The Pooh has deepened for Disney. Disney is currently being sued, along with AA Milne's heirs, over its sales of Winnie the Pooh merch, which it licensed from Milne's heirs. However, the heirs of Milne's literary agent uncovered a document in which Milne signed over all the rights to merchandise Pooh to the agent, and they're looking for hundreds of millions — possibly billions — of dollars in damages.
A court has now ruled that the AA Milne heirs don't own Pooh, which makes Disney's case even weaker.
It's hard to know who to root for in this one. On the one hand, it seems clear that Disney bought the Pooh rights in good faith from the Milne heirs, who sold them in equally good faith. And of course, there's no telling how many other rights-assignments from Milne are still kicking around — maybe it was Milne's idea of a party trick, and he tipped the babysitter with cocktail napkins signed "The bearer is the sole owner of merchandise rights to Tigger."
But at the same time, this confusion is largely the result of the near-perpetual duration of copyright, which Disney itself is largely responsible for. And then there's the matter of the 20 boxes of documentation related to the case that Disney "accidentally" shredded just before they were subpoenaed.
(Thanks, Michael!)
