{"id":3303,"date":"2020-06-08T10:50:37","date_gmt":"2020-06-08T10:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/?p=3303"},"modified":"2020-06-08T10:50:40","modified_gmt":"2020-06-08T10:50:40","slug":"themoodsters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/2020\/06\/themoodsters.html","title":{"rendered":"Not every comic book, television, or motion picture character is entitled to copyright protection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\"Daniels is an expert on children\u2019s emotional intelligence and development. She designed and promoted initiatives that help children cope with strong emotions like loss and trauma. The Moodsters were devised as a commercial application of this work. Daniels hired a team to produce and develop her idea under the umbrella of her new company, The Moodsters Company.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The initial product was The Moodsters Bible (\u201cBible\u201d), a pitchbook released in 2005. It provided a concise way to convey Daniels\u2019s idea to media executives and other potential collaborators, and included a brief description of the characters, themes, and setting that Daniels envisioned for her Moodsters universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Moodsters are five characters that are color-coded anthropomorphic emotions, each representing a different emotion: pink (love); yellow (happiness); blue (sadness); red (anger); and green (fear). Daniels initially named The Moodsters Oolvia, Zip, Sniff, Roary, and Shake, although these names changed in each iteration of the characters.<\/span><\/p>\n

Daniels and The Moodsters Company pitched The Moodsters to numerous media and entertainment companies. One recurring target was The Walt Disney Company and its affiliates, including Pixar. Daniels alleges that she or a member of her team had contact with several different Disney employees between 2005 and 2009.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Disney began development of its movie Inside Out in 2010. The movie was released in 2015, and centers on five anthropomorphized emotions that live inside the mind of an 11-year-old girl named Riley. Those emotions are joy, fear, sadness, disgust, and anger. Docter, who directed and co-wrote the screenplay, stated that his inspiration for the film was the manner with which his 11-year-old daughter dealt with new emotions as she matured.<\/span><\/p>\n

Daniels filed suit against Disney in 2017 for breach of an implied-in-fact contract, arising from Disney\u2019s failure to compensate Daniels for the allegedly disclosed material used to develop Inside Out. Daniels then filed an amended complaint, joining The Moodsters Company as a co-plaintiff and alleging copyright infringement of both the individual Moodsters characters and the ensemble of characters as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n

Disney filed a motion to dismiss, asserting that Daniels failed to meet the legal standard for copyright in a character, and that the copyright \u201cpublication\u201d of the Bible and pilot doomed Daniels\u2019s implied-in-fact contract claim.<\/span><\/p>\n

The district court granted Disney\u2019s motion to dismiss, and granted Daniels leave to file an amended complaint on the copyright claims. Disney filed a motion to dismiss the Amended Complaint, which the district court granted on the ground that The Moodsters are not protectable by copyright.<\/span><\/p>\n

Copyright Protection for The Moodsters<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Although characters are not an enumerated copyrightable subject matter under the Copyright Act, there is a long history of extending copyright protection to graphically-depicted characters. However, \u201cnot every comic book, television, or motion picture character is entitled to copyright protection.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A character is entitled to copyright protection if (1) the character has \u201cphysical as well as conceptual qualities,\u201d (2) the character is \u201csufficiently delineated to be recognizable as the same character whenever it appears\u201d and \u201cdisplays consistent, identifiable character traits and attributes,\u201d and (3) the character is \u201cespecially distinctive\u201d and \u201ccontains some unique elements of expression.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Application of the Towle Test to The Moodsters<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Disney does not dispute that the individual Moodster characters meet the first prong of the Towle test: each has physical as well as conceptual qualities. Because they have physical qualities, The Moodsters are not mere literary characters.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second prong presents an insurmountable hurdle for Daniels. Towle requires that a character must be \u201csufficiently delineated to be recognizable as the same character whenever it appears.\u201d Although a character that has appeared in multiple productions or iterations \u201cneed not have a consistent appearance,\u201d it \u201cmust display consistent, identifiable character traits and attributes\u201d such that it is recognizable whenever it appears.<\/span><\/p>\n

Consistently recognizable characters like Godzilla or James Bond, whose physical characteristics may change over various iterations, but who maintain consistent and identifiable character traits and attributes across various productions and adaptations, meet the test. By contrast, a character that lacks a core set of consistent and identifiable character traits and attributes is not protectable, because that character is not immediately recognizable as the same character whenever it appears.<\/span><\/p>\n

The notion of using a color to represent a mood or emotion is an idea that does not fall within the protection of copyright. So it is no surprise that the idea of color psychology is involved in everything from decorating books to marketing and color therapy. Color and emotion are also frequent themes in children\u2019s books.<\/span><\/p>\n

Notably, colors themselves are not generally copyrightable. \u201cColor by itself is not subject to copyright protection. \u201cMere variations of coloring\u201d are not copyrightable. Nor is the \u201cidea\u201d of an emotion copyrightable. Taken together, these principles mean that Daniels cannot copyright the idea of colors or emotions, nor can she copyright the idea of using colors to represent emotions where these ideas are embodied in a character without sufficient delineation and distinctiveness.<\/span><\/p>\n

The physical appearance of The Moodsters changed significantly over time. In the 2005 Bible and 2007 television pilot, the five Moodsters have an insect-like appearance, with skinny bodies, long ears, and tall antennas that act as \u201cemotional barometers\u201d to form a distinctive shape and glow when an emotion is strongly felt.<\/span><\/p>\n

By the second generation of toys, The Moodsters look like small, loveable bears. They are round and cuddly, have small ears, and each dons a detective\u2019s hat and small cape. This physical transformation over time was not insubstantial, and it would be difficult to conclude that the 2005 Moodsters are the same characters as those sold at Target in 2015. \u201cLightly sketched\u201d characters, without identifiable character traits, are not copyrightable under the second prong of Towle.<\/span><\/p>\n

While a change of name was not dispositive in court\u2019s analysis, these changes across the three iterations further illustrate that Daniels never settled on a well-delineated set of characters beyond their representation of five human emotions. Beyond the emotion it represents, each Moodster lacks comparable identifiable and consistent character traits and attributes across iterations, thus failing the second prong of the Towle test.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Moodsters fail the third prong \u2013 they are not \u201cespecially distinctive\u201d and do not \u201ccontain some unique elements of expression.\u201d Daniels identifies The Moodsters as unique in that they each represent a single emotion. But this facet is not sufficient to render them \u201cespecially distinctive,\u201d particularly given their otherwise generic attributes and character traits.<\/span><\/p>\n

Developing a character as an anthropomorphized version of a specific emotion is not sufficient, in itself, to establish a copyrightable character. Taken together, The Moodsters are not \u201cespecially distinctive,\u201d and do not meet the third prong of the Towle test. The district court did not err in dismissing Daniels\u2019s claims for copyright infringement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

There is no dispute that the 2005 Moodsters Bible and the 2007 pilot television episode are protected by copyright. But Daniels cannot succeed on her copyright claim for The Moodsters characters, which are \u201clightly sketched\u201d and neither sufficiently delineated nor representative of the story being told.<\/span><\/p>\n