Press "Enter" to skip to content

Category: Net: YouTube Videos

Disney Help Explain Copyright Law

From Boing Boing via Stupid Evil Bastard is this Stanford University Cyberlaw documentary film program about copyright utilising Disney® copyrighted movie clips under the Fair usage act.

(Direct download link: Stanford.edu, Coral Cache)

Why Disney? Well, to me they seem to be a major copyright abuser (the Lion King character and the intro to the film is very similar to a Japanese animated series Kimba the White Lion: they even appear to have used the “Lion Sleeps Tonight” music without permission, Atlantis is meant to be similar to “Nadia: Secret of Blue Water” and “Laputa: Castle in the Sky”, characters in Aladdin are meant to be similar to ones in The Thief And The Cobbler and I’m reasonable sure there’s others), but they are also one of the main companies who keep pushing for copyright extensions (see The Mickey Mouse Protection Act.

I also don’t quite like their policies of “niceify” some stories (such as The Brother Grimm stories, Peter Pan, 101 Dalmations etc) – at least if Disney are going to make them into films (even though the stories are public domain and therefore available to be used “without fees”: something no Disney item is likely to become), they could at least keep the story intact.

(rant over)