Pooh Case study

Case Study 5 Pooh

In this case a class developed a radio program about children’s books. They called it Pooh’s News. This was after Winnie-the Pooh, but they did not use any characters or voices from the book. There were no graphics that represented Pooh and there were no other connections to Winnie- the –Pooh. They received a cease and desist letter for using the name Pooh on the school’s radio station.

One pro for claiming this case as something that falls within the fair use act is the creativity aspect. This class did not take the name Pooh to represent a bear in a story they were writing. They used it in a creative way to name a radio show about children’s books. The name represents what the radio show is about, so the class that came up with this name did so by being creative.

The fair use act also looks at the intentions of the user. The classroom that used the name Pooh did not use it with malice. They did not think they were using any copyright material when coming up for a name for their radio show. They did not just steal the name of the character for one of their own character’s. They did not even create a Pooh character. Pooh’s News was the title for a program on their local school radio station.

When deciding if something falls into the fair use act one also has to look at the original purpose of the copyrighted material compared to what is being claimed as a copyright violation. In this case the purposes of the name are not the same. Pooh’s name was given to a specific character in a classic children’s book. In this case the name Pooh did not represent a character in a book. It was used to connect to children’s books, but the school did not write Pooh into their own book.

The school’s use of the name Pooh did not harm the original’s author’s marketability. The classroom wanted to think of a name that would connect to children’s books. This does not bring any kind of negative press towards the author. It also does not keep the author for any types of sales or profit on anything.

I do not think that this was a copyright issue. I think the school classroom would be covered under the fair use act. They were being creative and they did change the purpose of the name. They were in no way harming the original copyright holder’s marketability or profit.