Disney may be forced to pull ALL of its Winnie the Pooh items

G

Grim Grinner

New Member
Original Poster
Disney is currently being accused of hiding its Winnie the Pooh documents, and that I may be in violation of its licensing contract. If the ruling goes against Disney, they may permenantly lose the contract, and would be unable to sell Pooh related merchandise, and would have to close down the rides using the character.

I guess removing Mr. Toad will hurt Disney...

Supposedly this will cut Disney's profits by 25%, and possibly more if the contract is refused.
 
NowInc

NowInc

Well-Known Member
...ouch....that'll teach em....

Right now I bet they are thinking of ways to BUY the rights instead of just licencing them..it would probobly be cheaper than to pull all of his likeness from the parks..especially since pooh merch sells more than MICKEY latley...
 
Pioneer Hall

Pioneer Hall

Well-Known Member
Originally posted by Grim Grinner
Disney is currently being accused of hiding its Winnie the Pooh documents, and that I may be in violation of its licensing contract. If the ruling goes against Disney, they may permenantly lose the contract, and would be unable to sell Pooh related merchandise, and would have to close down the rides using the character.

I guess removing Mr. Toad will hurt Disney...

Supposedly this will cut Disney's profits by 25%, and possibly more if the contract is refused.
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Some how I see this not happening. As NOW stated, Pooh sells more than Mickey and the Pooh ride is one of the most popular (money making) rides on property. They will do whatever it takes to keep the bear. It just shows that Disney is spending their moey like idiots again. Why do something right the first time when you can pay double for it later (Jouney in to YOUR Imagination)
 
wdwmaniac

wdwmaniac

Member
Don't see it happening!! There is no way Disney is losing Pooh they fight in court till the end so it won't be worth foghting over it Disney has more money than there oppent so no problems.
 
monorail256

monorail256

Member
i dont think so grim grinner.... is this supposed to be a joke!? :brick: hmmmmm i dont believe you, and if you are telling the truth, then im sorry :rolleyes:
 
Pioneer Hall

Pioneer Hall

Well-Known Member
Originally posted by monorail256
i dont think so grim grinner.... is this supposed to be a joke!? :brick: hmmmmm i dont believe you, and if you are telling the truth, then im sorry :rolleyes:
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He is right about the fact that Disney is in a legal battle now over the Pooh licenses, but the part about having to give up the merchandis and ride I haven't seen. I'll believe it when I see an article about it.
 
The Mom

The Mom

Moderator
Premium Member
Originally posted by monorail256
i dont think so grim grinner.... is this supposed to be a joke!? :brick: hmmmmm i dont believe you, and if you are telling the truth, then im sorry :rolleyes:
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I'm afraid it's true, sort of. I may not have all of my facts straight, but this is what I remember from the newspaper story. The family that purchased the rights for Winnie-the-Pooh from the Milne family is suing Disney for unpaid royalties on VHS and DVD sales. Disney's position is that since they (videos & DVDs) were not specifically mentioned in the contract, they are not owed.(the contract was drawn up pre-home videos) The family says a Disney legal representative drew up an amended contract to cover this, and any other future technology. The lawyer has since died, and the company "destroyed" many of his papers. The family (I can't recall the name) contends that these papers included the amended contract; Disney says they did not destroy important papers. The suit involves millions of dollars, so I'm pretty sure some lawyers are taking it on contingency. I'm not sure if the family can (or would want to..they would lose royalties) rescind the current licensing,though. It wasn't mentioned in the article I read. I suppose they might threaten Disney with this to come to a faster settlement.
 
lnsemsf

lnsemsf

Well-Known Member
As I understand this, Disney may in fact have a good chance of losing, in fact the court has fined them for destroying documents and is not happy with them. I also believe their lawyers had to resign and new ones be assigned because they were called to testify about the destruction. However, they do definitly leagaly own the rights to sell everything else, with the question being the home videos alone. This suit has been dragging on for years and years and will continue for years and years more. Nothing will change.
 
Pioneer Hall

Pioneer Hall

Well-Known Member
Originally posted by grizzlyhall
Serves them right for closing the Playhouse... ;)
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Even though I'm not a fan of Pooh (i like the ride though) I must talk in serious way about this law suit. If Disney loses this can be very very bad for the company. Disney will have to pay millions upon millions to these people. Then they can potentially lose their biggest seller. There isn't a show on property that doesn't have pooh. They should pretty much chnge the name of the resort to Pooh Bear's World.
 
Pioneer Hall

Pioneer Hall

Well-Known Member
Sill even if they settle. Think bout hw many millions they wil have to give. Those millions could have gone towards attractions and other things we could have bnefited from. The whole Pooh thing IMHO got out of hand a long time ago. Why didn't these people just turn around then and say they aren't paying us.

On the lighter side...I was listening to the Radio up here today and one of the Talk Show hosts always starts the show with a funny line about something in the news.Today he used well the Pooh case. He even added in CoP. He said "Today in New York it's a clear quiet night and you can almost here the Caroussel of Progress showing us all the innoventions of the future...including the paper shredder." I thought it was funny...you might have had to be there.
 
J.E.Smith

J.E.Smith

Well-Known Member
Oh, well, at least Disney will have a perfect place to put a Country Bear movie tie-in instead of replacing the WDW CBJ if they lose:D
 
wanabeimagineer

wanabeimagineer

New Member
My opinion is that Disney will defenitely settle outside of court, they're too big of a company to battle in court (at least they think so neway) and im sure they dont want all the negative publicity if they were to go to court, plus they have money to throw around so why not settle?
 

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