Emerald City Soap and copyright issues

I have been looking for a video of the Wizard of Oz movie in which Dorothy arrives at Emerald city, and she goes through an array of items that are green and and most of them are like gemstones or emeralds. I did not have much luck finding a snippet in youtube, so I may have to borrow this movie from the library.  I remember being equally fascinated as her, watching this scene as a child.  I wish I remember which version of the movie it was! Anyway, that image memory of all these emerald items, was what inspired me to do this soap.

Interesting and Complicated Copyright issues with The Wizard of Oz

I have made jewelry much longer than soap, so I have been familiar with the copyright issues as far as jewelry and crafts is concerned.   In a nutshell, I know I cannot copy a copyrighted or trademarked brand, logo, drawing, character, etc, with the purpose of selling it.   I could make it for my own use or to give as a personal gift.   For example, I have only made the superman logo jewelry for my husband.  And I used only my own creations and designs for items I planned to sell.   Another example, Hobby Lobby sells fabrics with copyrighted designs, perhaps a Disney character or a University logo.  These fabrics are for people to make items for their own personal use, not to create items to sell.

I knew this soap would be a batch to give away to friends and/or for my own use, like most of my soaps are.  So I was not concerned about violating any copyright laws (the main issue is when you try to make money out of someone else’s intellectual property, like explained above).  But I got curious about the free domain works.  Since I figured this is an old story.    See, it varies per country, but the copyright laws are usually determined by how long has it been since the author died, or how long since the work was published, and whether there are heirs and so forth….Copyright laws change themselves too.  So, for the long version, you can read the wikipedia page here. What I understood from it was this:

• That the actual book is copyright free now  (So other authors could write creative derivative works from it, but with caution because of the below)
• That the movie is not copyright free, and great care must be taken not to imitate anything from it for sale.  And I refer to the 1939 movie with Judy Garland.  The movie was not a faithful adaptation, so there are many things that are associated with the story by the public, that were actually not in the original book.  For example, the red shoes.  In the book they were silver.  There was even a lawsuit regarding to the props used in the movie and derivative works of them (It did not end well for the people who did the infringement).

For more details, I found this article interesting.  I may have to read this book now!

What about other characters, such as Disney characters?

It will vary per character.  A lot of characters that people associate with Disney, were not created by them.  They have simply adapted the classical stories (such as the Grimm brothers stories) into movies.  Most of the classic stories, written long ago, are in the public domain works.  To read about using material in the public domain, go here.

For these classic tale characters, what you will need to be careful about, is not copying whatever Disney or any other company created in relation to the character, what they added to it.  In the Wizard of Oz, for example, it would be the red shoes, which is a bummer since that is what a lot of people associate with the story.  Be inspired by the actual free domain story.  That is what I tried to do when I made a Cinderella Soap.  I avoided using a light blue color, for instance.

Disney does have licensing available, you can visit their website for more information.

And the last paragraph in this page, gives a good example of the Public Domain works in relation to Disney adaptations.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS BATCH

This is the same recipe as the unicorn soap.  Yet it behaved differently.My take away points are:

• Dispersing colorants: I should disperse my colorants, it does help the process though it creates more dishes to wash.  Coloring half the batch blue with dispersed ultramarine pigment in water, was a lot quicker than when I colored the sky for the unicorn soap, when I added the pigment directly to the soap.
• Discoloring EOs:  Cedarwood EO discolors to yellow, more than Litsea.  I had stick blended the colors briefly, and the blue portion was a pretty blue.  When I unmolded, it was a minty dirty green!  not bad but not the look I was going for.
• I should experiment with blending fragrances more:  I do like how it smells. If I had to describe this fragrance, I would say it smells like you are drinking hot lemon tea, with a stick of cinnamon, in the middle of the forest.  I used the cedarwood EO because when I bought it (and I bought the plain cedarwood, not the Atlas) I disliked it.  So my attempt was to get rid of it or blend it.  I have found that this EO fragrance has grown on me, and now I kind of like it.  I will make a post on blending fragrances next.

Here are the links to the videos:

Making the soap:

Making the embeds: