Winnie-the-Pooh Parodied In Wookie-the-Chew 58
pickens writes "Erik Hayden writes in the Atlantic that children will see endearing portraits of Chewbacca rendered in the style of "Winnie-the-Pooh" in the book of drawings "Wookie the Chew," a tribute to the combined genius of George Lucas, A.A.Milne and E.H.Sheppard, by artist James Hance released on September 1st. Samples from the book are available at Hance's web site. Hance bases his right to parody Winnie-the-Pooh on Fair Use as parody under which certain uses of copyrighted works, which would otherwise be considered infringing, are permissible. Interestingly enough, the rights to the original Winnie-the-Pooh were the subject of an 18-year feud in which Walt Disney corporation fought off a challenge to its ownership of the rights ending in 2009 when a judge in Los Angeles struck out a claim against Disney lodged by the family of Stephen Slesinger, a comic book pioneer who bought the copyright to Pooh in 1930 from the bear's British creator, A.A. Milne. Stories of Pooh's adventures were originally created by Milne in the 1920s, based on a toy bear owned by the author's son, Christopher Robin."
Re:It's just too bad... (Score:1, Informative)
This is true, but it also is likely not to protect him from losing.
In Copyright Law, one type of fair use is parody. Parody has a specific definition where the parody is specifically critiquing or commenting about the source material. Post-suit rationalizations also won't fly.
In this case, the artist is just combining two different and copyrighted works (a mash-up). Mash-ups are currently in a legal gray area.
Finally, if this were to come down to a lawsuit, there's a four factor test for fair use (regardless of whether you label it a parody or not).
The four factors judges consider are:
1. the purpose and character of your use
2. the nature of the copyrighted work
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market.
Re:How long does copyright last? (Score:2, Informative)
Let's see we have 2 posibilities here:
1. 70 years + Remaining Segment of Authors Life
-or-
2. 95 years + 0-25 years of time from creation to publication.
So the author's rule is always better if he lives more than 50 years after creating his work. If the work is published imediatly the author's rule is always better if he lives more than 25 years. Assuming he lives in the US with a life expectancy of of 78 years and publishes quickly he will spend more than half of his adult life getting the better part of this deal.
In fact this being set as 70 years after the authors death or 95-120 years after creation there is very little chance that those who origionaly created this work will have anything to do with the copyright any more. Be the eventual copyright holder a heir or a corporation I doubt the time difference will be of much significants at that point given none of the people benifiting will be those who helped with the creation of the work.