today i’ve seen a lot about disney ‘copyrighting’ loki. the whole thing seemed rather ridiculous to me, so i decided to do some research; it’s still a sketchy situation all around but as someone who is close with people who are practicing norse pagans, i felt like it was important to share.
firstly: the mouse did not, actually, do anything here in regards to the redbubble artist. it was actually redbubble that sent the email and took the work down, because the artist was copying a shirt from the comics. as in, it’s literally on the cover of a comic book, same text, color, and all.
the email alert to the artist was likely auto-generated. the email states: “…in most cases, this means that the rights holder did not specifically identify your work for removal.” so redbubble is being overly cautious here.
is it silly? yes. we won’t argue that point. it’s two words on a t-shirt.
secondly: that article is poorly researched and written. their “source” for their claim that disney might trademark mythological depictions of loki is the artist who was copying the shirt. according to the article: “Even art specifically of the Norse deity, which predates the MCU character by a handful of centuries, could be claimed, according to an artist who posted a takedown notice of their Loki art from Redbubble.”
‘could be claimed,’ says the artist. so what i’ve just read is that disney isn’t actually claiming anything. the artist is upset that their copied work was removed from redbubble by redbubble and is making baseless claims.
then i got to thinking about “the rights holder,” being the mouse. where does that leave us? do they hold the rights to loki? can they even do that?
the answer is no — sort of.
from what i can tell (and again, i’m an internet random, so i may be wrong!) it appears that the mouse is not copyrighting the norse gods, they’re trademarking their particular versions of loki — so comic depictions, movie depictions, etc. “marvel’s loki,” vs norse loki, basically, or “loki as depicted by tom hiddleston.” meaning any unauthorized art that could be linked to disney’s trademarked version of loki is within the company’s rights to have removed. but again, in this situation that started the whole kerfluffle, it was redbubble that removed it.
then i got to thinking a little more: what’s the difference between trademark and copyright?
as it turns out, copyright and trademark are two very different things. here’s an article that details it fairly clearly, but this snippet below is a pretty good summary.
“Overall, copyright protects literary and artistic materials and works, such as books and videos, and is automatically generated upon creation of the work. A trademark, on the other hand, protects items that help define a company brand, such as a business logo or slogan, and require more extensive registration through the government for the greatest legal protections.”
so disney has trademarked their particular version of loki. trademark is also limited to a particular context. the mouse trademarking loki in the context of a superhero/comic book world means that he cannot be made into a comic book hero or villain by anyone but marvel.
tl;dr — don’t panic if you are someone who counts loki or anyone else in the norse pantheon among your deities. a very overzealous redbubble, not disney, was the one who took down the shirt and sent the email, and they state in that email that “in most cases, the rights holder did not identify your work for removal.” the article that claims that disney is trademarking loki is poorly researched, written, and designed to freak you out.
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