By Lee Pfeiffer
After years of litigation, Warner Bros. has prevailed in its lawsuit against several entities it claimed violated copyright laws by producing unlicensed merchandise based on the films The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind and also Tom and Jerry cartoons. The defendants had argued that the merchandise was derived from materials in the public domain, such as movie posters and images that were out of copyright. However, the judge found that the companies went beyond making exact reproductions of those materials and altered them for use in the creation of new lines of merchandise. (The companies produced collectible figurines of the actors who depicted characters in Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz). The judge ruled that the defendants have to pay $2.75 million in damages despite the fact that the defendants claim to have only derived a total of $70,000 in profits from the merchandise. A factor in the judge's ruling was his belief that the defendants did not keep accurate records. The case further muddies the waters regarding what properties fall into the public domain, which, under American law, allows certain works to be reproduced without payment of royalties if such works are out of copyright or used in a context of educational or non-profit works. Scholars have long led the battle to open up more works under the public domain argument while copyright holders have tried to put a short leash on such freedoms. Central to the case are films derived from source novels. In some cases, merchandise and products could be produced based on literary works such as The Wizard of Oz that have fallen out of copyright. However, the law does not allow imagery to be used that depicts actors from the film versions of such novels, which are still under copyright. For example, a company could produce a line of products based on the literary concepts of characters from The Wizard of Oz but would have to get a license to use the depiction of those characters associated with the legendary film version. For more click here