Oops, Disney's got to pay.

[TdcOgre]

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-0 ... ate1-.html

"Disney Loses ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ Trial (Update1)
July 07, 2010, 3:02 PM EDT

By Edvard Pettersson and Tori Richards

July 7 (Bloomberg) -- Walt Disney Co. was found liable for not paying the U.K. creators of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” their share of profits from the quiz show broadcast on Disney’s ABC network.

A jury in Riverside, California, today awarded $269.4 million in damages to Celador International Ltd. The jurors agreed that Disney’s Buena Vista Television and ABC breached an agreement that entitled Celador to 50 percent of the profits from the show, which first aired in the U.S. in 1999 and helped lift the network to first place from third in audience ratings.

“We believe this verdict is fundamentally wrong and will aggressively seek to have it reversed,” Disney said in an e-mailed statement.

Closely held Celador sued Disney in 2004, claiming Buena Vista and ABC “through a complex web of self-dealing transactions” allowed ABC to keep the advertising revenue and pay Buena Vista only a licensing fee equal to the cost of producing the show. That kept Buena Vista from earning a profit from “Millionaire” that it would have had to share, Celador said.

Disney, based in Burbank, California, argued that the creators, who received a flat producers’ fee per episode, knew that the network run of “Millionaire” wouldn’t generate a profit. There wasn’t anything unusual or secret about the way Buena Vista and ABC, which took all the financial risks, divided the rights, said Disney lawyer Martin Katz during the trial.

The case is Celador International Ltd. v. Walt Disney Co. 04-03541, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Riverside.)"

<sarcasm>Ya' know I'm shocked that Disney would engage in creative accounting to keep from paying out money. </sarcasm>

Maybe, if I'm lucky this will make Disney drop WWTBAM at Studios and start running Fantasmic more often? Yeah, I know I'm dreamin'.


;)

[CptnSkippy]

...
Maybe, if I'm lucky this will make Disney drop WWTBAM at Studios and start running Fantasmic more often? Yeah, I know I'm dreamin'.


;)

[darph nader]

Well,you can't win 'all' the time.

[Mr. M]

Guessing the U.K. show founders don't have enough Billions of dollars?

I am so sick of everyone suing over copyright BS.

[TdcOgre]

Guessing the U.K. show founders don't have enough Billions of dollars?

I am so sick of everyone suing over copyright BS.

I don't disagree, I think that we have overblown copyright protection. Passing "The Mickey Mouse Protection Act" - actually The Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 was ridiculous. I have no problem with copyright being the authors life plus a certain number of years but gratuitously extending it every time Mickey's copyright is running out is absurd. OTOH the case in point had to to with "creative accounting" on the part of Disney to avoid paying the original owners their rightful share. There have been numerous cases of this, the latest involving Don Johnson. Others include James Garner, Art Buchwald and for that matter the movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix which grossed $938 million but ended up with a $167 million "loss" according to Warner Brother's.

[IndyandMarion]

Disney is using a Phone a Lawyer for an appeal apparently? I dunno.

The show was never one I watched. Laughed when they brought it back, and never saw the attraction.

[Mr. M]

I don't disagree, I think that we have overblown copyright protection. Passing "The Mickey Mouse Protection Act" - actually The Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 was ridiculous. I have no problem with copyright being the authors life plus a certain number of years but gratuitously extending it every time Mickey's copyright is running out is absurd. OTOH the case in point had to to with "creative accounting" on the part of Disney to avoid paying the original owners their rightful share. There have been numerous cases of this, the latest involving Don Johnson. Others include James Garner, Art Buchwald and for that matter the movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix which grossed $938 million but ended up with a $167 million "loss" according to Warner Brother's.

Though this may not relate to this case. I think ALL copyright laws should be changed to include "if a person is not making money from the product in question then there is no violation" or something along those lines.

All these fan sites that use images from whatever they are fans of are in risk of some legal jerk to come along and sue them.

When I was in High School, we did a play for preforming arts class. The play was done free of charge for the entire town. Yet we still had to pay royalty (copyright) charges.

I know that if I personally made something, (A comic strip for example) and it grew a fan base, and one of the fans made a fan site and used some of the characters as a background image. I would not be mad. I would be thrilled they were fans.

Just my $0.02

{end rant}

[PatchOBlack]

Well, if the topics going to drift toward copyright laws, here's my view:

I think that a copyright holder may keep characters they own copyrighted as long as they make use of them. However, I believe that works containing those characters should, after a reasonable amount of time has pass, go into the public domain, as was originally intended. I would, however, allow for works that enter the public domain, whose characters are still held in copyright, to be able to insist that those works not be used in derivative works, except in cases that would be covered by, say, "fair use". There are probably huge gaps in my logic, and I'm sure someone will point them out quickly. :cat1:

[darph nader]

Well, if the topics going to drift toward copyright laws, here's my view:

I think that a copyright holder may keep characters they own copyrighted as long as they make use of them. However, I believe that works containing those characters should, after a reasonable amount of time has pass, go into the public domain, as was originally intended. I would, however, allow for works that enter the public domain, whose characters are still held in copyright, to be able to insist that those works not be used in derivative works, except in cases that would be covered by, say, "fair use". There are probably huge gaps in my logic, and I'm sure someone will point them out quickly. :cat1:

My alcohol soaked mind slightly remembers this same argument about Disney characters being used in clinics and pre-schools.

[TdcOgre]

My alcohol soaked mind slightly remembers this same argument about Disney characters being used in clinics and pre-schools.

An example of where I think one gets in trouble here is with pre-schools that paint Disney characters on their walls. Maybe Disney licenses a company to make large decals of its characters. That's a product that the pre-school could have purchased but didn't.

(Taking the topic back on course)

If making a profit is your criteria for have to pay for something then in the original post they're in the clear. By their accounting, Disney didn't make a penny so they shouldn't owe the original owner's a red cent.