The Walt Disney Company





The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) was founded in 1923 by Walt Disney and is one
of the largest entertainment corporations in the world.

Its movie studios include Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Buena
Vista, Hollywood Pictures, Dimension Films, and Miramax. It owns the rights
to animated and live action films and operates many theme parks including,
Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and franchises Eurodisney, and Tokyo Disney.
The company operates the Disney Vacation Club resorts and ESPN Zone
restaraunts. It owns Hyperion Books, Disney Publishing Worldwide and the
Walt Disney Cruise Line. Disney's music division includes Walt Disney
Records, Mammoth Records, Lyric Street Records, and Hollywood Records. TWDC
also owns the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) network and television and
radio stations, the Disney Channel and ESPN's family of cable television networks.

The company also owns the Anaheim Mighty Ducks hockey team and the Anaheim
Angels baseball team. It also handles licensing of Disney products and sales
through the Disney Store.

Some librarians have objected to TWDC's lobbying of the world's major
legislative bodies into passing repeated retroactive copyright term
extensions, calling it "manipulative" and "absurd". As well as the general
limitation on the public domain that this implies, critics are quick to
point out that Disney has made much of its fortune from stories that have
passed out of copyright, such as Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping
Beauty.

The company has an exclusive right to distribute motion pictures produced by
Studio Ghibli led by Miyazaki Hayao.

Movies include: Finding Nemo, Winnie the Pooh, Toy Story, Aladdin,
Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmations, Little Mermaid, Pinocchio,
Fantasia, Piglet's Big Movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Parent Trap,
Freaky Friday.