Batman Sold Out; Winne The Pooh Sues!

The first account firm, Gursey, Schneider & Co. was found by the judge to have conducted a biased review of the case. This was after Gursey concluded that Disney owed Slesinger only a few thousand dollars royalties.

How did all of this come about? Some of the rights to the 'Winnie the Pooh' were sold by author A.A. Milne to Slesinger in 1930. Then in 1961, the Milne and Slesinger families reached an agreement with Disney that gave the entertainment company licensing rights.

The lawsuit stems from the 1983 renegotiation of the rights from the two families. The renegotiation called for Disney to keep revenue from Winnie the Pooh separate for rights to it's other comic characters. Slesinger claims that Disney failed to keep the royalty records separately.

In 2000, Disney bought out the Milne family's rights to 'Winnie the Pooh' for $350 million. And now Disney owes Slessinger only a few thousand. The initial judge settlement of $200 million may look pretty good, in my opinion.

Disney lawyers and company had no comment except to say that the company expected to prevail in the case.

Check the complete story at http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo/sto...

Thanks to Splash News at http://www.comicon.com/splash/ for this story.

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On a sad footnote, Bill Rosemann has resigned from Marvel Enterprises. Bill was known as "Your Man @ Marvel" for a number of years. (often reported at KDS Comics) Bill says that after 9/11, he realized how important your family was, and he and his wife are moving closer to family. Joey Zerbo will be taking over for Bill at Marvel.

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That's the news for this week.

God bless

Robert

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