Supreme Court throws out Pooh copyright bid
The US Supreme Court has refused to decide whether the granddaughter of AA Milne, the British creator of Winnie the Pooh, can regain control of the copyright for stories featuring the children’s book character.
Milne wrote the Pooh books between 1924 and 1928 and granted a US licence to Stephen Slesinger in 1930. Slesinger, in turn, granted his rights to Stephen Slesinger Inc. The company sub-licensed to Walt Disney Productions certain rights to the Pooh works.
When Milne died in 1956, he did not bequeath ownership of the copyright to his family, but to a trust that later became known as the Pooh Properties Trust.
Clare Milne sought to use a 1976 copyright law to end the prior licensing agreement and recapture ownership of the copyright.
Lawyers for Slesinger urged justices to reject the appeal, accusing Disney, a co-plaintiff in Milne’s lawsuit, of bankrolling the action because of a 13-year-old dispute over royalties owed to Slesinger.
The San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Milne had no termination right to exercise because the parties – the trust, Disney and Slesinger – entered into an agreement in 1983 designed to block the family from ever regaining control of the copyright.
