey-mouse-disney.html

by howard941 • 2 years ago

177 124 2 years ago

muhoweb• 2 years ago

kragen7• 2 years ago

you'd think an article nominally about 'intellectual property' would mention that mickey mouse is out of copyright now, at least in countries that apply the rule of the shorter term

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/mickey/

codetrotter• 2 years ago

But the Mickey Mouse that is out of copyright is specifically the one you see in Steamboat Willie from 1928 (and maybe some of their other old movies with Mickey, I don’t remember what other movies Disney made early on around 1928).

Meanwhile the Mickey that is shown posing on top of a building in one of the photos looks like a more recent Mickey. (But I’m no Mickey expert.)

And it is important to keep that in mind.

aaronbrethorst• 2 years ago

Which is why Crooked Media can sell a t-shirt of two Steamboat Willies kissing without receiving a cease and desist but can't feature a pair of more modern looking Mickeys going at it: https://store.crooked.com/collections/pride-or-else/products...

kevin_thibedeau• 2 years ago

It's still a trademark for perpetuity. Copyright expiration on specific films doesn't change that. This is why Disney started using the pie-eyed mickey more heavily in their marketing 10+ years ago to reinforce their trademark over that version of the character.

ethbr12• 2 years ago

It's in trademark as long as Disney registers and renews the trademark in whatever country.

And trademark doesn't protect against any and all use in the same way copyright does -- only uses that might create consumer confusion with the trademark owner's uses.

Presumably, a company that has been selling grocery staples since 1935 with that logo isn't creating much confusion.

Arguably, Paraguayan Mickey has a better claim that modern do-everything Disney Mickey is infringing on its long-established trademark...

bongodongobob2• 2 years ago

What is pie-eyed mickey?

MichaelZuo2• 2 years ago

Disney’s claims and paperwork has to be accepted by the Paraguayan trademark office specifically in this case, not just any trademark office.

Unless both the US and Paraguay have ratified a 100% automatic international trademark treaty, which seems unlikely.

kragen7• 2 years ago

copyright is subject to broad international recognition under a couple of very widespread treaties, and the pct provides a weaker way to obtain the same patent in a smaller set of countries, but trademark is an explicitly local thing. even in the usa, a trademark in one town may not be valid in the next (think 'jones's 24-hour laundry') and even registered trademarks are often only registered in the trademark office of one state. (every state has its own trademark office, in addition to the federal pto.) there is no trademark equivalent of the berne convention or the pct

so the idea of a paraguayan company, in paraguay, infringing a us trademark, is legal hogwash. mickey is a disney trademark in paraguay only to the extent that the paraguayan government decides to grant it to them, a decision that should be made on the basis of, among other things, existing uses by other companies. this is a fundamental and intentional feature of trademark law in every jurisdiction i am familiar with, not a bug

— ⁂ —

to a significant extent trademark law is arbitrary in the same way traffic laws are. there's no objective reason, nothing justifiable according to some kind of natural law, that says you should drive on the left side of the road, or stop when the traffic light turns red rather than green. if everyone else is driving on the right side of the road, or stopping when their light turns green and your light turns red, that would be a better thing to do. the law in these cases is merely establishing a schelling point that allows a large society to coordinate their actions through more or less random but well-known decisions

the justification for trademark law is to protect consumers from inferior goods bearing the name of a reputable maker, but made by someone else. for this purpose it reserves particular names and logos for the exclusive use of particular makers. which particular names and logos are reserved for which particular makers is essentially arbitrary; what matters is that it be relatively consistent over time, so that consumers aren't buying good mickey-branded bread from the paraguayan mickey company one day and adulterated mickey-branded bread licensed by disney the next

(you can argue that to some extent modern trademark law is failing at this job, due to notorious cases of perfectly legal line extension fraud—such as exploding tempered-soda-lime-glass pyrex, saran-free saran wrap, pseudoephedrine-free sudafed, kaopectate without kaolin or pectin, and generic t-shirts bearing a designer's licensed brand—or the widespread phenomenon of private equity firms buying a quality brand and replacing its products with inferior replacements. but that's the justification for its existence)

tangus3• 2 years ago

As the article says, the Paraguayan company has been filing and renewing the Mickey trademark, without challenge, since the 1950s. That's the reason Disney lost the suit.

cfraenkel• 2 years ago

Um, except that the article is about a trademark. Mickey (the Paraguayan company) isn't printing comics or producing cartoons, so how would copyright apply?

(as your linked article from duke.edu explicitly explains)

rubyfan2• 2 years ago

Yeah it’s a trademark issue, not a copyright issue.

mig39• 2 years ago

They're using Mickey Mouse (or their version of him), as a mascot. Doesn't that mean it's about a trademark?

The business in question literally has a mouse, named Mickey, that looks a lot like the trademark of Disney, on their packaging, their buildings, and their advertisements. They are literally using Disney's trademark.

kragen7• 2 years ago

it's possible for a single thing to be subject to both trademark and copyright law, even in the usa; often the owners of the copyright and the trademark are different. this is how graphic designers get paid for designing corporate logos on spec, for example. see for example https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html

How do I copyright a name, title, slogan, or logo?
Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases. In some cases, these things may be protected as trademarks. Contact the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, TrademarkAssistanceCenter@uspto.gov or see Circular 33, for further information. However, copyright protection may be available for logo artwork that contains sufficient authorship. In some circumstances, an artistic logo may also be protected as a trademark.

it seems clear that the paraguayan mickey company is the legitimate owner of the paraguayan trademark

pigeons• 2 years ago

The copyright has expired for the Steamboat Willie short film and a few other things like certain comic strips featuring Mickey Mouse. To me that seems different than "mickey mouse is out of copyright now".

kragen7• 2 years ago

fortunately for you, jennifer jenkins, the director of the center for the study of the public domain at duke university's law school, has written a 6000-word explanation of the precise extent to which mickey mouse is or is not out of copyright now, including 21 footnotes which add further detail, which i linked in my comment above and will link again here now for your benefit

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/mickey/

TheRealPomax• 2 years ago

It's not. A character by that name from a 1928 animation is out of copyright. It is an entirely open question at what point a derivative work becomes a new stand-alone work and what that actually means for the copyright of the character by the same name with a different character design currently used by Disney as one of their brand characters.

rubyfan2• 2 years ago

Sounds like Disney failed to protect its mark in Paraguay over many decades.

aij2• 2 years ago

Mickey was selling foods under that trademark in Paraguay since 1835. When did Disney start competing in that market segment with their Mickey Mouse brand?

kragen7• 2 years ago

well, 01935, not 01835. not a lot of paraguayan businesses from 01835 survive thanks to the war of the triple alliance

aij2• 2 years ago

Ack, yes, I meant 1935. I'm on mobile and typoed that in a way the spell checker couldn't catch...

Even now in the US I have yet to see Disney selling rice under the Mickey Mouse brand in a way that could be at all confused with the Mickey rice in Paraguay that I grew up with.

klyrs2• 2 years ago

Neither 8 nor 9 are valid octal digits, please stop that

tangus3• 2 years ago

To add some context as to why businesses wouldn't survive it, that war happened between 00001864 and 00001870, and wiped more than 00000050% of the male population (estimates vary).

miki123211• 2 years ago

Paraguay Loves Mickey, the Cartoon Mouse. Disney Doesn't

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