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In lugnet.mediawatch, Dave Schuler wrote:
> For real? I mainly follow the micro-scale Mega Bloks, so the comings and
> goings of the other scales don't really hit my radar.
>
> Do you have a citation for that Pooh info? This is the first I've heard of
> it.
I'm not having any luck pulling up any direct proof of it (most of the legit
news source pages have expired, and all that's really left are Wikipedia and a
handful of blogs that only hint at the LEGO/Disney/Pooh aspect), but here's the
gist of it, as I understand it:
1. A.A. Milne created Winnie the Pooh and wrote several books based on the
character.
2. Milne designated all rights to publish the existing books to Dutton
publishers, and all rights to the character outside of the existing books
(including all merchandising rights, film/TV rights, and I believe all rights to
publish new books based on the character) to Stephen Slesinger. Slesinger's
deal involved a $1000 up-front fee and 66% of his income from use of the
character. These rights apply to the United States (and possibly Canada),
specifically. Outside of North America, Milne retained all of his rights, and
passed those on to the Pooh Properties Trust.
3. Slesinger then died in 1953, and his stake, through Slesinger Inc., fell to
his wife. She signed an agreement with Disney, where they would pay SI 2% of
_their_ proceeds (66% of which should then get passed on to the Milne estate,
under the original agreement).
4. Daphne Milne, grand-daughter of A.A. Milne, also signed an agreement with
Disney for film rights.
5. Slesinger Inc. sued Disney over payments from the licensed rights, which
Disney "responded" to by shredding 40 boxes of documents. Slesinger Inc.'s suit
was eventually dismissed.
6. Disney, who were responsible for the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act that
allowed Slesinger Inc. to keep legal control over the most lucrative
Pooh-related rights, apparently got sick of how that impacted them on their
licensed rights, and were involved in lawsuits that were aimed at getting
Slesinger's rights revoked and returned to the Milne estate. Part of that
attempt involved licensing the name of "Clare Milne", daughter of Christopher
Robin Milne (son of A.A. Milne, and the namesake of the Cristopher Robin
character), from the Pooh Properties Trust. Courts ruled in favor of Slesinger
Inc. this time, and certain licensing agreements between Disney and the Milne
estate were voided as a result.
I don't know the specifics of those agreements, but as I recall, part of it was
what allowed Disney to sub-license the property to The LEGO Company in the first
place.
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In lugnet.mediawatch, David Laswell wrote:
> Courts ruled in favor of Slesinger
> Inc. this time, and certain licensing agreements between Disney and the Milne
> estate were voided as a result.
>
> I don't know the specifics of those agreements, but as I recall, part of it was
> what allowed Disney to sub-license the property to The LEGO Company in the first
> place.
Whoa, that's convoluted--thanks for dredging it all up for me. I confess now
that I'd had a little brain-fart; I totally forgot that LEGO put out Disney/Pooh
sets a few years back. I could only remember as far back as the Mega Bloks
Disney/Pooh sets, which were (IIRC) in their "Mega" scale, which is larger than
Duplo but not compatible with Primo. When you mentioned the licensing snafu, my
first thought was that Mega Bloks had gotten drawn into something not completely
legit, but if that's the case then maybe both LEGO and MB got hosed the same.
I know that I saw Mega Bloks Pooh sets on the shelf as recently as 2 1/2 years
ago, but I can't say how much longer they were available after that. Mega Bloks
*did* recently start making a line of "Mickey's Clubhouse" sets, so at least
that part of the Disney license is apparently still fresh.
Wild story--thanks again for the info.
Dave!
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In lugnet.mediawatch, Dave Schuler wrote:
> Whoa, that's convoluted--thanks for dredging it all up for me. I confess now
> that I'd had a little brain-fart; I totally forgot that LEGO put out
> Disney/Pooh sets a few years back. I could only remember as far back as the
> Mega Bloks Disney/Pooh sets, which were (IIRC) in their "Mega" scale, which
> is larger than Duplo but not compatible with Primo. When you mentioned the
> licensing snafu, my first thought was that Mega Bloks had gotten drawn into
> something not completely legit, but if that's the case then maybe both LEGO
> and MB got hosed the same.
It's entirely possible. Since Mickey and Pooh came out at the same time
(apparently for both lines), Disney probably bundled them together into a single
license. When the Pooh license issue came up, the entire deal might have fallen
through with TLC. And if they then did the same thing with Mega Bloks, it might
have been just a simple repeat situation.
> I know that I saw Mega Bloks Pooh sets on the shelf as recently as 2 1/2
> years ago, but I can't say how much longer they were available after that.
The LEGO sets predate the MB sets by a couple years. The Pooh sets ran from
1999-2001, according to the LUGNET Guide. The two subthemes of Disney
properties (Disney's Mickey Mouse and Disney's Baby Mickey) were all released in
2000.
> Mega Bloks *did* recently start making a line of "Mickey's Clubhouse" sets,
> so at least that part of the Disney license is apparently still fresh.
Guess so. And Disney _does_ have the legal right to license the Disney
characters however they want, even if they're prevented from doing so with
Winnie the Pooh. That's kinda sad, actually. I'd really like to see a LEGO
Muppets line come out, but since Disney bought the entire IP off of Jim Henson
Company...
> Wild story--thanks again for the info.
And that was just a quick run-down of the major points, as I was able to
determine. I ran across one bit on Wikipedia that claimed A.A. Milne was known
to grant conflicting rights to the Pooh IP, for whatever reason. And he
apparently didn't do so through carefully constructed legal documents, as the
document proving Slesinger Inc's ownership of the most lucrative bundle of
licensed rights was a signed letter to that effect.
Also, one thing that I think might have been a conflict point is that both TLC
and MB release products internationally. Since Slesinger Inc. owns the rights
to the character's likeness in North America (for any instance except the
original published works, which SI has _no_ rights to at all), and the Pooh
Properties Trust owns (as I understand) pretty much 100% of the rights outside
of North America, if either company would want to release those sets on an
international market, they'd have to acquire permission from both groups, and
figure out a way to handle the ugliness of how to split up the money.
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