Hell hath frozen under Disney's spot.

[strredwolf]

Disney is scrapping direct-to-DVD sequels. (AP/MercuryNews)

Which means after "The Little Mermaid 3" we can stop hearing about these crappy sequels.  About time!

How did this come about?  Well, Apple CEO Steve Jobs also ran Pixar, and Disney bought Pixar.  Steve thus became Disney's largest shareholder and a spot on the Disney board...

...and used it for good, because in 2003 Jobs said "We feel sick about Disney doing sequels.  If you look at the quality of their sequels... it's pretty embarrassing."

Thank you Steve!

Comments

[bibliophage.livejournal.com]

Ah, but the Disney corporation has been around over 75 years, and thanks to Congress, they have all their copyrights for at least another 75 years. It took 30 years to go down this far, so hopefully it won't take 30 years to go back up. (Although it might take another Disney as CEO to kick and smash his way back to the previous family ethics)

[elric-dewisant.livejournal.com]

We can only hope. Still, I don't entirely support the Bono-Disney Act, but one does have to face facts. Without Mickey Mouse, the Disney Corporation would be dead. MM is their most recognized commodity world-wide and without MM, they are nothing. This current era, that doesn't sound like to much of a bad thing, but if they can get back to the old ethics, that would be a bad thing.

[bibliophage.livejournal.com]

Actually, I support none of the various copyright extension acts. Explicit rather than Implicit copyright was fine, but the absurd lengths they're going to are nuts. 17 years. Period. (It was established in the 1780's, when it could take two years to get something to publication, or more - and they felt it was appropriate, and it stayed there until the 1900's. )

Disney would _not_ have lost control of Mickey Mouse, or any of their other icons. Those are trademarks, not copyrights, which have never had an expiration date. (they can also not be sold, only given)

All Disney would lose was the right to deny someone to _copy_ an old, existing copy of a movie, for example, or modify it - unless said modification distorted their trademark (you couldn't whack up Cinderella into a porn movie, for example, even if you used footage from a copyright expired reel. All you could do is convert it, then sell copies. That's where all those dollar store DVD's are coming from - copies of old movies and shows that did not have explicit copyrights, and were older than 1951, as I recall. Some later than that, but for similar reasons)