Earlier this week, Disney garnered widespread condemnation after seemingly trying to claim ownership of the widely celebrated — and since 2011, official — Star Wars day, May the 4th, via Twitter.
After asking fans to “Celebrate the Saga” by sharing their favourite memories of the sci-fi franchise to the social media platform on Monday, Disney+ shared a subtle tweet warning users that by utilizing the #Maythe4th hashtag, they would have legally consented to letting the media giant use and/or share their content.
Sharing their updated “terms of use,” Disney+ wrote: “By sharing your message with us using #MayThe4th, you agree to our use of the message and your account name in all media and our terms of use here: http://disneytermsofuse.com.”
Star Wars fans, however, did not like this. Over the last four decades, May the 4th has been celebrated all across the globe. The date was chosen as a play on words for one of the franchise’s most popular quotes: “May the force be with you.”
Because Twitter is a public domain and Disney only acquired the rights to Star Wars and Lucasfilm in 2012, many fans got up in arms about the newly-announced “terms of use” policy and fired back at the company by criticizing and mocking it.
“You can’t just scream a terms of service agreement into the void and then assume anyone who does something falling in line has seen it and agreed,” tweeted one user in response.
“By having my tweet in your thread you hereby waive all your copyright to the public domain,” joked another.
Here’s what some more Twitter users had to say about Disney’s “terms of use” policy:
Some others used examples of Disney’s allegedly rocky history against the company.
One Star Wars fan simply shared a scene from the widely divisive Star Wars: Episode III — The Revenge of the Sith, which is often used as the focal point of Star Wars memes.
In response to the virtually verbal onslaught, Disney+ issued a further tweet.
It reads: “The above legal language applies ONLY to replies to this tweet using #MayThe4th and mentioning @DisneyPlus. These replies may appear in something special on May the 4th!”
This Monday (May 4), Disney+ will release the latest Star Wars film, The Rise of Skywalker, for all subscribers to watch “early” despite it’s physical and digital release being almost an entire month ago on other platforms.
Additionally, the company launch a series which takes a behind-the-scenes look at the making of The Mandalorian. It’s called Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian.
As of this writing, it’s unclear if Disney’s popular streaming service has anything else in store for May the 4th.