It hasn’t always been a honey pot. Disney endured 18 years of legal battles with the family of Stephen Slesinger, which accused the studio of copyright cheating them out of royalties. Slesinger acquired the Pooh merchandising rights from Milne in 1930, and his widow assigned the family’s rights to Disney after he died. In 2004, a state court judge threw out the Slesingers’ 1991 breach-of-contract lawsuit against Disney. A federal judge in 2009 decided in favor of Disney in a separate copyright case brought by the Slesinger heirs.

Source: Los Angeles Times August 02, 2018 12:00 UTC