Darkbeer
11-18-2002, 02:48 PM
Pooh Heiress Slams 'Dubious' Disney Rights Suit (http://www.american-reporter.com/1976/1.html) - The American Reporter, 11/18/02
QuikQuote: In another startling development, the American Reporter has learned that Disney's own lawyers argued at length - in a 1981 letter to Disney general counsel Peter Nolan and in other letters written since 1938 - that the Pooh works by Milne fell into the public domain when publisher E.P. Dutton registered their copyright in its own name at a time when the 1909 U.S. Copyright Act required that the author - if he was the owner - sign the copyright registration document. Dutton registered the copyrights to When We Were Very Young, The Hundred Acre Wood, Now We Are Six and The House at Pooh Corner between 1924 and 1929, when the 1909 Copyright Act was in force.
Failure to use the true owner's name placed the properties in the public domain under that act, Disney lawyers argued in correspondence that became part of the public record in the case when it was opened last January.
QuikQuote: In another startling development, the American Reporter has learned that Disney's own lawyers argued at length - in a 1981 letter to Disney general counsel Peter Nolan and in other letters written since 1938 - that the Pooh works by Milne fell into the public domain when publisher E.P. Dutton registered their copyright in its own name at a time when the 1909 U.S. Copyright Act required that the author - if he was the owner - sign the copyright registration document. Dutton registered the copyrights to When We Were Very Young, The Hundred Acre Wood, Now We Are Six and The House at Pooh Corner between 1924 and 1929, when the 1909 Copyright Act was in force.
Failure to use the true owner's name placed the properties in the public domain under that act, Disney lawyers argued in correspondence that became part of the public record in the case when it was opened last January.