Disney took action this week to block electronic musician Deadmau5 from registering his signature trademark in the U.S. with a motion filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
According to TMZ, Disney is asking the department to deny Deadmau5 (pronounced "dead mouse") approval of his application.
The globe-trotting DJ, Rolling Stone cover boy, and multi-millionaire didn't take too kindly to the action, tweeting out a few choice words to his nearly 3 million followers upon hearing the news.
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Deadmau5's attorney, Dina LaPolt, said that her client, whose real name is Joel Thomas Zimmerman, has been using his "mau5head" logo and performance helmets for more than 10 years, and has registered them successfully in 30 other countries, including the U.K., Germany, and Japan.
Reports that Disney was investigating the filing Zimmerman made last year first
surfaced in The Hollywood Reporter in March, but legal action was not taken until this week.
The Daily Beast reported that Zimmerman is hardly the first to be targeted by the happiest company on earth, as Disney has sued "Etsy stores, Stan Lee, Megaupload.com, YouTube, and hundreds of unauthorized merchandisers, dealers, and artists" over the years. In 2008, Disney even sued a family that purchased unauthorized Tigger and Eeyore costumes on Ebay — for $1 million.
Many critics thought that Disney was loosening its iron-fisted grip on its trademarks when it left hundreds if not thousands of fan-made parodies and tributes to "Frozen" untouched (likely realizing that they boosted the visibility and profitability of the franchise), but perhaps not.
Disney is the company, after all, whose D.C. lobbyists helped pass the Copyright Term Extension Act — aka the Mickey Mouse Protection Act — in 1998, extending trademark protections by decades.
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