This studio wanted to make sure it protected its tens upon tens of billions of dollars

After what could have happened a few years back when a case was quickly settled just prior to the Supreme Court deciding whether to take up the case or not, this studio wanted to make sure it protected its tens upon tens of billions of dollars it makes which could have been cut in half with a bad ruling.

So, they decided to make sure it didn’t ever happen and has been a huge dark donor to make sure they never get that ruling against them.

Disney

Frozen

Marvel

Disney Hit With A Copyright Infringement Suit For “Frozen”

How similar is “similar” in a copyright infringement suit? Frozen very quickly captured the hearts of young children and adults all over the world. It seems that every child, girl or boy knows the words to every song, and because of this, most parents have most likely seen the video at least once.

In addition to its popularity, this fan favorite animated movie has meant big business for Disney. It could be Disney’s biggest film ever grossing $1.22 billion as of May of 2014, winning an Oscar for Best Animated Feature, and hosting the biggest selling soundtrack in the U.K. since Mamma Mia!

But could it be that the Frozen trailer is actually a copy of another animated film? For animator Kerry Wilson, the trailer for Frozen is a copy of her 2-D animated short, The Snowman. Wilson is so certain of this that she has filed a copyright infringement suit for infringement against Disney.

Wilson claims that her animated short and the Disney movie Frozen have more than just a “passing resemblance,” and it seems that the courts agree with her. The California federal judge who decided the preliminary rounds of this copyright infringement suit infringement case stated, “The sequence of events in both works, from start to finish, is too parallel to conclude that no reasonable juror could find the works substantially similar.” More specifically, Judge Chhabria describes the parallels between the two animated films:

“(i) a snowman loses his carrot nose (ii) the nose slides out to the middle of the frozen pond (iii) the snowman is on one side of the pond and an animal who covets the nose is on the other (iv) the characters engage in a contest to get the nose first (v) the screen pans back and forth from the moving snowman to the animal, set to music, as they endeavor to get the nose (vi) the contest continues when the snowman and the animal arrive at the nose at the same time (vii) the animal ends up with the nose, leaving the snowman and the viewer to wonder if the snowman’s nose will become food for the animal and (viii) in the end, the animal returns the nose to the snowman.” – Source

Disney sues to keep full rights to Marvel characters including Spider-Man, Black Widow, and more

Disney is headed to court in an attempt to retain full control over some of Marvel’s most iconic characters. The studio filed a slew of lawsuits on Friday against the heirs of several writers and artists who are seeking to reclaim the copyrights to such characters as Spider-Man, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Black Widow, and Captain Marvel.

The suits, filed on behalf of Marvel Entertainment (which Disney owns), come in response to copyright-termination notices filed earlier this year, seeking to return the rights to Marvel’s characters to the authors who created them. (Under U.S. copyright law, authors or their heirs may reclaim rights from publishers after a certain number of years.) If successful, these notices would allow Marvel to continue using the characters, but require the studio to share ownership and profits with the creators’ heirs.

Among those seeking termination are the estates of Marvel Comics legends Steve Ditko (co-creator of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange), Don Heck (co-creator of Iron Man, Black Widow, and Hawkeye), Don Rico (co-creator of Black Widow), and Gene Colan (co-creator of Falcon, Captain Marvel, and Blade), as well as Larry Lieber, co-creator of Iron Man, Thor, and Ant-Man and the younger brother of Stan Lee. All are being represented by intellectual property lawyer Marc Toberoff, who previously represented the heirs of Marvel comic book artist Jack Kirby and Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster in similar cases. – Source