The ears have become a trademark for the DJ, whose real name is Joel Zimmerman, and in April he wanted to formalize this through an official trademark application at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The logo is already trademarked in dozens of countries, and the U.S. seemed a logical next step.

Disney clearly disagreed and this week the company filed a 171-page opposition to the trademark application, claiming it would hurt the company’s business.

Deadmau5 wasn’t impressed by Disney’s efforts and took his anger to Twitter. The DJ noted that he wouldn’t give in to “a money hungry corporation over some bulls–t,” and questioned their motives.

“Disney thinks you might confuse an established electronic musician / performer with a cartoon mouse. That’s how stupid they think you are,” he wrote on Twitter.

The mouse fight was on and a few hours ago Deadmau5 retaliated with a rather surprising counter attack. As it turns out, Disney is hosting a Deadmau5 video on their website, without permission.

Responding to this blatant act of piracy the DJ instructed his legal team to go after the media empire. They sent a cease and desist letter to Disney which Deadmau5 forwarded to the company on Twitter, with a personal note.

The letter explains that Disney is using Deadmau5′s work without permission and demands an immediate halt to this infringing behavior.

“The exclusive rights owned by Zimmerman in the Master are being infringed on the Disney website as of September 4, 2014. Specifically, these rights are being infringed via materials being made available at the following URL.”

In addition to copyright infringement, the letter also states that Disney is using Deadmau5′s trademarks without authorization. The lawyers urge the company to stop this unauthorized exploitation of the DJ’s name and likeness as well.

“Disney prominently features the deadmau5 Mark next to the Infringing Video. implying a non-existent endorsement by Zimmerman,” the letter reads.

“Again. we are unaware of any license allowing you the right to reproduce, distribute or otherwise exploit the deadmau5 Mark or to exploit Zimmerman’s name and likeness in connection with same.”

At the time of writing Disney hasn’t complied with the request, but it seems that they have no other option than to comply. Whether it will change anything in their stance towards the DJ’s mouse ear trademark application is doubtful though.

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Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

This is common knowledge by now, but copyright holders still believe that exclusivity can earn them more in the long run, even when it hurts legitimate customers.

A good example of this twisted reasoning is Disney’s decision to make certain Christmas videos unavailable on Amazon because they want people to tune in to their TV channel instead. This ban is not limited to new customers and includes those who already purchased the videos.

One of the affected customers of Disney’s restrictive policy is Bill, who informed BoingBoing that the Christmas themed ‘Disney Prep & Landing’ he bought for his kids last year had been pulled from his library.

“Amazon has explained to me that Disney can pull their content at any time and ‘at this time they’ve pulled that show for exclusivity on their own channel.’ In other words, Amazon sold me a Christmas special my kids can’t watch during the run up to Christmas,” Bill notes.

“It’ll be available in July though!” he adds.

Those who go to Disney Prep & Landing’s Amazon listing now get the following notice: “Due to our licensing agreements this video is currently not available for purchase or rental.” And that’s not the only title that has been pulled, the same notice also appears for other Disney Christmas videos such as ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol‘ and ‘Beauty And The Beast: The Enchanted Christmas.’

Appropriately enough, Disney decided to allow people access to the Ebenezer Scrooge story, as Disney’s a Christmas Carol remains available for now.

Amazon appears to be torn by the situation and Bill says that he received “a very generous credit” to purchase another Christmas movie for his kids.

According to Cory Doctorow, however, Disney is not the only one that deserves blame for this customer-unfriendly practice. He notes that Amazon should have never allowed copyright holders to make purchased content unavailable to begin with.

“Yes, Disney is stupid and evil for doing this. But when Amazon decided that it would offer studios the right to revoke access to purchased videos, they set the stage for this,” Doctorow comments.

“This is what was set in motion in the 1970s, when we started using the term ‘intellectual property’ instead of ‘copyright’ or ‘author’s monopoly.’ If the movie is Disney’s ‘property’ for ever and ever, it follows that it is never your property, no matter that you ‘buy’ it,” Doctorow adds.

Adding to the above, it is questionable whether Disney will win anything with this move.

Aside from annoying customers who can no longer watch their purchases, all the titles Disney pulled from Amazon are widely available through unauthorized channels. As a result, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Disney’s actions cause a bump in piracy for these movies.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In a complaint dated 23rd August and filed in the U.S. District Court in California, movie giants Disney and Warner Bros revealed their intention to go after Triton Media, a Scottsdale, Arizona-based company they claim “owned, operated, provided advertising consulting and referrals for, and/or provided other material assistance” to nine movie-centric sites.

The sites – freetv-video-online.info, supernovatube.corn, donogo.com, watch-movies.net, watchmovies-online.tv, watch-movies-links.net, havenvideo.com and thepiratecity.org – are said to have a primary purpose to provide “their users access to content that has been unlawfully reproduced, distributed, publicly performed, and/or publicly displayed.”

The content listed includes Ratatouille and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End for Disney, and The Bucket List, Fool’s Gold and Smallville for Warner Bros.

While the majority of the sites listed above merely offered links to Disney and Warner movies, the lawsuit states that two – supernovatube and donogo – are sites that actually stored the plaintiffs’ movies. Interestingly it states that donogo (currently offline) was actually owned and operated by Triton Media. Readers will recall that thepiratecity.org recently had its domain name seized as part of the FBI-run Operation In Our Sites.

The lawsuit states that Triton Media is guilty of both contributory copyright infringement and induced copyright infringement and as such the plaintiffs “are entitled to the maximum statutory damages as permitted by federal copyright law”.

Although details are scarce at the moment, the part that Triton played in the sites’ operation will prove key in this case. Definitely one to watch in the months to come, as the implications for other US-based advertisers could be huge.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Sweeney spoke these wise words in her keynote address at the Mipcom festival

“We understand now that piracy is a business model, it exists to serve a need in the market for consumers who want TV content on demand. Pirates compete the same way we do – through quality, price and availability.”

She continued:

“This time two years ago, Disney was congratulating themselves at the end of a season that saw lost and Desperate Housewives make it big. But at the end of the meeting, the head of operations and engineering presented a high-quality, ad-free version of DH that had been put online less than 15 minutes after the show aired. That was a defining moment for the business. We we don’t like the model but we realize it’s competitive enough to make it a major competitor going forward.”

Wise words. The keynote is very similar (if not the same) to the one she gave at the Progress & Freedom Foundation’s Aspen Summit in August where Sweeney explained that Piracy was the main cause for Disney’s iTunes move.

Apparently the HD-rip of Desperate Housewives made quite an impression.

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Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Disney doesn’t see itself as just a broadcaster or a cable channel, but as a provider of content and will do all it can to make that content available to its viewers in whatever form they prefer

However, it seems like Disney is only taking action once they start losing money. At least, that’s what I make up from the following passage in Sweeney’s talk.

Coming “face to face” with the high-quality, commercial-free pirated version (of desperate housewives) told Disney that it was not just competing with other broadcasters, but with digital pirates and as such was an experience that prompted us to do the iTunes deal with Apple.

So it looks like it were the Pirates that motivated Disney to progress. Anyway, it’s a step forward. I’m wondering how many pirated movies it takes before the first Disney blockbuster movie premieres online.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.