Winnie the Pooh (not the book, but the animated character) is a Walt Disney Company franchise, based on animated fictional characters who have been featured as part of the Disney character line-up. The Winnie the Pooh franchise is based on the book by A.A. Milne. Winnie-the-Pooh (note the hyphenation), is the first volume of stories about a bear called Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne, from 1926, upon which the franchise is based.

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Development by Disney

In 1961, Walt Disney Productions licensed certain film and other rights to the characters, stories and trademarks from Stephen Slesinger, Inc., and The Estate of A.A. Milne and made a series of cartoon films about him. The early cartoons were based on several of the original stories and the distinctive images made popular by Stephen Slesinger, Inc. during the 1930s through 1960s.

Disney's storytelling style and characterisation have little in common with Milne's tales, and were greatly disliked by the Milne family. Alongside the cartoon versions, which Disney adapted from Slesinger, Slesinger's simplified lines and pastel color adaptations of Shepard's classical drawings are now marketed under the description "Classic Pooh".

In 1977, Disney released the animated feature The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh , introducing a new character named Gopher, which Disney acknowledged by having Gopher proclaim, "I'm not in the book, you know!" This movie features three segments that were originally released separately as featurettes: Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966), Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974). This feature version featured new bridging material and a new ending, as it had been Walt Disney's original intention to make a feature. In 1983, a fourth featurette, Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore , was released. Sterling Holloway did the voice for Winnie The Pooh in the movie but due to illness while filming Matt "Bear" Foster stood in for him occasionally and his voice can be heard a few times during some scenes in the movie.

Ownership controversy and drastic changes

During his lifetime, Milne was liberal with his grant of rights. At times he licensed the same exclusive rights to more than one entity. In the United States, Dutton publishers acquired exclusive volume publication rights and Stephen Slesinger, Inc., acquired sole and exclusive rights to virtually all uses outside of the Dutton books as well as rights to any sorts of future uses. Beginning in 1930 Stephen Slesinger created all of the distinctive and colorful images of Pooh outside of the books. Under license from Slesinger, Pooh made his debuts in radio, film, animation, children's theatre, advertising and a host of consumer products and services protected by trademark. Outside of the U.S. and Canada, Milne retained most of his literary copyright rights which he left to four beneficiaries of his trust: The Garrick Club, Westminster School, The Royal Literary Fund and the A. A. Milne Family. By direction of Milne's will, the Pooh Properties Trust was formed. Mrs. Milne, trustee of the Milne Estate and Spencer Curtis Brown, Trustee, licensed certain exclusive film rights to Disney in 1961. Christopher Robin Milne sold his rights to the other copyright holders, in order to raise money to support his daughter, before his death in 1996. Sometime around 2000, the Pooh Properties Trust licensed additional rights to Disney and accepted a buyout from of their claims to royalties as defined in a 1991 lawsuit brought by Stephen Slesinger, Inc. Although Slesinger's rights are arguably more valuable, the combined value paid by Disney to The Pooh Properties Trust is said to be approximately $300 million for Milne's portion of those rights.

In order to minimize Disney's legal exposure to Slesinger further, Disney paid money to the Pooh Properties attorneys and trusts in order to use the name of Clare Milne, daughter of Christopher Robin, in an attempt to terminate certain of the copyright rights of Stephen Slesinger Inc, in the wake of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. The district court found in favour of Stephen Slesinger, Inc., and as did the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On Monday, June 26, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, thus sustaining the Appeals Court ruling.

In December 2005, Disney announced that Pooh's friend and owner Christopher Robin would be replaced by a 6-year-old "tomboyish" red-haired girl named Darby for the future Disney Channel animated television series, My Friends Tigger & Pooh . But Christopher Robin will appear intermittently in the series.