Ho White and the Seven Dwarves
Cidu Bill on Oct 18th 2009
“Disney, which owns the copyright for Snow White and the Seven Dwarves…” I think not, Fox News (their story). Disney does own the rights to their specific cartoon images of Snow and her little pals, though, so the question here is whether Australia’s Jamieson’s Raspberry Ale label is too close to this
Just for the record, the first 12 members of the CIDU jury to cast votes ruled 8-4 in favor of the defense. Or, I guess, the defence.
Filed in Bill Bickel, Crimeweek, Disney, Snow White, Weird World of Crime, copyright, law, polls, trademarks | 26 responses so far
Steven Hunter Oct 18th 2009 at 05:20 pm 1
*Even if* they owned the copyright on Snow White, it would still be considered “parody” which is exempted from copyright law.
Cidu Bill Oct 18th 2009 at 05:21 pm 2
Steven, parody doesn’t apply when you use it to label a commercial product.
Charlene Oct 18th 2009 at 05:33 pm 3
The parody exclusion is part of American copyright law. This beer is being sold in Australia, which means that it has to be in accordance with Australian copyright laws.
Mark in Boston Oct 18th 2009 at 05:51 pm 4
I think Disney & co. invented Doc, Happy, Sleepy, Grumpy, Sneezy, Bashful and Dopey.
But actually the ones in the beer picture are Shmuck, Crappy, Sleazy, Slimy, Creepy, Asshole and Horny.
Nicole Oct 18th 2009 at 06:00 pm 5
According to the original version of the story
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0709.html#snowwhite
The dwarves names are not given nor are their personalities described. These are inventions of Walt Disney. The red bow in Snow White’s hair identifies her as Disney’s Snow white, the expressions on the dwarves faces identifies them as each of Disney’s dwarves (no I am not going to name them). They are clearly caricatures of Disney’s verysioon of Snow White and the seven dwarves. I would say that yes, this does break copyright laws .
Of course I don’t really care if the artist has broken copyright laws, since all he did was draw what we all have thought at one time or another. I’ll bet if you searched Disney’s archive you might find a very similar drawing.
Lord-z Oct 18th 2009 at 06:57 pm 6
It is clearly to close to the Disney image of Snow White. They changed the beards on some of the dwarves, but that it is. It has the Disney Snow White Bow and the Disney Dwarves house. The Dwarves are wearing the Disney hats and you can recognise the Disney personalities.
And I really doubt that a drawing of this would be in the official Disney Archives. Walt was very strict with these sort of things. I am not going to deny that an animator drew a drawing like this, but if he did, he would have done it on his own time and left it at home.
Sili Oct 18th 2009 at 07:30 pm 7
Look at the bed, the carvings and the window. There’s no way it isn’t a ripoff.
If’d just been the picture, I’d call it fair use, but not when they use it commercially.
furrykef Oct 19th 2009 at 12:00 am 8
If’d just been the picture, I’d call it fair use, but not when they use it commercially.
Commercial use isn’t enough to make it not fair use; it’s the context of the commercial use (i.e., using it as a product label) that means they pushed the boundaries too far. A scene like this in Family Guy wouldn’t have had any problems, for example, even though Family Guy is a commercial product.
A few minor changes would likely be all that’s necessary to remove the infringing elements, so I predict that’s exactly what will happen. But then, since the branding is presumably not essential to their product, they might just find it safer to use a completely different image.
- Kef
Henry Oct 19th 2009 at 01:52 am 9
I don’t understand why everyone’s flying to Disney’s side in this. Imagery should be used for communication, to send the message - in this case the “anything but sweet” advertising slogan - and shouldn’t be locked away and kept as property.
Because of the far-reaching influence of Disney upon society (and it has its claws EVERYWHERE in our culture), we possess (as a culture) the ‘Snow White’* idiom. Disney took the original tale, added their own look-and-feel, and spun it for money, and have spent decades selling it again and again, making merchandise out of it, etc. They want the imagery to be known; they want people to identify, to take it as part of the background of culture that forms a society’s cultural base.
*[ Some interest should be paid to 1) the ‘purity’ and ’sweetness’ undertones of “Snow White” as a character and as a story and 2) Disney’s taking that and then selling it from a ‘family values’ angle The reason they chose Snow White to subvert was because it lends itself well to a simple inversion portraying unpurity and unsweetness.]
What would be wrong in this situation would be taking the Disney imagery and then selling it with minor or no changes - piggybacking off Disney’s creative work. I’m not arguing that.
I think here instead of pointing blindly at the law (and international copyright law is a crazy tangle of crossed wires) and using that to make our moral judgement, we need to kick it up a meta-level and look at this with a mentally clean slate. Is it wrong for a company to take this cultural idiom owned by a company, invert it, attach to it their own message, and then use that reference to sell a product?
I don’t think so. It’s a clear reference to a company’s (intellectual) property, but it’s not trying to pass itself off as that company’s work, or claim anything other than shared imagery; an imagery which Disney has spent decades promoting with the deliberate aim of insinuating it into Western society’s basic shared culture.
Instead, they’ve taken some culturally shared imagery, inverted it to make a point, then used it to convey a message. Makes sense to me, and I don’t understand the outrage.
[P.S. - Remember, laws exist to lend order to society such that we all get along; corporations are allowed to exist because they provide services to society; society doesn’t exist to follow laws and respect and enrich Disney. ]
furrykef Oct 19th 2009 at 02:29 am 10
Hmm. I’m a bit confused here: how much of this picture is used as part of the brand? Is it only an ad or is it actually on the product’s label? If it’s a one-off ad, I think a fair use defense is more tenable, though far from a sure thing.
I don’t understand why everyone’s flying to Disney’s side in this.
Well, if it were up to me, I’d probably wave it off and say “go ahead”. But it’s not up to me. I wasn’t “flying to Disney’s side” on a moral standpoint but a legal one.
On a moral standpoint, I’m a bit undecided. As a parodist myself, I can certainly sympathize with the artist and the company. But I also recognize that there are reasons for laws such as this, and if the law is too permissive, then it opens the door for more serious infringement. Unfortunately, laws have to be written in a blanket “all or none” fashion (hence why you can’t buy a beer even just one day before you turn 21 in the U.S., for example) because if you leave discretion up to the judges, then too much time and effort will be spent on that discretion, and you will also end up with rulings that are apparently inconsistent. When the law is black and white, it’s much easier to enforce, even if it means the law isn’t always fair.
- Kef
Derek Oct 19th 2009 at 04:22 am 11
You mean, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. Tolkien has a lot to answer for.
Paul Oct 19th 2009 at 04:39 am 12
It’s clearly based on Disney’s version of Snow White. Whether or not it’s illegal, depends on (appratenly) Australian law and there interpretation thereof.
For me, I see nothing wrong with it. It’s clearly parody, whether or not it’s selling something and I see nothing wrong with it. If it has run afoul of the law, then the law is a pretty crappy one.
furrykef Oct 19th 2009 at 05:43 am 13
Since Derek’s comment is likely to confuse people, I’ll go ahead and clarify it: the original (and still standard) plural of “dwarf” is “dwarfs”; it was Tolkien who (deliberately) popularized the spelling “dwarves”.
Nicole Oct 19th 2009 at 07:57 am 14
Henry … the question was “is this image too close to Disney’s version of the characters in the story”. I think the answer is a resounding yes. That doesn’t mean anyone is flying to Disney’s defense. I have no particular love of the Disney corporation, and have no problem with people using parodied images of their characters.
I can’t say if this is infringment of copyright laws, since the question would involve Australian law, and in my mind the images have been part of the general public’s image of the characters of the story, they may have fallen into the public domain. But these are legal questions and are beyond my humble knowledge
Powers Oct 19th 2009 at 09:55 am 15
Parody is one thing — using that parody as the identifying image of your brand is another thing entirely. One question relevant to copyright infringement cases is: does this use infringe on the copyright owner’s ability to make use of its property, or damage the reputation of that property? I think in this case the answer is at least potentially “yes”.
Steven Hunter Oct 19th 2009 at 10:44 am 16
In US Law at least, parody is *usually* considered “fair use” for commercial works; for example, nearly all of “Weird” Al Yankovic’s musical career is based on commercial parody. That said, it is true that a non-commercial parody is generally presumed to be “safer” than commercial parody. However this is primarily an issue for the judge and/or jury.
David Oct 19th 2009 at 11:18 am 17
Regarding parody, fair use, and Weird Al -
My understanding is that parody is protected, no matter how foul (the 2Live Crew/Roy Orbison lawsuit), but under fair use copyright law, the parodist still has to pay royalties when using someone else’s tune, whether deliberately or accidentally, like in dance mixes or the My Sweet Lord and Ghostbusters lawsuits.
Weird Al says that he won’t release a parody without permission, that’s why he’s never put Chicken Pot Pie (Live and Let Die) on an album, because Paul McCartney is a vegetarian and couldn’t endorse the song. Legally, Al could do it anyway, as long as he pays the royalties, which is what happened with Coolio and Ganster’s Paradise/Amish Paradise. Al thought he had permission, Coolio says he didn’t give it, but cashes the checks anyway. When Al was set to release You’re Pitiful (James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful), Sony started griping about it even though they’d originally signed off, and Blunt was fine with it. Again, Al could have put it on the album anyway, but he just put it on the web for free.
Fried Oct 19th 2009 at 01:37 pm 18
Snow White is Hot!
Nicole Oct 19th 2009 at 01:53 pm 19
Fried … I suspect that is part of the problem
furrykef Oct 19th 2009 at 01:57 pm 20
Actually, for a work to be considered parody from a legal standpoint, it has to comment upon the original work in some way. Hence, most of Weird Al’s songs, like Eat It, are not parodies in the legal sense of the term. (A few of them are, such as “Smells Like Nirvana”, where Weird Al uses the song to comment upon the incomprehensibility of Kurt Cobain’s vocals.)
Here is a somewhat famous case where a Weird Al type of parody (whose premise was basically “What if O.J. Simpson wrote a Dr. Seuss book?”) did not hold up in court, because the content of the book focused on the O.J. Simpson case, not Dr. Seuss’s work.
Anyway, whether this Snow White image could be considered to comment upon the original work or not is far from cut and dry. Its humor is derived from its contrast with the wholesomeness (I hate that word) of the original, but doesn’t seem to make an actual statement about the original. It could be that it doesn’t have to, though, and the contrast with the original work may be a sufficient defense; Family Guy got away with this defense in a court case concerning a particularly offensive parody (in the “Weird Al” sense of the term, even!) of When You Wish Upon a Star.
- Kef
Steven Hunter Oct 19th 2009 at 02:36 pm 21
I guess my point more was that just because it’s commercial in nature doesn’t *automatically* exclude it from being fair-use under the parody exemption.
And yes, I am fully aware that Mr. Yankovic has historically sought, and received, permission from the original artists and/or their labels when releasing his parodies. Since the parody exemption stems directly from the criticism exemption, many of Mr. Yankovics songs would not pass scrutiny (several come to mind, such as “Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies” which isn’t a parody of either the original song nor of the television show).
Also, I would argue that the “Cat in the Hat” suit was more about trademark violation rather than strictly copyright, even if the suit was not specifically addressed as such. If the authors of the unauthorized work had not copied the aforementioned Cat’s red and white striped hat you could easily have claimed it as a “style” parody, and given that you can’t copyright “look and feel” (Apple v Microsoft) probably would have succeeded.
PS: IANAL
indgeek Oct 20th 2009 at 03:17 pm 22
More so it isn’t if they right or wrong, it’s can you afford to fight Disney. Most can’t.
Lord Jubjub Oct 20th 2009 at 06:18 pm 23
I actually think it is distinct enough from Disney’s work that no one would be confused between the two–which is a major point. There are only a limited number of ways that you can make Snow White into Ho White and show the seven dwarves. The only issue I would have would be the red ribbon in the hair.
furrykef Oct 21st 2009 at 12:38 am 24
Lord Jubjub - “fair use” requires that you copy as few elements as necessary, including in the case of parody, although people usually get away with copying a bit more than that. It isn’t necessary to copy the checkered quilt, the shape of the bed’s headboard, the window grate, etc…. really, the red ribbon is probably the least infringing element.
Michael Brown Oct 21st 2009 at 04:49 pm 25
well, there’s the parody by wally wood entitled “So White and the Six Dorks”. Its very adult.
Nicole Oct 22nd 2009 at 10:33 pm 26
And yet another pardoy
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs
http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/animation/watch/v18824604HbnsJEww
Be warned .. this is from the late 40’s and racial offensive stereotypes abound