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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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