Disney Copyrights

Pooh videos, teddy bears, and other merchandise generate substantial annual revenues for Disney. The size of Pooh stuffed toys ranges from Beanie and miniature to human-sized. In addition to the stylized Disney Pooh, Disney markets Classic Pooh merchandise which more closely resembles E.H. Shepard’s illustrations. It is estimated that Winnie the Pooh features and merchandise generate as much revenue as Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto combined.[7]

In 1991, Stephen Slesinger, Inc. filed a lawsuit against Disney which alleged that Disney had breached their 1983 agreement by again failing to accurately report revenue from Winnie the Pooh sales. Under this agreement, Disney was to retain approximately 98% of gross worldwide revenues while the remaining 2% was to be paid to Slesinger. In addition, the suit alleged that Disney had failed to pay required royalties on all commercial exploitation of the product name.[8] Though the Disney corporation was sanctioned by a judge for destroying millions of pages of evidence,[9] the suit was later terminated by another judge when it was discovered that Slesinger's investigator had rummaged through Disney's garbage in order to retrieve the discarded evidence.[10] Slesinger appealed the termination, and on September 26, 2007, a three-judge panel upheld the lawsuit dismissal.[11]

After the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, Clare Milne, Christopher Milne's daughter, attempted to terminate any future U.S. copyrights for Stephen Slesinger, Inc.[12] After a series of legal hearings, Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of the United States District Court for the Central District of California found in favor of Stephen Slesinger, Inc., as did the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On June 26, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, sustaining the ruling and ensuring the defeat of the suit.[13]

On February 19, 2007, it was reported Disney lost a court case in Los Angeles which ruled their "misguided claims" to dispute the licensing agreements with Slesinger, Inc. were unjustified.[14]

In doing so, the claims by Slesinger, Inc. can now be tackled without any argument over who owns the rights. Though the ruling was downplayed by a Disney attorney, the outcome of the case could affect Disney's revenue, since Pooh-related merchandise has been reported to bring the Walt Disney Company approximately 1 billion dollars a year.[15]

It's too bad, too. I would actually love to see a Disney-themed group of sims. Disney actually had a free "virtual theme park" for a while but recently shut it down.

I'd sooner cross the mob than cross Disney. You don't want to mess with them.

As others have suggested already, if you want to do a fairy tale sim, that's great. Just don't use any of Disney's material. Don't make any of your characters look like theirs, don't use any story details that they invented, etc. Read the real tales so you know what's what. You'd be surprised just how different they all are from Disney's "white bread" retellings.

You could probably do a good service for the world, in fact, if you were to make a point of highlighting the differences.

Don Mickey's never forgets if you cross him, you'll end up sleeping with the fishes.

To make this more general, I would be VERY careful of bringing anything that anyone could claim a copyright to in-world, especially if that company has teams of lawyers that might come after you - you just don't need the hassle.

I don't think it's just Disney, either - the more popular SL becomes, the more visible it is, which means that it starts appearing on the radar of these intellectual property lawyers.

Take the risk if you want, but you could just lose it all in one simple take-down notice....