Robert Bonomi wrote:
In article .com,
Charlie Self wrote:


wrote:

BTW, I bet you never asked a baker to make you a cake with an image of
picture of MIckey Mouse in the icing. It seems there is some damn
Mickey Mouse protection in Copyright law (thanks to the late Sonny
Bono).

It's a trademark, not a copyright, in the case of the mouse and
friends, I think.

*NO*. "The Mouse" was a big issue driving the last couple of extensions
of the duration of _copyright_. Early Disney works -- e.g. "Steamboat Willy"
were about to run out of eligibility for copyright protection. Meaning that
_anybody_ could duplicate and sell those works. Would *not* be a trademark
infringement issue, as long as they represented what they were selling _as_
Disney's works.

ITYM "as long as they did NOT represent what ..."

IMHO, cartoon characters SHOULD be protected under trademark,
rather than copyright. SOME cartoon characters, when used to
represent a commercial entity, like caricatures representing
sports teams ARE treated as trademarks.

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FF