Morgan and Morgan takes Disney to court over 'Steamboat Willie' in ads
33 comments
·September 20, 2025flkiwi
technothrasher
> Morgan & Morgan's business model places a heavy emphasis on convincing the defendant to settle before litigation.
To be fair, "ambulance chaser" lawyer or not, over 90% of civil cases in general in the US settle before a trial commences.
flkiwi
That's true, though I wonder at times how much of that is because of the way plaintiff's firms set the market up. And, again, I don't really mean to criticize them--I tend to err on the side of access to justice--as much as to explain to anyone non-US who tf M&M are and why this is interesting.
umpalumpaaa
And to be even more fair:
It is strictly regulated how much money Morgan and Morgan can get out of someone who they represent.
abduhl
I’ve never heard of a regulation governing attorney’s fees. Which regulations might you be referring to?
wingspar
Good change it’s all for free press. Morgan and Morgan is huge, and John Morgan is toying with a run for Florida governor. He was a big force behind a marijuana legalization push, first medical, then recreational.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/15/john-morgan-florida...
cognomano
I suppose trademark law will be the catch-all protection Disney will be using from now.
hamdingers
Am I wrong in thinking this makes more sense than decades/centuries long copyrights?
Let the copyright on a work expire so I can share my copy of Toy Story with my friends, but retain a trademark on the characters so that I can't go around making new Toy Story movies (or theme parks or pajamas).
cool_dude85
But why shouldn't you be able to make a new Toy Story movie 100 years, give or take, after the original?
jerf
Because trademarks aren't like copyrights. You don't register them and then get to just sit on them for 95 years. If you let them lapse, they're gone.
Letting trademarks protect active properties may not give everyone exactly what they want that this is probably the best compromise that we could get. It may even let these companies be willing to shorten the copyright terms. Steamboat Willie is frankly completely unimportant next to the amount of stuff that it is shielding as a result of companies fighting for their stuff to stay protected. Meanwhile almost everything else gets to the point that until it falls firmly into the public domain nobody can use it even in principle because who can track down all the rights owners of random stuff from the freaking 1920s?
I'd be perfectly comfortable with "You can sell unmodified DVDs of Steamboat Willie but can't really do anything with Steamboat Willie" if it would unlock the rest of the stuff from that era, and maybe even entice companies to be less afraid and stop locking up all of history just for the ever-dwindling set of properties still in action.
smelendez
I’d rather a trademark approach that says you can use the characters but you can’t call it Toy Story, Disney, Pixar, etc.
Terr_
> retain a trademark on the characters so that I can't go around making new Toy Story movies
Here's a quick thought experiment: Suppose I create a small movie company based on another character also in the public domain, and I successfully receive a trademark for my logo, which is... Jesus Christ.
Does/Should that give me control over anyone selling or distributing other books, movies, pictures, and songs depicting Jesus?
zdragnar
There's not much point to the thought exercise. You wouldn't get the trademark in the first place.
themafia
With the copyright expired you can do more than share. You could make copies and then sell them.
joecool1029
That was the plan for years now. They made steamboat willie a part of their animation wing's trademark more than a decade ago: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MJkQ-1Jvf0g
yieldcrv
Hmmm this is a preemptive lawsuit from Morgan and Morgan for clarity, which seems to be in bad form
Morgan and Morgan should just launch the commercial, it sounds hilarious
shmerl
Typical. They want to profit from copyright but they don't want it to ever expire even if the law requires it. Mickey Mouse curve is their invention.
crooked-v
The suit is about trademark. Whether it'll fly or not is up in the air, but that's the reason that Disney actively made the "Steamboat Willie" version part of their pre-film branding.
Terr_
I think in a sane world (heh) using "Steamboat Willie" should only be impaired by Disney trademark exactly as much (or as little) as people would be prevented from sharing pictures of the Statue of Liberty just because some tax-preparation company has a photo-realistic outline in their logo.
In both cases the company has zero rights to the underlying public thing, and the court just needs to ask: "Is someone trying to trick consumers into mis-identifying the company or product?"
shmerl
It's just their attempt to weasel out of the actual copyright expiration.
gamblor956
Lawyers aren't expected to know the law outside of their specialty, but a law firm that doesn't understand basic trademark law is probably not a firm you want to trust with your legal matters, because it indicts a failure to perform even the most basic due diligence.
klustregrif
Lego already tried this approach and it doesn’t work. You cannot use trademark law to extend expired patents or copyrights.
The real ad here is them baiting Disney and running this fairly open and shut case. Of cause they can use public domain material in their commercial and Disney can’t prevent them.
gamblor956
Copyright only applies to specific expressions.
Mickey is still a trademark of the Disney corporation.
You're right though. This is an open and shut case that Morgan and Morgan will lose. There's only several decades of case law on this...
joecool1029
We're talking about parody though, there's case law suggesting it would be fine: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/intellectual_property_law...
freejazz
>Mickey is still a trademark of the Disney corporation.
Mickey, yeah. But steamboat willie is covered by a copyright that has now since expired.
nomel
To help understand your comment, are you a lawyer?
gamblor956
Yes.
If this was a case that Morgan and Morgan expected to win they would not have withdrawn the ad.
That they did indicates that they don't even believe their own claims.
toast0
OTOH, making a bunch of noise about the case gets the ad and their product seen by a different demographic than paying for the ad to be placed wherever they would have. IMHO, this is an alternate marketing campaign, costs go to the courts instead of broadcasters. There's some public benefit if the case generates precedent, so that's nice that they want to spend their ad budget on this.
eYrKEC2
In law, isn't the process the punishment frequently? What if they're just expecting Disney to drain their coffers with frivolous legal work? Isn't that a reasonable response then?
null
Morgan and Morgan is a plaintiffs firm specializing in personal injury (though they have other areas of practice). For those not familiar with the US system, if someone hits a victim with their car, a victim slips and falls in a store, etc. and the victim sues, Morgan and Morgan commonly handles that type of case for the victim. Basically the usual "Americans will sue each other for anything" type of law firm (though I don't strictly mean that to be criticism). Morgan & Morgan's business model places a heavy emphasis on convincing the defendant to settle before litigation. They also depend heavily on advertising. Regardless of what happens next, this story is a free "Morgan and Morgan stands up to the big guy for you" headline.
Apropos of nothing, the firm's founder, John Morgan, has been instrumental in attempting to legalize marijuana in Florida, which some have identified as a potential, but very funny, conflict of interest given the type of work Morgan and Morgan does.