INTRODUCTION TO DISNEY WORLD

When in 1920s, Walt Disney made his Alice Comedies, he never had thought that he would become a name in the history of animations and the world-renowned characters. Snow White, Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio and Bambi does not need any introduction. The success of Disney in animation business created famous characters, such as Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and many more.

Disney currently has over 6000 trademarks, 2259 patent grants, 1150 patent applications and numerous copyrights. It has animated movies with extraordinary characters which has the effects on the mind of the person.  It has unique designs of the products which it sells, clothes, jewelry, grooming items, sports items and many more. In addition to this, it has the 12 theme parks,52 resorts, 9 studious, hotels and cruise lines in the world, which are also famous for their uniqueness and innovative ideas.

Disney has ownership in renowned companies like ESPN, Pixar Animation, Marvel, Hollywood Records, ABC News, Vice Media and many more. It has massive media powerhouse, mass media ownership which makes Disney own most of the creative contents we see today. It has abundance of innovations and technology, which makes it having its name as a ‘star’ in the world.

DISNEY’S  SPECIALITIES

1. LAUGH-O-GRAMS :-

This was the first production company of the Walt Disney. He made cartoons throgh the creations which he started in 1919 and these cartoons got the name “ Laugh-O-Grams”. This became the first animation studio of Walt. He thought of going ahead with his first project based on the novel ‘Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland’ to bring the live-action character in the animation. Unfortunately, this plan didn’t succeed because of the bankruptcy faced in 1923.

2. WALT DISNEY COMPANY :-

Walt Disney with his brother Roy O. Disney formed this company. In 1927, Walt started to bring his dreams into realities and came up with his first project, which was a series of short animated series named “Oswald The Rabbit”. As this series was distributed by Universal, at the time of renewal of the contract, Universal decided to produce the characters itself and through it, Universal got the complete rights over the characters.

3. MICKEY MOUSE :-

In 1928, Walt came up with a new famous character called ‘Mickey’ and capitalised it with the brand new technology of that time, i.e. ‘Sound’. This was a remarkable step which made Disney world famous. Disney became the pioneer in synchronising sound with the cartoon characters. Mickey Mouse first appeared on ‘Steamboat Willie’[1] which was one of the first sound cartoons. Now Mickey Mouse is the ultimate symbol of the Disney and has 97 percent global recognition rate.[2]

4. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS :-

This was the first full coloured feature animated film of Disney which came up in 1937. It started the series of the animated films by the Disney. Pinocchio and Fantasia in 1940 was the part of the same series.

5. THEME PARKS:-

This is an amusement park which not only has the fan base among children, but among the adults as well. This is a place where children, their parents, their grandparents and whole family can enjoy. This theme park got the name ‘Disneyland’ and its world famous for its uniqueness. People have the dream to visit this Disneyland once in their lifetime.

6. CIRCLE -VISION 360:-

Disney came up with this extraordinary technology of that time, called ‘Circle-Vision 360’. This technology uses nine cameras stitched together for 360 videos for nine screens in a custom theatre. This was a remarkable achievement on the part of the Disney and it made Disney pioneer in it too.

7. ELECTROMECHANICAL ROBOT:-

This was a jaw dropping technology which when came; it made people see different possibilities which can be done in this world. Disneyland featured an Electromechanical robot in 1963. This was actually the first time when people saw the lifelike technology.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS CREDIT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE DISNEY

The abundance of innovations and technology of the Disney discussed above shows it clearly that how much role is there of Intellectual Property Rights in the success of the Disney. Disney owns the success to the Intellectual Properties it has.

 Intellectual Property is the result of the continuous efforts one put to come out with something different, which commonly known as innovations. It is a culmination of inventions, trademarks, literature, sounds, designs, technology, creative concepts, industrial models. As it’s a result of one’s creative mindset, it needs safeguard from the public, so that its innovations do not get generalized.

Disney as mentioned above has a list of copyrights and trademarks of its characters and images. They strictly enforce these Intellectual Property rights and even have advanced system to find out if there is an infringement of their Intellectual Properties. Though, Disney strictly enforces the Intellectual Property rights it has on its characters and images, but there is a possibility to use those images or characters or names, if a license is obtained and used it in the legal manner.

 Famous Copyrighted Characters of Disney:-

• Mickey, Minnie,Elsa, Goofy, Donald, Cinderella, Snow White, Peter Pan and many more are the characters which are copyrights of the Disney.
• Clothes  of the Disney has Mickey, Minnie and their gang on it.
• Jewelry of Disney has its uniqueness
• Grooming Items with the touch coming out with something unique even in these ones are a special stand on their part.
• Sports items.
• Items for home like waffle makers, blankets, lamps etc have the images of the Disney special characters which are favorite of all.                                                                                                                            

• Character Rights:-  Under Copyright, Disney has character rights over thousands of its characters like Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Marvels, Cinderella, Rapunzel. The rights attached to these characters are vested with Disney, though these characters can be used if license is obtained and used legally.
• Merchandising Rights:-  Disney has merchandising rights to sell, exploit and license its movies’ dialogues and character images It means any or all rights to conceive, create, prepare, supervise and proceed with the arrangement, recording, mixing and transmission of the movies’ feed.
• Production Rights:-     All production rights over its movies, series, prequels and sequels belong to Disney. Disney is only authorised to come up with the production of its movies and all the other facets related to it.
• Distribution Rights :- Disney also holds distribution rights over its movies, series, prequels and sequels.

Disney has always been protective about its intellectual property and that’s why it is a prominent supporter and lobbyist for copyright term extension. The involvement of Disney in the copyright term extension was with the motive of preventing their copyrights, especially the famous Mickey Mouse Character from entering into the public  domain. As technology has advanced, Disney often try to ensure that users pay for their contents.

HOW TO GROW BUSINESS 10X WITH INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHT INDIA | TRADEMARK, COPYRIGHT, PATENT | TO KNOW MORE, VISIT -

CASES RELATED TO THE COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT OF DISNEY

1. DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC  V.  VIDANGEL, INC (2017)[3]

In this case, Disney and other large television and movie corporations alleged that VidAngel infringed upon their copyright protections because VidAngel operated an online streaming service that removed objectionable or offensive content from movies and television shows and then streamed a filtered version of the work to its customers.

Disney, Lucasfilm, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., and Warner Brothers Entertainment sued VidAngels for copyright infringement. The issue arose was  whether a third-party site that digitizes physical copies of movies and removes offensive material from the copyrighted works constitutes fair use.

The court gave its decision in the favour of Disney and concluded that ‘the copyright use was not fair, VidAngel’s copying infringed upon the plaintiffs’ exclusive reproduction right.’

Trademark

• Disney currently has over 6000 registered trademarks worldwide. Mickey Mouse among these trademarks represents Disney. It is the ultimate symbol of Disney and around 97% of the global recognition is there of Mickey Mouse as the symbol of Disney. When the copyright of Mickey Mouse got registered, since then only, Mickey Mouse has become trademarked as it acquired the distinctiveness and became the source indicator for Disney.
• Walt Disney is a trademark of Disney and it forms part of many other trademarks of Disney as well, e.g., “Walt Disney World”, “Walt Disney Signature”, “Walt Disney Records” and others.

CASES RELATED TO TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT OF DISNEY:-

1. DISNEY ENTERPRISES INC  V.   HARAKCHAND KENIYA (2011)[4]

In this case, the defendants were engaged in selling the counterfeit party hats and other party decoration products bearing the Disney characters. The court stated that the Disney is the proprietor of the trademark in question and the said trademarks have been infringed by the defendants.

2. DISNEY ENTERPRISES INC  V.  RAJESH BHARTI (2013)[5]

In this case, the defendants  are engaged in the manufacturing, selling and exporting counterfeit bicycles for children bearing the trademark DISNEY and Disney characters.

The court while dealing with this matter found the defendants guilty and decree is granted in favor of  Disney for the compensatory and punitive damages as well as the defendants, their partners, proprietor, servants, agents and associations are restrained by permanent injunction from using the trademark of DISNEY or any deceptively similar variant thereof on any goods, not limited to bicycles only.

PATENTS:-

Disney owns around 2259 active patents worldwide. Few patents of Disney are:-

• Virtual reality and / or augmented reality viewer having variable transparency;
• Methods and systems for conducting multi-user interactions on a device with the help of biometric authentication;
•  Content editing during the broadcast;
• synchronized augmented reality gameplay in  multiple gaming environments;
• method and device for fantasy sports auction recommendations .

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY VALUE FOR DISNEY

The value that the Intellectual Property has for Disney can be seen by its efforts to protect its Intellectual Properties.

• Through the Copyright Act, 1909, Mickey Mouse got 56 years of protection in 1928 after its creation. Majority of the characters of Disney got 56 years of protection through Copyright Act, 1909 and they all were going to expire in 1984.
•  The fear of Disney of losing its classic characters after 1984 made Disney to give its efforts for new copyright legislation. Disney started to lobby for new copyright legislation because loosing Mickey and its other characters to public domain was going to be huge financial loss for Disney.

This reason made Disney to lobby the Congress for new law of Copyright and in 1976, U.S. Congress completely overhauled U.S. copyright law to conform to European standards and came up with Copyright Act, 1976. It extended the copyright to be expired in 2003.

• In again 1990s, Disney began to worry about losing its characters. This made it trying for new legislation for the protection of its Intellectual Property and then there came  Copyright Term Extension Act in 1998, which gave the protection of 20 more years to Disney characters. This effort by Disney made this act getting a new popular name called Mickey Mouse Act. Now the Disney characters are protected from public domain till 2023.
• Value of Disney’s brand name is $ 43 billion and that largely due to Mickey Mouse products of Disney.

The creation and protection of Intellectual Property is a primary motivation for Disney because they employ many people and provide entertainment for individuals across the World by their renowned characters and innovations, which made them have success in this competitive world.

BY- URVASHI SINHA