How does any discussion of Mickey Mouse not touch upon "several distinct areas of law, like copyright and trademark"? When Disney forced that daycare company to remove the Mickey cartoons from the walls of the daycare center the issue was use of a trademarked image. With or without copyright extensions that daycare center will never have Mickey Mouse cartoons on the wall without Disney's express permission.
>With or without copyright extensions that daycare center will never have Mickey Mouse cartoons on the wall without Disney's express permission. //
Trademarks are supposed to be to indicate the _origin_ of goods or services. The use of an image of a mouse on a nursery wall is highly unlikely to create any confusion in anyone of sound mind that Disney are providing the service of that nursery - if there is a potential for doubt then a simple disclaimer can alleviate that (yes on the wall if necessary).
After copyright expiration of the original cartoons from which a Mickey Mouse like image might be copied there is no reason that a sane application of trademark law would prevent a nursery from using such an image.
Now "famous" marks often get special treatment but this swings both ways. If you don't use an actual Disney mark [as opposed to a simple image of one of their characters which isn't a trademark] then people know that it's not actually from Disney. Indeed just being affordably priced is sometimes all the indication that one needs.
Yes, could you link me up please? Was it by any chance settled.
However, it's not at all a surprise to me. I would note that I say "there is no reason that a sane application of trademark law would prevent a nursery from using such an image" (emphasis added).
