The legal disputes of Mad Magazine...
Posted by
Mop (aka rburriel)
Apr 20 '20, 12:44
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Alfred E. Newman is not a Mad Magazine invention. Instead, the originals of the character go back to the late 19th century and there are even parallels to the Yellow Kid. A copyright holder filed claim against Mad Magazine in 1966 but lost in the Supreme Court because they hadn't been enforcing their copyright previously. Which is why Paramount sometimes shuts down Star Trek fan-made content. If you don't enforce it, you lose it.
Later, lawyers for Lucasfilm demanded that Mad Magazine destroy all copies of their Empire Strikes Back parody, destroy the plates, and turn over all revenue from that issue (all of this is non-sense on it's face... parody is protected by law). Regardless, Mad Magazine responded by sending the lawyers a copy of the letter of praise they'd received from George Lucas just days earlier.
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