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Disney Owns This Trope
- 542 statements
- 100 feature instances
- 67 referencing feature instances
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Trademarks are distinctive signs or symbols used by a person or company to promote and differentiate their products and services from the competitors. They typically consist of a name, word, phrase, logo, or combination of the four, and are distinctly associated with their brand. See the article on the subject for an in-depth explanation. Trademarks belong to a category called "intellectual property rights", alongside similar concepts called copyrights and patents. A full discussion of their definitions and purpose is beyond the scope of this entry (we have a separate comprehensive article explaining how trademarks works, click here for details), but the three terms all bear a common theme: They acknowledge creation or ownership of something and provide the owner with some control over how it gets used. If somebody else attempts to use it commercially without the owner's permission (often with an exchange of money involved for such permission), the owner can take them to court and sue for damages. Now, in Real Life, there are certain rules and limitations on what does and does not constitute an infringement, and what is and is not eligible for protection under intellectual property rights laws in the first place. These laws are also what (ostensibly) protect independent artists, inventors, and writers from having their work stolen or destroyed by Evil, Inc., Executive Meddling, severely Misaimed Fandom, or having the Serial Numbers Filed Off. But there are no such limitations or ethical quandaries in fiction! Some corporations (for example, MegaCorp) are so damn powerful and wield so much influence that they can put a stamp of ownership on literally anything. The grass in your front yard? Patented by a gardening company. The morning sunrise? Copyrighted. The name of your favorite pet? A bright sunny day? The word "the"? Yes, them too. If it exists, then somebody, somewhere, has stamped a copyright or trademark upon it, regardless of common sense or reason, and they'll happily send out their Army of Lawyers to collect royalties at even the slightest hint of infringement. It should be noted that not all copyright and trademark claims are valid; just look at the mess over "Happy Birthday to You!" as an example of a company attempting this and (eventually) failing. Often leads to getting Screwed by the Lawyers. Related to Stuck on Band-Aid Brand, where a company not only holds the trademark but continually remind people of it. May overlap with Trade Snark, where words are labelled as trademarks for humorous purposes. Don't confuse this for tropes that the Walt Disney Company owns at using, such as the Disney Death or Disney Acid Sequence. It's more general and metaphorical than that. |
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When trying to release The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, they discovered that WCW/TNA has the trademark to "Shark Boy". The wrestling people must have gotten a nice settlement, considering that the movie came out. (Perhaps as revenge, it's impossible to find Sharkboy wrestling videos on a Google search.) And Disney wound up losing the rights to the film anyway in the sale of Miramax to Sony. | |
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CMLL forced a wrestler known as Mistico to abandon his gimmick since they had their own MÃstico. Then CMLL left that Mistico in search of a new gimmick when he left them and they not only duplicated it with yet another wrestler but also transferred over his entire "Super Sky Team" stable. Ironically, CMLL couldn't or didn't care to block usage of "Los Reyes del Aire", the Fan Nickname for Super Sky Team taken after recurring a CMLL event that Myzteziz would name a new tag team of his after. | |
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After having the Golden Age superhero of the same name make an appearance in the 1980s All-Star Squadron title, DC Comics attempted to trademark "Uncle Sam." They withdrew their claim when informed that the rights to the character "Uncle Sam" in every possible incarnation is owned by the US Government, and thus by law is free to use by anyone in the US for any purpose at all. | |
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At one point, Civvie 11 finds himself at the mercy of Pinhead with a cursed NES cartridge of a canceled Hellraiser game. How does Civvie defeat him? By calling Nintendo and telling them about a level in the game that uses unedited Super Mario Bros. 3 assets. Cue C&D and Pinhead being forced right back into the puzzle box. | |
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After Ken Penders won his lawsuit with Archie Comics over his characters in their Sonic the Hedgehog comic, he made it clear many times he would sue for even the vaguest similarity to his characters or basic concepts. Some examples include the idea of a Sonic multiverse, as well as evil Sonics in general. Given his aforementioned victory, this intimidated Archie enough to skim around a Sonic multiverse when the Worlds Unite crossover event was released, instead opting for a more expensive solution. | |
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Just try to make a comic book superhero with the name of Thor these days—the character is a copyright and trademark of Marvel Comics, even though Thor is a mythological character from thousands of years ago, and is therefore by law a Public Domain Character. The Asylum has come close, making a mockbuster film about the mythical character. There are some portions of Greek and Egyptian mythology that one would think would be fairly important in the Marvel Universe, but which are somewhat marginalized due to their connection to Wonder Woman or Shazam. |
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Parodied following Disney's real-life buyout of 20th Century Fox in "The Birthday Bootlegger"; Stewie has to go to Quahog Elementary School for his first detention, where he finds Bart Simpson writing "It is a pleasure to work for the Disney corporation" on the chalkboard repeatedly. He then says, "Oh, that is a load of...", but his voice gets dubbed by Mickey Mouse saying "Truth! A wonderful load of truth!" | |
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They were also fairly successful with Sleeping Beauty, even though it's a really old story and their version also includes some music from the ballet version by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Mattel's plan for a Barbie adaptation of the ballet was cancelled in part because Disney owns the trademark to "Princess Aurora", even though Mattel weren't even planning for the protagonist to have that name. | |
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In 2014, the developers of Candy Crush Saga held exclusive rights to the word "candy" in app titles, and tried to file for rights of the word "saga". They later gave up on the latter (due to them attempting to sue several companies using "saga" in their products, which created quite a backdraft), and gave up the rights for the former a month later as a result. | |
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In the special Eretz Nehederet episode dedicated to the massive summer 2011 protests in Israel, a tycoon impression (Eran Zarkhovich with an Angry Birds-esque pig for a head) was featured. Host Eyal Kitsis went over a list of his assets, which included, among many others, the phrase ‘Holy shit, get a load of those tits!’ and the word ‘morning’. | |
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978): Apparently the sound of a thousand people saying "wop" simultaneously is the registered trademark of the Krikket-Kola Corporation, and is used with their permission. | |
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In Ozy and Millie, fire is the intellectual property of dragons, who reap a side benefit of their ownership being extended whenever Disney extends its copyright on Mickey Mouse. | |
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They tried to copyright the title character of Pinocchio, but only managed to do their own version, with the rights to the literary character written by Carlo Collodi remaining in the public domain. This led to hilarity when Filmation released its 1986 animated film Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night — they sued for copyright infringement, but lost because the work is based on the original books. | |
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In one Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode, a man named "Time Warner" travels through time to warn people against doing anything resembling his intellectual property, such as using a bird to play records. He tells the characters that they are not allowed to use Time Travel to undo a nuclear holocaust because his company owns every time travel film and show they can think of. | |
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On Powers many superheroes earn money through merchandising and there are many powerful marketing firms who specialize in promoting superhero brands. When Retro Girl is killed, a new heroine tries to step into her shoes and starts to use the name and costume. The marketing company execs are furious and are prepared to sue for trademark infringement but the company president tells them to stop being idiots. If they can sign the new superheroine to a contract, they can promote the Legacy Character aspects and make even more money. | |
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The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis: According to Hermes, Farnsworth's Character Catchphrase "Good news, everyone" is a registered catchphrase of Planet Express and the management guarantees no actual good news. | |
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This also became a minor plot point in The Death of Superman storyline - Luthor attempted to buy Superboy using Matrix Supergirl as "bait". He almost fell for it before he was wooed in by Rex Leech who then gained the rights to the name Superman. When a server attempted to stop Steel and the Eradicator from using the shield, the Eradicator tried to flash fry him, forcing Steel to pull him out. When the same guy approached the returned Superman, Supes did things a lot more simpler - he confronted the clone and told him give it back. | |
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Small Beans (a group of former Cracked contributors) has a Disney Owns You sketch series, with the premise of Disney acquiring various properties over the years. | |
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D4DJ Groovy Mix shows a graph of the player's timing trends at the end of every song. If the player has the monthly Live Pass subscription feature, they are shown fast/slow status for every note hit, a more precise graph, and exact fast/slow counts for every judgement other than Just Perfect. | |
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In Game Dev Tycoon, your company might get harassed by patent trolls claiming copyright over trivially basic gaming concepts. You can either take them to court, settle out of court, or rally your fans in your defense. | |
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Disney prevented the film adaptation of Italian comic Dylan Dog from featuring a white Volkswagen Beetle like the comic did, because Disney owns the rights to the white Beetle. (They bought them to make The Love Bug.) | |
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Subversion: In 2010, Lionsgate globally blocked several Sesame Street clips on YouTube. Since Sesame Street is owned by Sesame Workshop and not Lionsgate, many asked, "why?" It turned out that all of the clips being blocked were featured in the 1989 TV special Sesame Street: 20 and Still Counting, which was about to be released on DVD (with Sesame Workshop's blessing) by Lionsgate. | |
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A Discworld fanfic pastiching the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony ends with a dig at the Olympic Commitee's ... enthusiastic ... trademark protection, by saying, beneath the usual I Do Not Own disclaimer, "Cori Celestic Games, Year of the Second Inception, Summer, Ankh-Morpork and Sport are all trademarks of the A-M Games Committee and may not be used without permission under penalty of big men with sticks." | |
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They tried to copyright the character Peter Pan in the UK, having supplanted JM Barrie's original with their own animated feature. But they found that in the UK, a special bill had given the partial rights to the character in perpetuity to a children's hospital. The hospital doesn't have the right to forbid use of the character, but they do have the right to collect royalties from any work that uses the character in the UK. A win for art, a loss for vulgar capitalism. This is also how Disney failed to block Fox's animated adaptation of the books, Peter Pan & the Pirates. | |
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The word "Yomi" (a common Japanese word) is currently trademarked by Yomi creator David Sirlin, who can and will take action against almost any other game that has the word in its title. One notable example of this is when Your Only Move is HUSTLE (formerly known as "Yomi Hustle") was briefly delisted from Steam due to trademark infringement, forcing developer Ivy Sly to rename it. At least two other games which originally had "Yomi" in their names have suffered similar fates and also had to be renamed as a result. | |
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Towards the end of the final, revised version of Kasia, Connor, his two younger siblings, and Kasia are singing a (parody) of the Mickey Mouse March on a road trip down to Orlando, only for their father (who's a law professor) to stop them before they can completely finish spelling "Mickey Mouse", to which their mother remarks "Just let it go... or is that copyrighted too like 'Happy Birthday' used to be?"note In the original version of the book, Connor, his two siblings, and Kasia were singing the unmodified lyrics to the Mickey Mouse March, to which their father remarks "Kids, your mother is going to turn this car around if you don't cease that singing!", only for their mother to continue the song for them; George Coryell most likely changed this to avoid legal trouble with Disney. | |
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In Temps, one of the newspaper clippings between the stories was a series of articles about a paranormal concert pianist with a fondness for using his Reality Warper powers to "enhance" his music with special effects. One article stated that he was being sued by Disney for breaching their copyright while performing "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" ... and that the concert hall had been closed down by a specialist team of pest-control officers. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_59632132 | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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In one of the technology quotes in Civilization: Beyond Earth, CEO Suzanne Fielding advocates patenting alien genetic material (and, somewhat more reasonably, hybrid genetics). Whether any of the other factions are inclined to uphold her patents is another matter, of course. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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For several decades, iconic evil organization SPECTRE, along with the organization's equally iconic leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, could not be used as villains in the James Bond films due to a successful series of lawsuits filed against Eon Productions by Kevin McClory over the rights to Thunderball and plot elements introduced in the story. In the movie For Your Eyes Only, Blofeld (and SPECTRE by association), here an unnamed bald guy with a cat, is rather summarily bumped off for good before the opening credits, likely a Take That! to the property owner. However, in 2013, MGM and the McClory estate reached a settlement, with Danjaq (the parent company of EON) and MGM buying full rights to SPECTRE and Blofeld. A movie followed suit. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_5ada53ed | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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This complaint has been thrown at AAA, not only for not allowing popular wrestlers like La Parka and Psicosis to use their gimmicks away from the promotion but then giving those gimmicks to new wrestlers who then were allowed to use the gimmicks on the independent and foreign circuits with AAA's blessing. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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World Wrestling Entertainment has fallen afoul of trademarks twice: For a short while, it looked like the company couldn't use the wrestler Gangrel in its game properties, because Gangrel was a registered trademark of White Wolf (as a Vampire: The Masquerade clan name). They were able to iron that particular problem out and get Gangrel into games. The more famous one was having to change its company name to World Wrestling Entertainment (and its logo to WW) due to a violation of an agreement with the World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly known as the World Wildlife Fund, which is still the legal name of that organization's US and Canadian branches) concerning the international use of the WWF initialism. On the flip side: the company aggressively defends any trademarks it owns, when the American Wrestling Association went under, former employees got together and started using and selling the AWA to upstart companies, till WWE torpedoed this budding revival. WWE often trademarks wrestler names — which explains why performers who leave WWE often have to use new names. (The Dudley Boys, for example, had to become "Team 3D" when the pair left WWE for TNA, despite being The Dudleys before WWE because WWE bought ECW, where The Dudley gimmick started, and that supposedly qualified for not using it before WWE). Jay Reso, better known as "Christian" in WWE, beat the company on this one by trademarking "Christian Cage" to ensure that he could use his "WWE name" when he jumped ship to TNA. He uses "Christian Cage" in AEW. Ever since the mid-'00s it seems that WWE has taken their policy a step further by making all newcomers use a WWE-given name, even those who previously wrestled under their real names or own their own names. Though they have made exceptions for wrestlers who became huge stars in other promotions (e.g. CM Punk, Sting, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Austin Aries, Shinsuke Nakamura, Bobby Roode, EC3,note Who previously wrestled with WWE under the name Derek Bateman. Karl Anderson) or other mainstream athletes/celebrities turned wrestlers who are far bigger than pro wrestling (e.g. Ronda Rousey, Logan Paul). |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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Spider-Man: While shouting out orders in his office, J. Jonah Jameson invents the name "Green Goblin" and tells his staff to trademark it. "I want a quarter anytime anybody says it!" | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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A MAD treatment of Peanuts at the height of its cultural success has Charlie Brown as a megalomaniac executive moving to sue Planter's for using their name on its product, raving "I don't care WHO came first!" | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_60e46926 | featureApplicability |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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When Malcolm X came out Warner Bros. was dismayed to learn that they couldn't trademark the letter "X", so a lot of merchandise was produced without anyone having to pay them royalties. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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Ultra Fast Pony: In "Out with the Old Characters", Dr. Whooves says he changed his name to Time Turner to comply with copyright. In "Copywrong", the characters comment on the use of a Suspiciously Similar Song in the soundtrack, and conclude that it's to avoid running afoul of copyright. Then Pinkie mentions Nazguls, and the video suddenly stops as the creator gets beaten by the Copyright Police. |
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| Disney Owns This Trope / int_63c1175b | featureApplicability |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_63c1175b | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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Many changes that Pathfinder Second Edition Remastered makes to the rules and setting of PF2e were made to properly sever Pathfinder from Wizards of the Coast's Open Gaming License—and with it, access to a good portion of WotC's IP that would otherwise let Paizo defy the trope. Notable casualties include the drow and Character Alignment, though it's also given Paizo a good excuse to cut Dungeons & Dragons-specific holdovers that no longer made sense for the game, like druids having a ban on using metal armor. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_68237790 | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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In the Harry Potter fanfic Disillusion, by Hermione Granger, Hermione mentions that Harry patented the magic gene, so as to prevent genetic manipulation or investigation of the genetics behind magic at a time the magical world is still hidden. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_6cb2d709 | featureApplicability |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_6cb2d709 | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_6d31710b | comment |
Ever since the mid-'00s it seems that WWE has taken their policy a step further by making all newcomers use a WWE-given name, even those who previously wrestled under their real names or own their own names. Though they have made exceptions for wrestlers who became huge stars in other promotions (e.g. CM Punk, Sting, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Austin Aries, Shinsuke Nakamura, Bobby Roode, EC3,note Who previously wrestled with WWE under the name Derek Bateman. Karl Anderson) or other mainstream athletes/celebrities turned wrestlers who are far bigger than pro wrestling (e.g. Ronda Rousey, Logan Paul). | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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For the Virtual Console re-release of StarTropics, the word "yo-yo" was changed to "star" because "yo-yo" is a trademarked name in Canada. Weirdly, the same change wasn't made for the later Virtual Console release of EarthBound (1994). Also done in the VC re-release for Zoda's Revenge. "Tetrads" were changed to "blocks", and "Tetris" was changed to "Puzzle". |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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Thomas Dolby, born Thomas Morgan Robertson, got his stage name from his habit of messing around with cassette tapes and keyboards. Dolby Laboratories tried to pressure him into changing his name but his label refused to do so. Eventually it was decided in court that Dolby Labs had no right to force Thomas Dolby to change his name and the two parties compromised by agreeing that Thomas would not release any electronic equipment under his own name. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_6fb5f959 | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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Howard the Duck also caught Disney's ire for "unauthorised use of duck". But Howard was a Marvel Comics property rather than the creation of an obscure Swedish artist, so Disney fought harder. And they won. Indeed, they got the right to redesign Howard to something they considered no longer infringing. And they gave him a design so horrible that Marvel stopped using the character entirely. That lasted until the Marvel MAX imprint, when they brought him back as a giant rat (which is either a Take That! or a spectacular case of not thinking this through), only returning to duck form in the final issue. Eventually, Disney bought Marvel outright and got Howard with them, so he's even got an ongoing that featured some snark at Disney (Howard's friend Tara Tam wants to go to Orlando, he replies "Who wants to see a bunch of pantless ducks?"). | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_76c806ab | featureApplicability |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_76c806ab | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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They were fairly successful with respect to Cinderella, even though the original work is from 1697 (with versions older than that). The same year as the film's release, Estela Films in Spain were trying to release their own animated feature-length adaptation of it and ran into Disney's copyright-fu. They found that Disney had even trademarked the Spanish name of the story, La Cenicienta, forcing them to call it Erase una vez... (Spanish for "Once Upon a Time"). | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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Edge of Spider-Geddon: In the distant future of 2099, Kang the Conglomerator owns all rights relating to the image and person of the anarchic Spider-Man, whom he has rebranded as "Spider-Punk". Kang has already made a tidy profit from this long-dead superhero by merchandising the hell out of him with toys, comics, and movies. He wants to make even more money by traveling back in time to kidnap Spider-Man and bring him back to the future, where Kang will "smooth out" his rough edges and turn him into a sanitized corporate mascot. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_7b1ccf9e | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_7cfe10f3 | comment |
Segagaga: Every time someone mentions the term RPG, there's a disclaimer that pops out to tell us that "RPGs are a trademark of Bandai". note Allegedly a jab to Bandai's unsuccessful attempt to trademark the acronym. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_7cfe10f3 | featureApplicability |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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In the Batman story "The Laughing Fish", the Joker dumped a version of his toxin into the local waters, and then tried to claim copyright and trademark of all the fish that now sported Joker faces, so that the fishing industry would be compelled to pay him royalties for all the fish that sported the Joker's grin. When the copyright office explains that copyright law doesn't work like this, he responds with murder. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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In the Groove 2 is perhaps one of the first rhythm games to have this feature, although that game was litigated into oblivion for being a "clone" of DanceDanceRevolution. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_8828fa33 | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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In TSR's Indiana Jones Role-Playing Game from the 80s, the copyright symbol appears next to the word "Nazi" on some of the cardboard tokens used, sparking a rumor that TSR tried to copyright "Nazi". The copyright actually applies to the artwork used... although TSR did become copyright Nazis in later years. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_8a339030 | featureApplicability |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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In the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden, Disney attempted to trademark "SEAL Team 6" — the name of the military unit who got him — in the hopes of making an NCIS-style show about them on ABC. They ended up withdrawing their request a short time later, and nothing ever came of the idea. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_8d81bb26 | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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Battletech was originally named Battledroids. What happened next is a bit of conjecture, but either story hinges in the fact that LucasFilm has registered a trademark to the word "droid": One story claims that FASA voluntarily decided to change the name in the hopes of sweetening the pot in negotiations with LucasFilm for a license to make a Star Wars roleplaying game (to complement their well-received Star Trek and Doctor Who licenses) The other story is that Lucasfilm sent a C&D, forcing a change to the more recognizable name. FASA in either case did not get the hoped for Star Wars license (that going instead to West End Games), and would would be hit hard with this trope about 12 years later after a dispute over the Unseen that would not be fully resolved until 2018, at which time the second of a pair of court cases (the first having resolved in 2017) completely rejected that the company Harmony Gold has licensed the original designs that would become Unseen from never actually owned the IP in the first place. Conversely to their history of being on the receiving end of this trope, FASA themselves had a trademark on the term "Mech", thus contributing to the use of A Mech by Any Other Name by so many other Humongous Mecha franchises. |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_90f18253 | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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They tried to copyright the title character of Tarzan, but were blocked in several places by the estate of his original creator Edgar Rice Burroughs. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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Look at any wrestling show or video game before 2007 featuring Hulk Hogan and you'll see somewhere that Hulk, Hulkster, and Hulkamania are owned by Marvel Comics. Fitting since Terry Bolea started using the name Hulk after appearing on a radio show with Lou Ferrigno and the host noted that Terry was "bigger than The Hulk." (In 2007, Hogan's own company, Hogan Holdings, Ltd., got the trademark rights to his own ring name and associated names.) | |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_959dd815 | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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Upon the release of Donkey Kong, Universal Pictures tried to hit Nintendo with a copyright suit, arguing that the character of Donkey Kong infringed on Universal's copyright on King Kong. This worked out badly for Universal, as not only did Nintendo prove that Universal did NOT own the copyright on King Kong, but that a previous lawsuit had proven that King Kong was public domain. The winner of said lawsuit? Universal Pictures themselves! | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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In season eleven of Mystery Science Theater 3000 Tom Servo has a makeover to resemble BB-8 from The Force Awakens. When the scene shifts back to the Satellite of Love, Tom is crying because Disney threatened to "smash his globe" if he didn't abandon the makeover. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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In The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, a returning Thomas Edison exclaims, at seeing a light bulb, that it was infringing on his trademarks. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_97abe183 | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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In Bee Movie, the bees sue rock star Gordon Sumner over his use of the name "Sting". | |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_97ce01ba | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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A similar event took place in the pages of Ultimate Spider-Man. The Kingpin bought the rights to the Spider-Man docudrama that was produced earlier in the comics and all related merchandise. Since he is a crime lord, it proves to be a win-win for him. If Spider-Man fights his goons, he makes money. If Spider-Man hangs up the tights, no one will fight his goons, and he will make money. And he would have hired an actor to stage fighting his goons for even more money. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
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The Swedish comic character Arne Anka is a cartoon duck with a fondness for drinking, sex, classic literature, and political rants — nothing like your typical Disney character. Disney's lawyers weren't amused and sued his creator Charlie Christensen. At first, Christensen fruitlessly tried to use logical reasoning, saying, "Surely Disney don't hold the right to all cartoon ducks?" Apparently, they believed they did. Christensen ended up solving the problem by changing Arne's look completely so that he didn't look like a duck at all — a look that lasted for a few pages before Arne bought a toy duck beak that he would constantly wear. From then on, whenever Disney's lawyers complained, Christensen could point out that Arne wasn't really a duck; the toy beak just made him look like one. That seemed to satisfy them. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_9ded8627 | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_a03824e8 | comment |
Also in The DCU, Lexcorp owns a little bit of everything. In fact, one of their sneakier schemes against the Man of Steel was an attempt to trademark the word "Superman" that would have legally forced Superman to pay them a royalty every time he appeared in public. This also became a minor plot point in The Death of Superman storyline - Luthor attempted to buy Superboy using Matrix Supergirl as "bait". He almost fell for it before he was wooed in by Rex Leech who then gained the rights to the name Superman. When a server attempted to stop Steel and the Eradicator from using the shield, the Eradicator tried to flash fry him, forcing Steel to pull him out. When the same guy approached the returned Superman, Supes did things a lot more simpler - he confronted the clone and told him give it back. |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_a0c28448 | comment |
In the RiffTrax precursor The Film Crew, there's this riff from Michael J. Nelson during Hollywood After Dark: | |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_a0c28448 | |
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Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_a183d57f | comment |
Futurama: Momcorp apparently holds the trademarks on "mom", "apple pie," "screen door" and "love". In "The Problem with Popplers", the only product names that aren't trademarked are Popplers and Zitzels. |
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| Futurama | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_a183d57f | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_a309c5a5 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_a309c5a5 | comment |
In Hannah Montana, Rico has somehow obtained the exclusive North American rights for both his Evil Laugh and his "Hey-oh!" catchphrase. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_a309c5a5 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_a309c5a5 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Hannah Montana | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_a309c5a5 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_a4616794 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_a4616794 | comment |
Parodied in the sixth episode of Friendship is Witchcraft. The Cold Open states that the word "apple" and the image of an apple are legal copyrights of the Dole Corporation and that the episode was "modified from its original version to keep within good legal standing". Throughout the episode, all onscreen apples are blurred out and any mention of the word apple is clumsily censored by the name of another fruit. This censorship even extends into Applejack's name and the "Buy some apples!" gag. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_a4616794 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_a4616794 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Friendship is Witchcraft (Web Video) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_a4616794 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_a895e9d3 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_a895e9d3 | comment |
In Portal 2, the Aperture Science instructional videos reveal that they've trademarked the word "evacuation" and the phrase "asbestos is harmless!" | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_a895e9d3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_a895e9d3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Portal 2 (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_a895e9d3 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b24467b3 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b24467b3 | comment |
The usage of only the word OnmyÅ�ji as a title is trademarked by Baku Yumemakura in Japan, which is why the video game Onmyōji (2016) keeps the title in all markets but is eventually changed to OnmyÅ�ji Original Fantasy RPG in Japan. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b24467b3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b24467b3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Onmyōji (2016) (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_b24467b3 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b3f687d1 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b3f687d1 | comment |
In one FoxTrot cartoon, Jason tried to copyright 1 and 0 so that any song released on the Internet would be pirating his work. "3Com only purchased rights to the numbers '3' '5' and '9', Intel owns '4', '8', '6', and '2'. '0' and '1' are still in the public domain." — Donald Becker |
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| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b3f687d1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b3f687d1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| FoxTrot (Comic Strip) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_b3f687d1 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b4dc1496 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b4dc1496 | comment |
The Performai trilogy has this, but calls it "Fast" and "Late". | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b4dc1496 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b4dc1496 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Performai / Videogame | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_b4dc1496 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b8c8f953 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b8c8f953 | comment |
Francis of PvP attempts to trademark a black pixel and white pixel. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b8c8f953 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_b8c8f953 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| PvP (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_b8c8f953 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_bb485066 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_bb485066 | comment |
WWE often trademarks wrestler names — which explains why performers who leave WWE often have to use new names. (The Dudley Boys, for example, had to become "Team 3D" when the pair left WWE for TNA, despite being The Dudleys before WWE because WWE bought ECW, where The Dudley gimmick started, and that supposedly qualified for not using it before WWE). | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_bb485066 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_bb485066 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Dudley Boys (Wrestling) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_bb485066 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_bc8b07 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_bc8b07 | comment |
During a season finale of Epic Rap Battles of History, a battle between Stan Lee and Jim Henson is interrupted by the Disneyland-Lord of their Intellectual Property. Further down the line during the rap, he also points out that he owns the entire series. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_bc8b07 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_bc8b07 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Epic Rap Battles of History (Web Video) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_bc8b07 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_bcadd7cb | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_bcadd7cb | comment |
Games Workshop infamously attempted to trademark the term Space Marine. Thankfully for Blizzard, James Cameron and others they were unsuccessful. However, in that case, the estates of Robert Heinlein, Edward Elmer Smith and Bob Olsen (who coined the term in his novel "Captain Brink of the Space Marines" [1932]) would overturn Games Workshop in this. After another defeat over "Imperial Guard", and one over special characters mentioned in the game rules but absent from their miniature lineupnote It had been ruled that due to the characters' status they couldn't ban competitors from selling their own miniatures for those, Games Workshop snapped and renamed several factions to more trademark-friendly names (yielding absurdities like "Aelfs" and "Orruks"), while removing all "offending" special characters from their rules. |
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| Disney Owns This Trope / int_bcadd7cb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_bcadd7cb | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Warhammer 40,000 (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_bcadd7cb | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c0d0d316 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c0d0d316 | comment |
Red Dwarf: In the description for Earth, it's noted that Conspiracy Theorists receive an invoice from Disney-Chodwara AG regarding one particular conspiracy theory, as they've owned the idea for years and make a tidy profit on it. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c0d0d316 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c0d0d316 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Red Dwarf (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_c0d0d316 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c19c6efa | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c19c6efa | comment |
Mojang AB, creators of Minecraft, have been involved with a trademark dispute with Zenimax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, creators of The Elder Scrolls series, over Mojang's attempt to trademark the use of the word "scrolls" in the title of Scrolls (and related merchandise). Bethesda claimed that doing so would infringe on their Elder Scrolls trademark. Both sides were essentially attempting to play this trope trope straight in their favor. (The case would be settled, allowing Scrolls to use the word in its title, but not in any sequels or spin-offs. However, in 2018, Mojang decided to rename Scrolls to Caller's Bane, rendering all previous arguments moot.) | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c19c6efa | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c19c6efa | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Minecraft (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_c19c6efa | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c2463c55 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c2463c55 | comment |
They also patented the Sphere Grid system used in Final Fantasy X, which would give you control over how your characters develop as you progress through the game. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c2463c55 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c2463c55 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Final Fantasy X (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_c2463c55 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c2b05afe | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c2b05afe | comment |
Arcaea has this feature, with no real limitations to speak of. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c2b05afe | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c2b05afe | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Arcaea (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_c2b05afe | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c3a92b6e | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c3a92b6e | comment |
After being expunged from The Beautiful People, Madison Rayne tried to trademark the name and start her own Beautiful People. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c3a92b6e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c3a92b6e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Beautiful People (Wrestling) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_c3a92b6e | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c4282b71 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c4282b71 | comment |
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Big Macintosh was originally "Big Apple" and Apple Bloom was originally "Appleseed", but both were changed at the request of Hasbro's legal department for this reason. Lauren Faust also insisted on using the spelling "McIntosh" instead of "Macintosh" for this same reason. Funnily enough, Big Macintos'sh in-series nickname of "Big Mac" (from a restaurant that has often had MLP Happy Meal promotions) isn't all that lawyer-friendly either (the writers have to be careful when and how they use it). Literal example with Starlight Glimmer, who was to be "Aurora Glimmer" (which would have fit her colors, mane, and cutie mark design better), but was changed since Disney trademarked Aurora from the princess in Sleeping Beauty. |
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| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c4282b71 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c4282b71 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_c4282b71 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c43df4d8 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c43df4d8 | comment |
In the Doctor Who episode "Dalek", it was revealed that billionaire Henry van Statten "owned the Internet". | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c43df4d8 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c43df4d8 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Doctor Who | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_c43df4d8 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c5e0b864 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c5e0b864 | comment |
In The Non-Adventures of Wonderella, Wonderella weaponizes this trope when she tricks Santa Claus (who is trying to kill her because she killed him) into getting trapped in the Disney vault. Jesus is horrified by this. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c5e0b864 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_c5e0b864 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Non-Adventures of Wonderella (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_c5e0b864 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d21aa03 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d21aa03 | comment |
For a short while, it looked like the company couldn't use the wrestler Gangrel in its game properties, because Gangrel was a registered trademark of White Wolf (as a Vampire: The Masquerade clan name). They were able to iron that particular problem out and get Gangrel into games. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d21aa03 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d21aa03 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| David Heath (Wrestling) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_d21aa03 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d3b784fa | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d3b784fa | comment |
Jay Reso, better known as "Christian" in WWE, beat the company on this one by trademarking "Christian Cage" to ensure that he could use his "WWE name" when he jumped ship to TNA. He uses "Christian Cage" in AEW. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d3b784fa | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d3b784fa | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Christian (Wrestling) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_d3b784fa | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d48b50b6 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d48b50b6 | comment |
Lanota has this feature, but locks it behind a monthly subscription similar to D4DJ. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d48b50b6 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d48b50b6 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Lanota (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_d48b50b6 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d4d31eeb | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d4d31eeb | comment |
DJMAX Respect used to have this feature, however it was removed because of this patent and it was this incident that brought Konami's rhythm game patents to light. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d4d31eeb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d4d31eeb | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| DJMAX (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_d4d31eeb | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d4e81750 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d4e81750 | comment |
EZ2ON REBOOT : R shows early/late hits when hitting notes, but the counts thereof are only shown on the game interface after the last note in the song is hit, before going to the results screen, but not on the results screen itself. It is shown after every song in a course, course overall results, and the recent plays tab in the Lounge menu, however. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d4e81750 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d4e81750 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| EZ2DJ (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_d4e81750 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d500b17d | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d500b17d | comment |
From around 2000 till 2016, with a few special exceptions such as Forza, Electronic Arts had exclusive rights to Porsche vehicles, so in most non-EA games, they were replaced with the RUF brand instead. The exclusive rights were discontinued in 2016, probably due to the Dieselgate scandal hitting Porschenote part of Volkswagen Group since 2012 quite hard. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d500b17d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d500b17d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Forza (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_d500b17d | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d82e33bd | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d82e33bd | comment |
Brain Leak: Played for Laughs with the episode literally titled "Disney Might Sue Us For This!", as the episode's main subject was that of the big news of Steamboat Willie going Public Domain. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d82e33bd | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_d82e33bd | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Brain Leak (Podcast) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_d82e33bd | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_daaafa37 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_daaafa37 | comment |
In Psychoville the man in charge of the production of Snow White says that they are forbidden to use the names in the Disney film for the dwarves. This is actually correct — Disney originated those names and character designs for the dwarves, so it owns them. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_daaafa37 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_daaafa37 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Psychoville | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_daaafa37 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_dd19818c | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_dd19818c | comment |
Public Domain-centric comics such as Project Superpowers usually rename and occasionally even redesign some characters that, while public domain, have since seen their name, look or legacy become owned by a much larger company. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_dd19818c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_dd19818c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Project Superpowers (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_dd19818c | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_dda4ea6c | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_dda4ea6c | comment |
Sega claims that they still hold the patent for real-time view angle change as seen in Daytona USA, though, which is why fluid view angle changes are absent from other driving games from Bandai Namco and the like. Thankfully, most people don't care much for the feature and some even found the real-time view angle changes nauseating. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_dda4ea6c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_dda4ea6c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Daytona USA (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_dda4ea6c | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_e26d37ec | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_e26d37ec | comment |
The Tetris Company has not only trademarked the name "Tetris", but they have also trademarked the Tetrimino shapes and the theme song, and Henk Rogers will send cease-and-desist letters to anyone who dares to so much as make a game with falling tetriminoes. TTC has gone so far as to claim infringement on elements of the game which cannot be copyrighted (as ruled by the US Supreme Court in Lotus v. Borland). The song is actually a Russian folk song that is firmly in the public domain with respect to copyright, but because it has built up a secondary meaning, it's a trademark within video games. On top of Lotus v. Borland, Lego already tried to copyright/"trademark" a patent leading to the Supreme Court decision "Trademark law should not be used to perpetuate monopoly rights enjoyed under now-expired patents." With enough money to cover the legal costs, a large company making a profitable Tetris clone would theoretically be able to easily defeat The Tetris Company in court (except for the music). It's just that without the Tetris name, it's hard to make a lot of money selling a Tetris-like game, so no one has bothered. |
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| Disney Owns This Trope / int_e26d37ec | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_e26d37ec | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Tetris / Videogame | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_e26d37ec | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_e38bca40 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_e38bca40 | comment |
Suggested in Peter Schilling's "(Let's Play) U.S.A.": | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_e38bca40 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_e38bca40 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Peter Schilling (Music) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_e38bca40 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_e5c6748d | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_e5c6748d | comment |
Ted Healy once tried to maintain control of The Three Stooges for years after he created the act. First, he prevented Fox from signing Moe, Larry, and Shemp to a motion picture contract because he knew the contract would cut him out. Then, when they left him and started performing by themselves, Healy tried to stop them on a copyright basis. When all else failed, Healy allegedly resorted to terror threats against theatres that were thinking about booking their act, which almost led to Shemp leaving the group. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_e5c6748d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_e5c6748d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Three Stooges | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_e5c6748d | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_ea4f62db | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_ea4f62db | comment |
Parodied in Family Guy. when Stewie shares his Halloween candy with Brian and they're forced to use several Bland-Name Product knockoffs instead of the well-known brands. Also parodied when the gang is escaping from dirty cops and start talking about restaurants with bland-names like "McDaniels" and "Burger Queen". Quagmire lampshades this with a short "I hate television bureaucracy" rant, then it's taken to extreme lengths near the end: And the time that Peter made a propaganda ad about banning weed by portraying Adolf Hitler and his fans as baked psychopaths who were "inspired" to kill six million Jews by smoking pot: Parodied following Disney's real-life buyout of 20th Century Fox in "The Birthday Bootlegger"; Stewie has to go to Quahog Elementary School for his first detention, where he finds Bart Simpson writing "It is a pleasure to work for the Disney corporation" on the chalkboard repeatedly. He then says, "Oh, that is a load of...", but his voice gets dubbed by Mickey Mouse saying "Truth! A wonderful load of truth!" |
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| Disney Owns This Trope / int_ea4f62db | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_ea4f62db | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Family Guy | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_ea4f62db | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_ebd9895f | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_ebd9895f | comment |
They tried to copyright the title character of their film Alice in Wonderland, but Lewis Carroll's original work was already in the public domain. Indeed, they were still producing their version when they discovered another film based on Carroll's book — a mixture of live-action and Lou Bunin's Stop Motion puppetry, so visually nothing like Disney's version. They sued anyway. This led to a long legal battle during which Disney brazenly claimed to own the rights to the book; no one bought it, and the case was thrown out. But Disney did succeed in forcing Bunin's film into a limited release and relegating it to obscurity. And they periodically kept trying to copyright Alice in random countries like New Zealand. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_ebd9895f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_ebd9895f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Alice in Wonderland | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_ebd9895f | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_ec2531c4 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_ec2531c4 | comment |
In the early production stages of Coco, Disney tried to trademark the phrase "Dia de los Muertos". That's right, they tried to trademark an entire holiday because Pixar was making a movie about it. The Latino community was quite displeased, leading to Mexican-American cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz drawing a poster of a giant skeletal Mickey with the caption, "It's coming to trademark your cultura." A week later, Disney backed off and claimed they were just trying "to protect any potential title for our film and related activities." Then they hired Alcaraz to work on the film as a consultant. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_ec2531c4 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_ec2531c4 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Coco | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_ec2531c4 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_eef69f10 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_eef69f10 | comment |
Since the mid 2010s, the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has got quite litigious about the use of Sherlock Holmes in new films and TV shows. This is complicated. Holmes himself is a Public Domain Character: the earliest books about him (from the 1880s) are out of copyright in all major territories, and the Leslie Klinger lawsuit confirmed anyone can use him. But (at least in the US), they can't use any fact about his character that only exists in the very latest short stories, which came out in the 1920s and were still copyrighted in the US until 2023.note Since Doyle died in 1930, Holmes has been public domain in the EU and UK since 2001, and in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand since 1981. Since there are very few of those facts available, the trait the Estate tends to sue people over is Holmes having emotions. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_eef69f10 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_eef69f10 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Sherlock Holmes | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_eef69f10 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_f2d35352 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_f2d35352 | comment |
Clam Man: Played for Laughs. There are two rival shopkeepers selling sandbags on the street. The second shopkeeper says he isn't allowed to call his products "sandbags" because the first shopkeeper owns the rights to that word. So he calls his products "small rock containers." He still slips up and says "sandbag" a few times, though. | |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_f2d35352 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_f673b427 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_f673b427 | comment |
Immortals Fenyx Rising was originally announced by Ubisoft as Gods and Monsters, but the company was forced to rename the game when Monster Energy objected to the original title, somehow claiming that it could cause confusion between a mythological fantasy game and an energy drink. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_f673b427 | featureApplicability |
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| Disney Owns This Trope / int_f673b427 | featureConfidence |
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| Immortals Fenyx Rising (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_f673b427 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_f74b5f80 | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_f74b5f80 | comment |
The science fiction series Babylon 5 has an off-hand mention to Disney Planet. Gets expanded upon in the rpg: it's a lifeless moon in the Orion system that Disney is transforming in a planet-sized theme park. So far they've built 'only' one city-sized domed attraction, but given it's already a financial success... | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_f74b5f80 | featureApplicability |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_f74b5f80 | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_f7cd4bee | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_f7cd4bee | comment |
When they tried to make Oz the Great and Powerful, they relied on the underlying book series being in the Public Domain. But Disney took a lot of cues from the famous 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, which was owned by Warner Bros.. They had to have constant meetings with the Warner Bros. people to make sure their movie didn't look too much like the original film, haggling over details as the exact shade of green of the Wicked Witch's skin. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_f7cd4bee | featureApplicability |
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Disney Owns This Trope / int_f7cd4bee | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_fb8549c | type |
Disney Owns This Trope | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_fb8549c | comment |
Deadpool's symbol is very clearly created to mockingly look like a marketing logo— which it technically is. | |
| Disney Owns This Trope / int_fb8549c | featureApplicability |
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| Disney Owns This Trope / int_fb8549c | featureConfidence |
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| Deadpool (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Disney Owns This Trope / int_fb8549c |
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