With uncertainty about my job and quite a lot of holiday left, I took advantage of a quiet weekend at work and spent two days in Edwinstowe in Nottinghamshire. I stayed at the lovely Forest Lodge and visited Mansfield and of course, my favourite place........ Sherwood Forest! I have plenty of pictures and information that I will share with you all, but firstly I want to show you an alarming discovery I made while in the gift shop.
On my first day in the forest it was quite cloudy, so I took the opportunity to have some dinner in the Forest Table. This is a lovely little restaurant with its walls decorated with a copy of nearly every ‘Robin Hood’ film poster you can think of. So I tucked into my baguette alongside, (yes you guessed it!) a full size copy of Putzu’s poster for the 1972 release of Disney’s Story of Robin Hood. Not a bad start!
It was starting to brighten up by now, so I thought I would take a walk to the exhibition and have a look in the shop. There were a couple of books I eagerly bought, but not a lot else, just the usual toys and sweets. But just as I turned around to come out, something caught my eye. It was a clock decorated with characters from Disney’s Story of Robin Hood! I couldn’t believe it! Below were cups, plates and jugs with the same illustrations used in the book of the film, from 1952. But after closer inspection I noticed something very concerning-they did not carry any Disney copyright logo. In fact there is no indication that the images belong to a Disney motion picture. Now as you all know I care very deeply about this particular movie and its lasting legacy, so rather stunned, I hurriedly took note of the company that make these particular items and left the shop.
The Story of Robin Hood (the items actually just say Robin Hood) clocks, jugs, cups etc were also for sale in a gift shop in Edwinstowe, which is where I was able to take these pictures. Now I’m no expert on these matters, but IS this is an infringement of copyright as they are actually using illustrations from a book or am I over reacting-what do you all think?