• Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Which means you can include Mickey Mouse in your work, but you can’t use him for marketing or merchandising.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Trademark only works if the infringement is in direct competition with you. They need to be in the same trade as the person/company that owns the particular mark of the trade.

      A plumbing company could use Mickey as a mascot, (and even claim Mickey as their own trademark for plumbing, preventing Disney from using it for plumbing-related marketing in the future,) because Disney isn’t a plumbing company so they can’t claim a plumber is infringing on their trademark. Since the plumber is in an entirely separate trade and isn’t competing with Disney, Disney can’t claim trademark infringement.

      • XTornado@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        Meanwhile Disney’s creates micro companies on all sectors to be able to claim the trademark on each one.

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        10 months ago

        Which works fine until you get served a cease-and-desist by Disney’s lawyers, and you can’t afford to fight it. Disney probably won’t win if they go to trial, but it’s not going to trial.

    • Mellibird@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      And they’ve already transitioned to using the Steamboat Willie model for the opening of their new movies as part of their trademark. As soon as I saw that happening I knew it wouldn’t matter that the copyrights to it would finally go away because Disney found a new way around it with the trademarking.