LOS ANGELES — The Walt Disney Co. has asked a judge to settle a new dispute over its rights to the immensely popular Winnie the Pooh characters.
The company filed a request for declaratory judgment in federal court late Tuesday asking a judge to decide whether an agreement the company reached one day earlier with the heirs of the writer and illustrator of the Pooh books is valid.
On Monday, Disney said the granddaughter of Pooh creator A.A. Milne and the granddaughter of Pooh illustrator E.H. Shepard decided to reclaim the international merchandising and movie rights granted to Disney as well as North American merchandising rights granted to Stephen Slesinger Inc. and grant all those rights exclusively to Disney starting in 2004.
The new deal was reached under the terms of changes in the copyright law that allows the heirs of creators to reclaim their rights and enter into new agreements, Disney said.
That claim was challenged by attorneys representing the Slesinger estate, who said that Disney was misreading the 1998 Sony Bono Copyright Act.
Bertram Fields, an attorney representing SSI, said Disney's claim relies on the wrong section of the copyright law and was an attempt to stop paying the Slesinger estate royalties in two years.
Disney and SSI are locked in a bitter, decadelong dispute over the payment of royalties due under a 1961 agreement, which was renegotiated in 1983.