Talk:It's a Small World

Copyright status of song

It appears that the Small World song is not copyrighted. This means two things:

• We could post the lyrics to the song. We probably shouldn't, as it's not encyclopedic.
• We could post a recording. We absolutely should, as it would add greatly to the article.

D O N D E groovily Talk to me 13:48, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Recordings can be problematic. Just because the song is in the public domain doesn't mean that any given performance of the song is in the public domain. Someone could record a PD rendition explicitly for use on Wikipedia, but how desirable would that be? What if it was just a MIDI of the main melody? There are a lot of questions here. Powers ^T 22:29, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The claim that the song is not copyrighted is unsourced, and appears to be false. According to U.S. Copyright Office records, its copyright was registered on October 4, 1963, reg. no. EU0000793673, and renewed October 15, 1991, renewal reg. no. RE0000548478. To confirm, go to the Copyright Office public catalog and search on "RE0000548478" with "Search By:" set to "Registration Number". I'm going to delete the passage from the article. TJRC (talk) 19:54, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I see the claim that the song was not copyrighted has been re-added. At least time this time there's a source, but it's to mentalfloss.com. That's not a particularly reliable source and the article cited provides nothing to back up its claim; I suspect the author read it in an old version of this article, and it's an example of citogenesis.

In any case, in addition to being contradicted by the copyright registration cited above, it's contradicted by this interview with Richard M. Sherman, one of the song's authors: "[Walt Disney] wouldn’t let us give our royalties away. We wanted to donate them to UNICEF. Walt said: “Don’t ever do that. I don’t want you to do that. This song is going to put your kids through school.” We said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “If you want to make a contribution to UNICEF, do it any time you want. But don’t give away your birthright.” And so we didn’t, and thank God, it’s the world’s most performed song." TJRC (talk) 22:19, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Just to nail this down further, the record for the original 1963 copyright registration (see above for the 1991 renewal) can be found on page 1454 of the US Copyright Office document Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third Series; Volume 17, Part 5, Number 2. Music, July-December 1963:

IT'S A SMALL WORLD; w & m Richard M. Sherman & Robert B. Sherman. Appl. author: Walt Disney Productions, employer for hire. © Wonderland Music Co.; 40ct63; EU793673.

TJRC (talk) 22:39, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

File:SmallWorldTopiary wb.jpg Nominated for Deletion

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Locations

What location are there? I think 1 is Hawaii (which lilo & stitch) appeared in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.101.38.140 (talk) 17:08, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Title: Capitalized or not?

There is not, nor has there ever been, a consensus over the proper title "it's a small world". I can find no directive which states the truth must bend to Wikipedia in letter or intent, yet I can find allowances which state that Wikipedia must allow for the truth by reflecting a model of the real world. I write the truth and other vandals such as J Hutton try to convince others that their vision of Wikipedia version outweighs the truth. So, even though Wikipedia manual of style specifically permits the article title to be enclosed within quotes and entirely lower-case, I concede, because I grow tired of fighting the vandalism of rapid reversion (which also wipes out greater truths,) but I shall forever correct the 1964 installation ticket, photo, attraction title, song and any other "it's a small world" mentions - simply because the arguments which maintain MOS and TM as a cover-all blanket in no way applies to them, when merchandising appears in the article you may apply the MOS TM regarding NO SHOUTING in titles. It is not the Disney organization which "stylized" the attraction title - they titled the attraction long before the existence of Wikis. It is a stylization of Wikipedia in an attempt to standardize titles for the convenience of lookups which provides for other tools when the truth trumps the standard. Other, printed, encyclopedias stylize titles without spaces but depict the true name clearly in the text. The Sherman brothers did not write "It's a Small World", they wrote "it's a small world (after all)". Will the perpetrators of the fallacy please go back and carefully re-read those from my point-of-view, it's important that school children who may cite the Wiki article speak the truth - not your mangled interpretation of MOS or TM manipulations. There simply are no valid reasons to upper-case any historic 1964 small world title references, songs, locations ["it's a small world" Mall] or any other mentions. Peace be with you. Disneywizard (talk) 15:17, 7 May 2014 (UTC) …this is where you apologize for being a knucklehead all these years —

• Read MOS:TM. Its basically the guideline that is referred to here. This was discussed before and you had no support for it, You still do not.--JOJ ^Hutton 03:03, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
  • I read and re-read MOS:TM very carefully, please do the same. The attraction, both 1964-5 and theme park installations is not a product, so it can't be trademarked. The associated locations "it's a small world" Mall and song "it's a small world (after all)" also can not be trademarked, but the original song can be copyrighted - which it isn't (there exits orchestrations and artist interpretations which have been copyrighted but the original remains in the public domain.) Please report yourself to higher authorities, then ban yourself for vandalism by blind reversion - I didn't change the article title but you consistently fail to carefully edit - it seems that you see my name on the change and knee-jerk reactionary revert the edit. Again - when the article begins to discuss merchandise you may apply MOS:TM to those objects.Disneywizard (talk) 14:50, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
    • That is your interpretation of it. No one else's.--JOJ ^Hutton 15:38, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Also the article needs to reflect its use in sources, regardless of how the trademark owner (Disney) presents it. Here is an article from the OC Register [1], and the Deseret News [2], and then the LA Times [3], as well as Reuters [4]. Sorry but its not a lie, its the truth according to sources. This just looks like a case of I don't like it.--JOJ ^Hutton 16:06, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

MOS:TM is pretty clear on this. And even if it wasn't, it applies equally well to service marks, trade dress, and similar forms of IP, any one of which surely applies to the stylization of this ride's name. We use the realistic English capitalization scheme. And honestly, even if we just used whatever, we very likely wouldn't substitute our own judgment and recapitalize what's in our sources' titles, as I see you've been doing, Disneywizard. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 17:07, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

The song title should clearly be capitalized per MOS:CT. "In English, titles of compositions (... songs and other audio works ...) every word is given an initial capital except for certain less important words..." With respect to the ride itself, I side with the interpretation of MOS:TM given by Jojhutton and Mendaliv. The trademark is the proper name for the ride -- that's the only way you use a trademark. If you read MOS:TM to exclude references to the thing that is the subject of the trademark, then MOS:TM is pretty close to meaningless; it could only apply to articles about the trademark itself. (Which is pointless, especially because trademarks are generally not case-specific , and are generally specified in all upper case; see, e.g., Disney's trademark registration no. 2,969,994, registering the mark as "IT'S A SMALL WORLD").

Add to this the press examples cited by Jojhutton, and it's pretty clear that WP:COMMONNAME weighs in favor of capitalizing each word, as well.

The only basis for not capitalizing it is Disneywizard's assertions. I'm not inclined to give them a lot of weight, given the issues with past assertions, made with just as much confidence, but shown to be incorrect (see the claim that the song was never copyrighted, above). TJRC (talk) 21:48, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I didn't quite get the "it's not a product thus MOS:TM does not apply" assertion above until I thought about it a bit more. There's a critical assumption that MOS:TM only applies to true trademarks (presumably in the Lanham Act sense). But the lede of the guideline makes it absolutely clear that the guideline applies to trademarks, service marks, business names, and the like (and appears to have been accepted to have such a scope since 2011). And then there's the evident claim that, okay, where IASW is used to refer to a trademark (i.e., refers to marks on goods rather than used to describe services or businesses) we'll use the wording according to MOS:TM, but where it's a service mark or trade name... all bets are off and we use the lowercase name. That itself presumes that the common name isn't capitalized (the third party sources don't bear this out), that we wouldn't standardize in the direction of MOS:TM for simplicity's sake, and that we weren't allowed to reach a local consensus to not use the lowercase name. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 22:26, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

In lieu of making a big deal about Dave Smith advancing in age. How's about we work to destroy the false application of Wikipedia 'Manual Of Style" which prevents the listing of the proper pronoun "it's a small world" (always in quotes, always entirely lowercase ['cause it's a _small_ world]) and defeat by overwhelming consensus the self elected net cop dedicated to perpetuating the CamelCase title lie of Its A Small World. Down with revisionist historianism! Perpetuate only the truth! (Even a proper title in English Manual of Style does not capitalize the 'a' (nor 'the', 'of,' conjunctions, et cetera, for that matter.)) Do it in the name of Dave Smith and smite the wicked, striking down darkness with a beacon of illumination as crusading knights of King Arthur's Carrousel armed with these truths - the attraction cannot be trademarked,only products based on the attraction and the Wiki Manual of Style states Trademarks are ALL CAPS not object titles for the purpose of NOT SHOUTING. Wiki encourages proper names in lowercase,such as j.d. Lang and e.e.cumming in order to reflect the truth. Just because other sources such as clueless editors at newspapers have misnamed the attraction for so long does not mandate prevention of immediate and perpetual correction. Over 50 years old now and the old girl is still looking pretty sharp. Let us honor the old girl by refusing to call her by anything but her true name - "it's a small world." Long live the Queen! And Dave, as defender of historical fact and knight of the realm, long may he fight the good fight! Three cheers! HERE HERE! HERE HERE! HERE HERE! 😇🛡👸🏻 Disneywizard (talk) 08:35, 30 June 2017 (UTC)