<
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/18/finally-danish-supreme-court-overrules-lower-courts-on-newspapers-little-mermaid-cartoons/>
"Last year, we discussed two insane rulings coming out of Denmark stating that
a newspaper’s depiction of a statue of The Little Mermaid in cartoon form was
somehow copyright infringement. If you’re not familiar with the case, you may
be surprised to learn that this is not Disney being Disney. Instead, it is the
estate of Edvard Eriksen, creator of Denmark’s bronzed statue of the character
from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, which annoyingly polices anything
remotely like the statue should it pop up elsewhere. In this case, the paper,
Berlingske, depicted the statue in a cartoon as a zombie, and also in a
photograph wearing a COVID mask. Erikson’s estate sued and, as mentioned, both
won its initial trial and then won again on appeal.
Given how flatly insane all of that is, the paper of course appealed the ruling
all the way up to Denmark’s Supreme Court. Where,
finally, sanity has been
restored. The court there overruled the previous two courts and ruled that the
use by the paper was not copyright infringement."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
