Brian Cronin, Comic Book Resources; Did a Typo Accidentally Make Rudolph's TV Special Public Domain?
"Not so fast.
You see, the main character in the film, Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer, WAS under copyright (in one of the sweetest stories of
corporate generosity ever, Montgomery Ward gave the copyright to the character to the employee who created Rudolph as part of a store Christmas giveaway).
Rudolph is also currently protected by federal trademark, meaning that
you couldn't name any project "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" without
permission from the Rudolph trademark owners (I think there's a company
specifically set up just to handle this Rudolph-related intellectual
property stuff). Similarly, all of the songs in the film were
independently copyrighted, so you couldn't use any of them."
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