After some AI-assisted probing, it seems like if Disney wants to challenge this use, they'll likely be arguing that S.W. is a "famous mark" akin to Coca-Cola or Nike and thus merits additional broad protection under the Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006 (TDRA). (I haven't checked to see whether one of Disney's pet congresscritters sponsored that one, as was the case with at least one of the copyright extension acts that kept SW out of the public domain on a few occasions).
If they can meet the bar established in TDRA they can probably squash all usage of Willie, even in unrelated-industries usage not intended to confuse consumers, in the same way that you can't market "Coca-Cola bedsheets" or a "Google Bicycle" without a license from the trademark holder.
Yeah they might want to argue that. It's not going to get very far considering that the issue is they are actually just trying to turn their copyright into a trademark, so no court is just going to ignore that the way your stupid AI did.
"the issue is they are actually just trying to turn their copyright into a trademark"
That is certainly your opinion of "the issue," but that is a complete begging of the question. That would have to be argued in court. They do have a trademark which includes that public domain character in it, that much is fact. This is no less of a trademark than any other trademark that consists of non-copyrightable elements. The rulings on a trademark case would simply be based on the intent or likelihood to mislead people into believing there's an endorsement or association there.
Give an AI-slop response and pretend it's informative or helpful for the discussion. And now you're arguing about what it told you! But you have no idea what of it is real, let alone accurate. The whole thing is facially wrong. Why would they be arguing its like the coca cola or nike marks? It's not. It's a mark made from a now-expired copyrightable work. That's not true of the nike or coca cola marks. I guess you didn't realize that? That's my point.
>That would have to be argued in court
And? People make specious arguments in court all the time.
>The rulings on a trademark case would simply be based on the intent or likelihood to mislead people into believing there's an endorsement or association there.
Yeah. There's a huge disclaimer that says this it is not endorsed by Disney.
If they can meet the bar established in TDRA they can probably squash all usage of Willie, even in unrelated-industries usage not intended to confuse consumers, in the same way that you can't market "Coca-Cola bedsheets" or a "Google Bicycle" without a license from the trademark holder.