## Facts

- Walt Disney Productions owned valid copyrights in cartoon works featuring recurring, visually recognizable characters (e.g., Mickey Mouse and other anthropomorphized figures).
- The Air Pirates (individual cartoonists and affiliated entities) published underground adult comic books, *Air Pirates Funnies* (1971), depicting more than seventeen Disney characters.
- The defendants intentionally copied Disney’s character depictions and used the same character names so readers would immediately recognize the targets of the satire.
- The comics placed the Disney characters in explicit adult contexts (including sex and drugs) to ridicule Disney’s family-friendly image and comment on culture.
- Disney alleged the depictions threatened its reputation and goodwill because the characters were strongly associated with children.
- The district court issued injunctive relief and granted summary judgment for Disney on copyright infringement; defendants appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Disney’s cartoon characters are independently copyrightable as protectable components of copyrighted works.
2. Whether the defendants infringed by reproducing Disney characters in substantially similar, near-identical graphic form.
3. Whether the defendants’ copying qualified as fair use because the works were a parody or satire.
4. Whether the First Amendment barred or limited copyright liability for the defendants’ expressive, critical message.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Disney on copyright infringement and affirmed the permanent injunction.
- The court held Disney’s cartoon characters were copyrightable, protectable elements of Disney’s copyrighted works.
- The court found infringement based on the defendants’ admitted, extensive copying of Disney’s character depictions and names.
- The court rejected fair use, concluding the defendants copied more than necessary to evoke (“conjure up”) the originals and that “wholesale copying” is not fair use.
- The court rejected the First Amendment defense because the defendants could have conveyed their critical ideas with less literal appropriation of protected expression.
- The court applied the 1909 Copyright Act because the relevant conduct and proceedings predated the effective date of the 1976 Act.

## Legal Principles

- Distinct, highly delineated fictional characters may be copyrightable as protectable component parts of copyrighted works.
- A defendant’s admitted, near-identical reproduction of protected character expression can establish infringement without close factual dispute.
- Parody may justify limited copying sufficient to evoke the original, but copying that is extensive and closely replicative exceeds fair-use limits.
- The First Amendment does not immunize infringement where the defendant has alternative means to express criticism without substantial literal copying.
- Under the 1909 Act’s fair-use doctrine, the quantity and exactness of copying and its commercial exploitation weigh against fair use.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that Disney’s recognizable cartoon characters were protectable expression and that the Air Pirates’ deliberate, near-verbatim visual copying for an adult parody exceeded fair use; free-speech interests did not excuse infringement because the message could be conveyed without such extensive appropriation.


Walt Disney Prods. v. Air Pirates, 581 F.2d 751 (9th Cir. 1978)