Pixar/Disney in "Monsters Inc" Ownership Scuffle

blamanj writes "According to a SF Chronicle story this morning, Pixar has been sued by artist Stanley Mouse. Mouse created a movie treatment titled "Excuse My Dust", which was set in "Monster City," where the animated monster characters worked for the "Monster Corporation of America." One of the characters was a a green, wisecracking, ambulatory eyeball. Furthermore, the lawsuit claims that a story artist from Pixar visited Mouse in 2000, and discussed Mouse's work."

Comments

The irony here is amazing

[Anonymous Butthead]

If the above article is indeed factual, the irony presented is simply amazing. Here Disney is, along with the big movie buisness, lobbying for laws that stop consumers from performing the same act performed here.Does anyone else see somethign wrong with this?
Please stop it before I laugh myself into a heart attack, please stop it!

Re:The irony here is amazing

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

The saddest thing is that Disney hasn't had an original idea since before Walt was iced.

They weren't too chock-full of originalideas before this, either:

Snow White (tm)

Pinnochio (tm)

Cinderella (tm)

Sleeping Beauty (tm)

"Alice in Wonderland" (tm)

Jungle Book (tm)

The Parent Trap (tm)

Old Yeller (tm)

Winnie (he's NOT American, and DOES NOT SKATEBOARD) the Pooh (tm)

Disney has produced BEAUTIFUL work, in the craft - the art - of film animation. They have also always been a real hack-farm in terms of almost exclusively derivative content.

I think that originality in the "classic" Disney features can be relegated to Dumbo - and perhaps to Jungle Book, because they couldn't figure out what to do with the Kipling's story and ditched it for their own.

Fantasia has vividly original treatment of material exclusively derived from other sources.

Worse, in their derivation, Disney takes bagguette and makes WonderBread (tm).

Lessig is good at pointing out how Disney has raided the trove of publicly owned works, and seeks to keep that same body from enlarging for the benefit of others.

Re:The irony here is amazing

[orulz]

OK, what are you doing here? If you're accusing Disney of plagarizing these stories, you're completely wrong to do so. Why, you even state yourself that they are "publicly owned works."

So that's not it. What is it, then?

I understand that you can be frustrated and dislike the Disney company, and I hold many negative sentiments towards the company myself. Their overly blatant commercialism and in my opinion often shoddy work of late is disappointing to say the least, coming from a company with such a prestigious history. The way they compromise the integrity of both their original and non-original stories by writing insipid sequels is saddening. Then, there's their often predatory defense of their near monopolistic grasp on the animated film market. (Miyazaki, anyone?) These practices should anger everyone.

However, you are wrong to criticize Disney for a lack of original stories in each of these cases. Disney was not attempting to pass the stories off as original, nor did the company try to seize control of them in any way. Rather, Disney adapted and produced these often age-old tales--many that he had read and loved as a child--as animated films. While the Disney adaptations may stray more from the original stories than some may prefer, there is nothing wrong with the concept morally or legally. Disney has not "raided the trove of publicly owned works," but rather, retold the stories in a way meant to be enjoyed by those who have read the original stories and those who haven't alike.

The Lion King? I don't know. Atlantis? I don't know either. Those might be plagarism to some extent, I haven't seen the works they were supposedly derived from myself so I won't claim to know anything about the subject. But the examples that you point out are just plain wrong.

And, by the way, when on earth does Winnie the Pooh ever ride a skateboard? I've seen quite a few Pooh cartoons and to the best of my recollection there weren't any skateboards, certainly not as a running theme. And while I'm at it, when did Disney ever claim that the story was American? Once again- they're just producing a cartoon out of an age old children's story, and something which they certainly have the right to do and frequently do very well.

When I rant about Disney, (the company or the man) I don't rant about the masterful films that they have made from familiar fairy tales and children's stories. Instead, I rant about their faults.

Re:The irony here is amazing

[puppet10]

The point is that Disney has been spearheading repeated extentions to the terms copyrighted materials enjoy to keep their material from falling into the public domain, while largely benefiting and deriving their profits from works which were allowed to pass into the public domain.

This doesn't include outright dervitives of others currently copyrighted works, which if someone else had done anything remotely like this to a Disney story they would come down on them like a ton of bricks since they are very active in protecting their copyrights and have immense capital with which to persue lawsuits.

Re:The irony here is amazing

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Hey!

I'm not accusing Disney of anything...

I am illustrating that imaginitive and substantive content has never been a Disney/Buena Vista trait. This was in the context of a poster who bemoaned the lack of creative story work since Walt got Cryo-ed.

Pooh and friends are dubbed in American English- every Saturday morning on U.S. television. Doing all kinds of distressingly un-Pooh like things, and telling maudlin, pseudo-theraputic stories. Really awful!

Pooh dates from the 'Twenties, and has an author that still--living people can remember in conversation and deed. I hope that doesn't qualify as "age-old"!

I'm just sorry - a little - that my own kids will probably never be able to know Milne's Pooh as I did. It will be, instead, co-mingled with "Extreme Sports" and commercial fruit-flavored drinks, etc. Therefore, more like most of the other things they encounter - rather than less. It is representative of the cultural and intellectual entropy where all culture acheives a uniform lukewarm temperature...

Re:The irony here is amazing

[Simon Garlick]

Disney benefits from the fruits of public domain works. They take a known story, improve it, and release to the public for profit.

If you think Disney's "Winnie the Pooh", or Disney's "The Jungle Book", is an improvement on the original, I have a bridge you may be interested in.

Re:The irony here is amazing

[hawkestein]

Winnie (he's NOT American, and DOES NOT SKATEBOARD) the Pooh (tm)

Just to swerve way off topic here, but as a Canadian, I think it's worth mentioning that the actual bear that inspired A.A. Milne to write Winne the Pooh was a Canadian bear that he saw in a zoo. In fact, that bear's name was indeed "Winnie", short for Winnipeg.

I don't think Milne was Canadian, though. British, right?

Re:The irony here is amazing

[Pogue Mahone]

I'm just sorry - a little - that my own kids will probably never be able to know Milne's Pooh as I did.

Then read to them! My children have always enjoyed listening to stories, especially A.A. Milne's.

And the paper editions don't have any pesky DRM to stop you from reading them aloud ;-)

I have to say my Eeyore voice sounds a little like Marvin (the paranoid android).

Disney should hire Lessig

[prostoalex]

It's ironic, but the best man to defend Disney/Pixar might be Lawrence Lessig. It looks like Disney animators just built on the material available to them following the "Rip.Mix.Burn." mantra that they oppose so violently.

Ideas are not worth anything. Can I sue Disney if my grandfather had an idea a 100 years ago about creating a cartoon on mischievous mouse?

2000?

[stiv]

All I can say is that this lawsuit doesn't show much knowledge of the process involved in making a movie like Monsters inc. According to this Mouse fella, somebody from Pixar paid him a visit in 2000. Monsters inc came out in 2001. There is no way that this movie could have been done that quickly. It is a 4-5 year process. The modeling and storyboards would have been complete by late 1999 for sure. This story should have a pretty short lifespan once the facts come out although I admit it is pretty funny for Disney to be sued by a guy named mouse!

2000

[90XDoubleSide]

Furthermore, the lawsuit claims that a story artist from Pixar visited Mouse in 2000

Which would make this rather irrelevant since M.I. would have to have been pitched in 1997 to be released in 2001.

Stanley Mouse

[Skjellifetti]

Mouse did a lot of work for the Grateful Dead back in the day. The Europe '72 cover art was his. He also won a Grammy for the cover art for one of Steve Miller's albums. Mouse's original work goes for a pretty penny these days and I doubt he is hurting for cash. He may well believe he has a legit complaint. Bio...

As to the ambulatory eyeball, variations of that (usually a flying eyeball) were a common theme in hippie art of the '60s. The motif goes back to Ancient Egypt and are a hot rod staple. Maybe if you combine the eyeball with a Monsters, Inc motif, Mouse would have something, but the monster eyeball alone isn't enough.

Re:This is OS community propaganda

[jd142]

Disney renowned for its original work? Even assuming you managed to miss all the listings of public domain works that Disney has done, a few seconds of though would show that Disny produces almost no original story lines. The last one they did was Lilo and Stitch. Just off the top of my head here's a list of public domain works they used that the above lists missed:

Aladdin
Beauty and the Beast
Little Mermaid
Hunchback of Notre Dame
A Christmas Carol (Mickey's Christmas Carol)

Note that these last three were originally copyrighted works that entered the public domain when their copyright expired. Something that Disney capitalizes on all the time, yet has paid congress to protect itself from. Ok, I could have written that a little better, but you get the idea.

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