Wage Slave wrote:In the case of Snow White I wouldn't have thought they paid anything at all. And nor do they have the rights to the story or the name. What they do own is their version of Snow White, which would seem fair enough.
That's what I thought, too, but apparently (from Wikipedia): In 2013, the US Patent and Trademark Office issued a trademark to Disney Enterprises, Inc. for the name "Snow White" that covers all live and recorded movie, television, radio, stage, computer, Internet, news, and photographic entertainment uses, excluding literary works of fiction and nonfiction.
Maybe Disney was savvy and clever, but I think "buying" stories hundreds of years old or at bargain basement prices and then exploiting these to the max is morally questionable.