Court Pooh Pooh's Copyright Lawsuit

Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 2/26/2007

Librarians who read Winnie the Pooh (Dutton, 1926) to their students might want to add that Pooh and his pals are being stalked.

By whom? The Walt Disney Co., which recently lost a multi-billion dollar merchandising battle over Pooh profits. California District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper on February 16 dismissed a copyright lawsuit in which Disney sought to terminate its obligation to pay royalties for Pooh merchandise to the heirs of Stephen Slesinger, a New York literary agent who bought the legal rights to Pooh creations back in 1930. Stephen Slesinger Inc., which has held the merchandising rights to Pooh since 1930, has since licensed them to Disney.

The ruling is a blow to Disney—the world's third largest media company—which had hoped the heirs of the original writer and illustrator of the Pooh books would be able to reclaim their copyrights and assign them permanently to Disney.

Though that battle is lost, the overall war continues. "We will be dealing with Disney rather shortly," by filing another lawsuit seeking $2.5 billion in damages, says attorney Barry Slotnick, who represents the California-based Stephen Slesinger Inc. An attorney for Disney declined comment.

Disney and Slesinger have been locked in a nearly two decade battle over those rights, with Slesinger claiming that Disney owes millions of dollars in licensing fees on profits made from DVDs, video games and other electronic items featuring Pooh, Tigger, and other Pooh characters.