The little mermaid as a zombie

Edvard Eriksen's famous statue of the little mermaid has been gazing at Copenhagen harbour since 1913. Eriksen’s heirs are very protective of the little mermaid’s copyrights and image (presumably this statue has been commercially 'exploited' in both appropriate and inappropriate ways).

Occasionally, this leads to interesting copyright cases that have even gone as far as the Danish Supreme Court.

A Danish newspaper had published a comic strip of the little mermaid as a zombie and a picture of her wearing a face mask. Does this, as claimed, constitute an infringement of the heirs' copyright? The lower courts agreed with this claim twice, but now, the Supreme Court has come down on the other side and said no.

This case reminds us of the case that Mercis, the company behind Miffy, brought against all kinds of Miffy parodies. The court also found that these parodies were permissible, even though they were not exactly child-friendly.