Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Wizard of Oz is copyrighted


The other day my emails started coming into my inbox like crazy...
my messenger was binging so often, it sounded like someone
was firing a toy machine gun.

They were all emails, from Zazzle, telling me that
some of my products (each product gets its own email notification)
were being pulled due to copyright infringement.
Each email was on a different 'Wizard of Oz' item.

Well...I fired emails right back demanding to know WHAT
copyright I was violating.
The book is in the public domain and the image
was created by me and I OWN the copyright.

This is a portion of the email I got back the next day...
"Unfortunately, your product was removed due to an infringement claim by 
 Warner Bros. Studios.  
While the artwork as you claim is original, 
the characters from the Wizard of Oz are currently 
property of Warner Bros.  
As a guideline, designs from the Wizard of Oz that are currently prohibited for sale 
on Zazzle’s Marketplace are:

•    All inspired artwork and character renderings from the Wizard of Oz
•    Quotes from the Wizard of Oz Franchise
•    All tags and descriptions that reference the Wizard of Oz"

It seems that 'because they own the movie rights...they somehow
managed to acquire some kind of copyright
on 
'Wizard of Oz'
and any likenesses thereof...
no matter how different they are.

Who knew???

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice posting.. thanks for sharing.

Moon Art Design said...

Hmm, I didn't know that either.

Group Costume Ideas said...

They don't, but they know you can't afford to fight them.

CMZ Art/ Rustic Goth said...

Perhaps I'll do something and 'just not tell them'...hee! hee!