Is this true?
Unless Time-Warner gives permission, the Ruby Slippers will have to be mentioned but unseen. Those were specific to the 1939 movie, and it’s rare that they license it. Disney paid them a massive fee to use them in the 1985 “Return to Oz,” but couldn’t get them last year for “Oz the Great And Powerful.” I don’t see them going to that length for a TV show.
Well, first….MGM owns the 1939 movie.
But yes. The Ruby Slippers are copyrighted to the MGM movie because that is a unique feature that was not in the book. In the original book, the slippers were silver but the movie changed it in order to make the shoes more flashy.
You can mention ruby slippers on screen because any shoe can be red without it being THE ruby slippers. But to show the ruby slippers in connection to Oz is a violation of the MGM copyright. ONCE may use the sliver slippers since those belong to the book and the book(s) are now public domain.
The same goes for the green skin, though there is a loophole. MGM only has copyright of the the specific green skin they used on the WWW in 1939. All other greens are open for use. This is why Elphaba in Wicked can be green and why our WWW can be green in ONCE. They are using different color greens.
EDIT
The only way I can see them using the ruby slippers are this
1) ABC/Disney pays a HUGE fee
2) They change the color red to something else…crimson, burgundy, ect. That may be a loop hole.