I read somewhere that Casper sued Ghostbusters for the Ghostbusters logo. Has anyone got any information on this?
I am a little confused as Aykroyd makes a cameo as Dr Ray Stantz in “Casper” (1995) ?!?
I believe that there were problems with the public domain, the design called for the character fatso, and they hadn’t asked permission so the animation company that owned Casper sued. Casper however was in public domain by that time so there could be no problems. Public domain is why you see mickey mouse in gangsta clothing on t-shirts not authorized by Disney. As per the Casper movie, it was probably just good will toward each franchise.
I dunno, maybe someone else might have but I’ve never heard that. Where was that? They say in the commentary in the logo design they had to stay away from Casper since early logo concepts looked a lot like Casper. :whatever:
After release of the movie “Ghostbusters,” Harvey had sued Columbia Pictures in 1984, complaining that the cartoon ghost in the logo of Bill Murray’s crew looked an awful lot like Casper’s sidekick, Fatso. Columbia Pictures convinced a judge that a lapsed copyright had dumped Fatso into the public domain, ending the case.
Scroll about 1/3 down the page.
Ah interesting! I looked back and found the character. Not being too familiar with Casper, I didn’t know the Ghostly trio characters were there back then…cool 
I watched Casper as a kid, and never saw any casper character in the no-ghost logo.
In fact, I wondered for years why the ghost was that weird looking in the logo…
I guess now I know.
There’s two versions of the story - the first is as above, but the other is that the judge ruled that there were only so many ways to draw a ghost, and while similar to Fatso, the no-ghost logo wasn’t infringing copyright.
(two thirds down)
I’ve always been dubious of the public-domain story, as the character was still being actively produced, and it’s harder to argue fair, public use, when the focus of the suit is still in production.
Ha ha ha, Mickey Mouse getting gangsta, I like that…that is funny. As per Casper suing GB, I don’t know, never heard anything about that before…Maybe the ghosts near the end of Janine’s Day Off are a sort of rip off of them or something?
Mickey Mouse isn’t in the public domain. Every time you see Mickey or any other copyrighted character on unauthorized merchandise, it’s illegal copyright infringement.
I am by no means an expert on pubilc domain, you are right about micky not being in the public domain in the US, I did not know about the bono PD law extension signed by Clinton in 1998, but in other countries he should be. No one dares takle the evil mouse. You’ll never win.