"Mouse Ears" Ear Savers

Instead of getting support- a lot of people are pushing back saying I’m using copyrighted/trademark designs…I know “Mickey Mouse” is Copyrighted and the outline of the ears are Trademark… I just made outline of 3 circles. Anyway… here’s a cute version of Ear Savers!

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Amazing how ridiculous they can get.
perhap if you took all the pictures upside down, but then you might get sued by State Farm Insurance.

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To quote Bette Midler… or John Travolta in Broken Arrow… “F#@k em if they can’t take a joke.” :rofl:

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hahahaha

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Please don’t take this as an attack, but if they really are just three interconnected circles, and nothing to do with the litigious mouse (whose house is losing $ hand over fist with the parks closed)… maybe don’t call them mouse-ears. I dunno.

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If you’re not selling them, it’s nobodies business.

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If you created the design yourself and are not selling it, there is no copyright or trademark violation. You aren’t tarnishing the brand, so your detractors can all go pound sand.

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I might end up selling them - they seem to be pretty popular, regardless.
Perhaps just call them “animal ears”

simple enough

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If you sell them you may end up in trouble; the design is close enough to the MM trademark that Disney’s legal team may not like it. However, as long as you aren’t marketing it as a official you may be fine. There is a lot of similar merchandise out there.

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yes. Disney is one of the most zealous of advocates protecting their IP.

if you’re giving them away to first responders and healthcare professionals, they may avoid getting involved, but if you’re using them make money? that’s a whole different story.

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That’s not likely to satisfy the lawyers. It’s enough that the design is evocative of the copyright & trademarks. Naming them “animal ears” would be prima facie proof that you had MM in mind and make the infringement deliberate (vs. accidental & thus a cease and desist matter). Deliberate violations come with litigation & more money than you have.

It doesn’t matter that you just put 3 circles together. Placed that way they can reasonably be seen to evoke MM and thus infringe.

Unfortunately that’s the way it works.

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Those are super cute

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Just don’t do 5 circles - You will have IOC lawyers social distancing with you before you can blink :laughing:

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I mean they now own any Twitter post using #maythefourth. Well, at least they tweeted such so…

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Blockquote[quote=“wesleyjames, post:14, topic:61419, full:true”]
I mean they now own any Twitter post using #maythefourth. Well, at least they tweeted such so…

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ridiculous! :roll_eyes:

bummer

to be fair, if you decided to sell and use the mouse likeness to make money, you would be trading on their IP. so you wouldn’t really have a good argument that you weren’t. it is an intentional “mouse ears.”

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Really frustrating when you see so many other crafters making Disney / Mickey Ear things - I know it’s a fine line… and yes i cannot afford a lawsuit nor do I want it. :slight_smile: I was also told by someone who actually got sued by Disney from her Mickey Ears - that she fought and won… and it was something along the lines of it has to be 30% different inorder for it to not be infringement.

fwiw, they really don’t have a lot of choice. if they don’t defend it, they lose it. you can dislike the system, but it is what it is.

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But there are limits
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