Walt Disney Productions v. The Air Pirates

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that trial court should go beyond simple side-by-side comparison of marks in question
• finding copyright protection available for a comic book character “which has physical as well as conceptual qualities!,]” and recognizing that “comic book characters ... are distinguishable from literary characters”
• “By copying the images in their entirety, defendants 25 took more than was necessary to place firmly in the reader’s mind the parodied work and 26 those specific attributes that are to be satirized.”
• “Excessive copying precludes fair use . . . .”
• explaining the importance of “a visual image” for character copyrightability
• Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters protected by copyright

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).