Deadmau5 Lawyers Up, Hits Back At Disney

By Nastassia Baroni

This week it was reported that Disney was trying to block Canadian house producer Deadmau5 from trademarking his mouse-helmet logo because it resembles their iconic Mickey Mouse logo. Never one to back down from a fight, Deadmau5 and his lawyers have now hit back at the multi-billion dollar corporation.

Earlier today, Deadmau5, a prolific troller, took to Twitter to gleefully reveal a cease and desist letter that his legal team had sent Disney, informing them that they were infringing on his own copyright by uploading a video to their website of Mickey Mouse that features the Deadmau5 track Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff.

“Anyone wanna see some complete pwnage?,” he wrote before introducing the letter. “So now, disney is illegally using my work… and CONFUSING people that id actualyly [sic] work with these twats.” He later added, “I wish disney wasnt such a ‘corperation’. We could have done great things together.”

The letter claims that Disney never sought authorisation from the artist, real name Joel Zimmerman, for the use of the track, nor for publishing the Deadmau5 name next to the video. As well as violating his rights, the letter states that Disney are also infringing on the rights of EMI Music Publishing, Virgin Records and Ultra Records.

“Lets test a theory,” continued Deadmau5. “It takes em 10 years to oppose a trademark, lets see how long it takes em to take down a video.” The letter demands that Disney remove the video and, at the time of publishing, it is no longer on the Disney website, but remains on Disney YouTube channels (below). “Can i has trademark now? thnks,” wrote Zimmerman.

Reports of the initial legal battle began surfacing early this week when, in another Twitter post, Zimmerman wrote, “landed home to some interesting news: looks like Disney officially just filed in opposition of my trademark… lawyer up mickey”.

In June last year Deadmau5 applied to have his mouse helmet logo trademarked through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This month, Disney submitted an official 171-page opposition to the trademark, claiming that it would damage it’s business both in the US and internationally.

“Disney thinks you might confuse an established electronic musician / performer with a cartoon mouse. That’s how stupid they think you are,” he added in another tweet. “Wishes upon star to become the thing i am today. becomes thing. gets stomped on. hahah wut? seems legit,” he added.

Deadmau5’s lawyer, Dina LaPolt, told Radar Online that Deadmau5 has been using his logo since 2005 and it is already a registered trademark in 30 countries, including Australia, the UK, Ireland, Germany, France and Japan.

“Given that the mau5head, and other identifying Deadmau5 trademarks, have been used in the US and around the world for almost a decade, we wonder why Disney is only now coming after Deadmau5,” she said.

Watch: Mickey Mouse – Disney feat. Deadmau5′ Ghosts N’ Stuff

http://youtu.be/g_OuzTIW6ec

Nastassia Baroni
Nastassia Baroni

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