The worldwide commercial success of the Disney brand is viewed by some as detrimental to cultural diversity (see Disneyfication).
Disney is one among several American companies lobbying for harsher enforcement of intellectual property around the world and continued copyright term extensions, posing a perceived threat to the existence of the public domain; see Mickey Mouse Protection Act. Disney has aggressively protected its intellectual property, including suing three Hallandale, Florida daycares for featuring Disney characters on their walls. The images were removed and replaced with Hanna-Barbera characters instead [3].
While the Disney Company is fiercely protective of the copyright on its stories, those stories are frequently based on public domain materials, such as folk and fairy tales. Disney has also been accused of plagiarizing ideas from copyrighted sources; elements of The Lion King greatly resemble the Japanese animated series Kimba the White Lion, and several character designs in Disney's Aladdin bear a striking resemblance to those in Richard Williams' earlier animated film The Thief and the Cobbler.
The College Program at Disney World has attracted criticism. The program annually provides 8,000 college students with a five-to-eight month internship. Critics argue that Disney is exploiting the program as a source of cheap labor, as interns do the same work as regular employees, but at a substantially lower pay rate.[4]
Disney has also been accused of human rights violations regarding the working conditions in factories that produce their merchandise. Among these is a campaign by the National Labor Committee drawing attention to abuses at the Niagra Textiles factory in Bangladesh and the use of sweatshop labor.[5]
Another report, conducted in 2001 by The Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee on factories producing Disney merchandise in China's Guangdong province, concluded that "Disney's code of conduct and monitoring system are ineffective and of little use to workers", some of whom were as young as sixteen.[6] Based on this evidence, The Maquila Solidarity Network and Oxfam Canada awarded Disney their Sweatshop Retailer of the Year award for 2001; Wal-Mart came in second and Nike placed third.[7]
Disney is one among several American companies lobbying for harsher enforcement of intellectual property around the world and continued copyright term extensions, posing a perceived threat to the existence of the public domain; see Mickey Mouse Protection Act. Disney has aggressively protected its intellectual property, including suing three Hallandale, Florida daycares for featuring Disney characters on their walls. The images were removed and replaced with Hanna-Barbera characters instead [3].
While the Disney Company is fiercely protective of the copyright on its stories, those stories are frequently based on public domain materials, such as folk and fairy tales. Disney has also been accused of plagiarizing ideas from copyrighted sources; elements of The Lion King greatly resemble the Japanese animated series Kimba the White Lion, and several character designs in Disney's Aladdin bear a striking resemblance to those in Richard Williams' earlier animated film The Thief and the Cobbler.
The College Program at Disney World has attracted criticism. The program annually provides 8,000 college students with a five-to-eight month internship. Critics argue that Disney is exploiting the program as a source of cheap labor, as interns do the same work as regular employees, but at a substantially lower pay rate.[4]
Disney has also been accused of human rights violations regarding the working conditions in factories that produce their merchandise. Among these is a campaign by the National Labor Committee drawing attention to abuses at the Niagra Textiles factory in Bangladesh and the use of sweatshop labor.[5]
Another report, conducted in 2001 by The Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee on factories producing Disney merchandise in China's Guangdong province, concluded that "Disney's code of conduct and monitoring system are ineffective and of little use to workers", some of whom were as young as sixteen.[6] Based on this evidence, The Maquila Solidarity Network and Oxfam Canada awarded Disney their Sweatshop Retailer of the Year award for 2001; Wal-Mart came in second and Nike placed third.[7]
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