Emerson Elementary school received a letter from Movie Licensing USA recently. Movie Licensing USA is the agent of Disney. To the school’s surprise and dismay, this letter contained a fine of $250. In November, The PTA’s Dad Club thought Emerson Elementary would benefit by using the 2019 remake of Lion King as a means of raising money for the students. Somehow, Disney caught wind of this and sent the Berkeley, California elementary school the hefty fine for showing the film without a license.
As one could imagine, Emerson Elementary and the city of Berkeley were not happy with this fine.
PTA president David Rose found the entire situation to be educational. “The event made $800, so if we have to fork over a third of it to Disney, so be it. You know, lesson learned,” said Rose.
Emerson parent and Berkeley City Council member Lori Droste did not learn the same lesson. “Here you have a company that makes so much money and we have schools that are struggling so much,” Droste said. “What I thought about was just the irony of having a multi-billion dollar company essentially ask a school to pay up.”
According to KPIX, Rose says the organization will pay the fine and hope the fine will be made up in donations.
It is still a mystery as to how Disney was made aware of this situation and why they felt the need to penalize the elementary school for a petty mistake.