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The kind of thing Disney’s after
This is a story too bizarre not to report: on Monday July 9 Mickey Mouse, along with other Disney characters, appeared on North Korean television with the country’s new leader, Kim Jong-Un (son of Kim Jong-Il). No, Disney is not sending representatives to the isolationist country. These were images of Walt Disney Company characters used without permission. The use presents some interesting questions that reflect upon Disney’s own corporate policy. The New York Times’ Media Decoder explains.
You see, Disney is very strict about unauthorized use of its properties. The company complained to Mexican authorities when a bunch of pinatas showed up using Spiderman’s unauthorized image (Disney now owns Marvel and all of its characters). If you want a Spiderman pinata you’d better use an officially licensed one, or at least make sure pictures of your homemade one don’t make it to the Internet. Disney will come after you even if you live in another country, apparently.
That’s just one on the long list of incidents for which Disney pursued strict enforcement of its copyright. Mouse House lawyers demanded that a Florida preschool remove a mural from its wall that featured Minnie Mouse. It was concerned that people would think that the Minnie Mouse mural meant that Disney had given the school its seal of approval.
I don’t know precisely where the school was located; maybe if it’s right in Orlando that could be confusing; Disney seems to own the entire town and its surrounds. But otherwise: really? If I see a poster or painting of a Disney character somewhere, if it looks homemade or official I don’t assume that means the establishment displaying it has anything to do with Disney, and I don’t think most people would either.
Disney’s egregious offense relates to Winnie the Pooh. In England a stonemason was carving the image of Winnie the Pooh into a child’s gravestone at the behest of his grieving parents. Disney ordered a cease and desist. After public outrage over the incident Disney withdrew its complaint, but in many ways the damage was done.
The question is: what will Disney do about North Korea? This isn’t just going to a random individual or even group, it’s North Korea. If anyone could just waltz into North Korea and ask them to stop doing anything, well, the global landscape would be rather different.
It’s not that Disney has any compunctions going abroad. It’s previously sent representatives to China to hassle people about amusement parks copying off of Disney World (with rides like “It’s A Small World”) or to order performers to stop dressing up like Disney characters outside the Beijing Stadium. That makes one wonder what the company does about all those Jack Sparrow impersonators wandering the streets in Hollywood.
But this isn’t even China, with whom we have a mostly congenial, if at times strained, relationship. All the company has said thus far about the North Korean incident is that they didn’t license use of the characters. The New York Times said an anonymous source within the company claimed that its hands are tied by international policy, but that one exec said this is proof of how global the company is: even a country that views the U.S. as its mortal enemy would use such iconic American characters.
Hubris, much? Way to cast the situation to make you look even more big-headed, Disney. But I digress: it seems the world has finally found one opponent against which even the mighty House of Mouse won’t attempt to struggle.
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*(This image by get directly down is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
