Disney sold the streaming rights for the original Star Wars films in 2016 to Turner until 2024. Disney has since decided to start a streaming service and has tried asking for the rights back, but Turner refuses every time.
100 Mind-Blowing Rights Facts
The youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize is Malala Yousafzai (aged just 17 in 2014), for her work as a child rights activist and champion of girls’ right to education.
The Golden Girls was supposed to have a different theme song. That’s right: Instead of Andrew Gold’s iconic “Thank You for Being a Friend,” the show’s producers wanted to use Bette Midler’s song “Friends,” according to Jim Colucci, author of the book Golden Girls Forever: An Unauthorised Look Behind the Lanai. But the rights to the Divine Miss M’s song were too expensive, and the rest is sitcom history.
Neil Armstrong’s hair was sold in 2004 for $3,000. The lucky buyer, John Reznikoff, holds the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of hair from historical celebrities, reports NBC. But Armstrong’s lawyers threatened to sue Marx Sizemore, the not-so-lucky barber who cut the former astronaut’s hair; they said he violated an Ohio law that protects the rights of famous people. Sizemore said he wouldn’t pay, and Reznikoff said he wouldn’t give back the hair but that he’d donate $3,000 to charity.
Martin Luther King Jr. got a C in public speaking. The world remembers Dr. King as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement, and people often quote his “I Have a Dream” speech, which he delivered in 1963. Yet more than a decade before that legendary speech, while attending Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, he earned a C in public speaking during his first and second terms.
Only owning one guinea pig is illegal in Switzerland. Guinea pigs are herd animals and therefore become severely depressed when alone. Switzerland considered only owning one illegal to practice social rights for animals.
Vantablack has a trademark. Anish Kapoor had won the executive rights to the world’s darkest shade of black and stated that only they could use it. Outraged, the creator of the pinkest pink made the colour available for everyone but Kapoor. Now that’s a colourful war.
The Terminator was sold for a dollar. The first of the five movies of the Terminator franchise earned a total of $78.3 million worldwide at the box office. However, the rights to the movie were sold for a mere dollar.
A children’s hospital owns the rights to Peter Pan. JM Barrie gave the rights to a children’s hospital to fund it through the Peter Pan royalties.
Tug of war, live pigeon shooting, and pistol duelling used to be in the Olympics. In the early 1900s, tug-of-war, pigeon shooting, and pistol duelling were the Olympics. However, by 1920, all of these events were excluded. Tug of war was no longer considered athletics, and the animal rights movement had live pigeon shooting banned.
Marvel action figures helped ToyBiz save money. In the U.S., dolls based on human figures are taxed more heavily than other toys. Owning the rights to several Marvel Comics characters, ToyBiz successfully convinced the court that X-Men and Fantastic Four action figures should be taxed less. Their argument? The action figures were based on mutants, not humans. Following their appeal, the toy company won a reimbursement on the year’s taxes and cut their rate in half.
The film has been used as an educational tool. “Schindler’s List” is often shown in schools and universities as a means of teaching about the Holocaust and promoting discussions about genocide and human rights.
She is an animal lover. Peyton List adores animals and often advocates for animal rights and adoption.
In the 2004 movie “Mean Girls,” the “nice girl,” Cady, is named after Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a 19th-century pioneer in the American women’s rights movement.
Samuel L. Jackson was an usher at Martin Luther King Jr’s funeral. Jackson studied at Morehouse College, where Dr. King and other prominent civil rights activists would often visit and have debates. When King was assassinated, his funeral was held in Morehouse College, which is how Jackson was able to be one of the funeral ushers. After this experience, Jackson became much more heavily involved in the civil rights movement.
Restaurants can sing “Happy Birthday” now because the copyrights’ claims are invalid. Judge George H. King ruled that a copyright filed in 1935 granted only the rights to specific piano arrangements of the music, not the song itself.
On 15 August 1994, William R. Della Croce, Jr. filed for the trademark Linux and then demanded royalties from Linux distributors. After court battles, Linus Torvalds got the trademark rights back in 1997.
Because of concerns over data privacy, the EU has created a draft of ethics guidelines for AI. It outlines points like how developers should ensure that their AI will respect fundamental human rights.