Art & Copyright

Thanks again to all, James an e mail has been sent.
Tony K

Hi Tony,
Your publisher should be able to get advice on this, and depending on publication in the UK or Ireland I actually doubt it would be an issue – the US more likely. There are numerous profiles featuring Disney characters in books in print, and I don’t recall it ever being an issue. It’s your publisher’s concern, nevertheless.

Feel free to contact me if you want to discuss further.
Cheers,

Thanks to all for your input, the idea arises as a Fairey Battle used as a target tug by the Irish Air Corps had a Donald Duck towing a target painted on the nose. If a profile was printed in a magazine or book would this rise the ire of the mickey mouse organisation, they say he has a bite !

Tony K

No. Under the 1988 Copyright Act and amendments an author’s copyright for most published works continues for 70 years after the death of the author, if his identity is known; otherwise for 70 years after the work was first published (fifty years for computer-generated works).

Thank you.

Slightly off topic but was still an issue, The combat flight simulator computer game il2 forgotten battles i believe had to use different names or leave out planes for a while from Grumman i think.
I think it was the use of the names Grumman and Northrop that was the problem.

In the UK copyright lasts 50 years, doesn’t it. May be quite different in the US and elsewhere.

No. Under the 1988 Copyright Act and amendments an author’s copyright for most published works continues for 70 years after the death of the author, if his identity is known; otherwise for 70 years after the work was first published (fifty years for computer-generated works).

In 1985 a Porsche 956 ran in the Le Mans 24 Hour Race with sponsorship from Bontempi who use Disney characters in their advertising. The car was decorated with a curved organ keyboard on each side with Disney characters marching along the keyboard led by Mickey Mouse.
The car was modelled as a 1/43 scale limited production resin kit by a French company called Starter. It was unlikely that they expected to sell more than 250 to 500 kits worldwide but they ran into problems with Disney copyright. They only made the kit for a very short time, distributed it solely in Europe and sent all European dealers a letter saying that thy could not advertise the kit in the USA or sell the kit to US collectors due to the copyright problem.
Needless to say most dealers ignored the letter and the few Le mans collectors in the US got their kits.

Aren’t the E3 Sentry fleet named after the 7 dwarfs? And iirc they sought permission to use the Disney artwork internally on the aircraft.

Don’t know about old stuff, I’ve had to reproduce a couple of Disney characters but one was quite distorted, however as they are representing an historical artifact then for historical accuracy the image has to be used.

I would like to think that as it is the illustration/artwork that is the primary work and not the Disney character then the cartoon is not being exploited for direct profit and is acceptable.

In the UK copyright lasts 50 years, doesn’t it. May be quite different in the US and elsewhere.

You can with the roundels etc fall foul of copyright law, some of the later nose art on US stuff in the Gulf had the copyright logo on them, added by the not so stupid artists 😀 you may be pushed to find the original artists these days and does copyright not expire with death?? hence the likes of mozart can be recorded without royalties????

Looking at it another way – it’s great free publicity! Although I know that that is a concept lawyers fail to understand! But it is an interesting question and one that may never have posed.

Interesting question. I’ve never heard of it being an issue, and there will be literally thousands of profiles, decal sheets, websites with artwork / images etc. out there with (specifically) Disney characters. Like some other litigious US companies I’m sure they’d like you to pay for permission.

A wrinkle would be the difference between the authorised and Disney delivered Disney unit insignia for certain US units, against Disney characters used in wartime without express permission, and further still some of the Disney characters used on Axis aircraft.

There’s a Spitfire currently flying with an unhappy looking Mickey on it which has a bit of ‘history’ behind it, and isn’t a wartime version.