Disney have stolen my artwork

I have had similar experiences with the Disney IP teams. They mean serious business in all directions, from protecting IP to ensuring they are not infringing. They make sure everyone in the company or affiliated is very aware of IP issues. If the painting is indeed the original work and it somehow found its way onto some merchandise, I'm sure Disney will be amicable.

I also think it's important for the artist to remember that Disney doesn't have a team of employees surfing the web looking for ideas to steal. The more likely scenario was a single designer was having trouble with a project and got desperate.

It's not excusable, but also isn't as conspiratorial.

Why assume the worst? Wouldn't it be a bit easier to just find the relevant group and ask them how they'd like to resolve it? If they want to be jerks, sure, lawyer up. However, it might be a very simple conversation with a much more positive outcome.

The first thing that occurred to me is that the Disney artists (or contractors) probably came across the image on Tumblr or Pinterest or some similar social image-sharing network, stripped entirely of its original attribution.

It's entirely plausible that someone would have thought it was a Disney-owned image originally, and in circulation in violation of copyright.

If that's true, it's not an excuse for using someone else's work without permission, but it would be a sad and ironic commentary on the sharing and re-mixing economy.

I'm pretty sure Alice is not a Disney Princess.

Well, while Alice from "Alice in Wonderland" is now a "public domain" character, the depiction of her with a blue dress, white belt, and blonde hair with a black bow in it was very much created by Disney.

In this case, the artist herself is remixing a visual design elaborated by Disney.

So, yeah. It's murky, and the remix argument goes both ways.

I don't pretend to know anything about the relevant IP laws, but from a lay perspective I think there's a big difference between taking one piece of art and making a new derivative piece of art from it, and taking the same piece of art and making salable merchandise.

So, you think we should all grab our pitchforks and torches and go get her? What are you getting at?

Not seeing how "it would be nice to live in a world without the current incarnation of intellectual property law" is incompatible with "but we don't, so we're going to hold you to the standards you've created". They seem imminently consistent to me.

I've got little to add to the larger discussion, but you know, this is kind of funny: I can ignore all kinds of crap that people on the internet get riled up over, and even the occasional personal insult, no sweat, but your assessment of Kind of Bloop and the chiptune scene in general actually made me angry.

There's an interesting (albeit tired -- we've been having the same conversation since at least the dawn of the sampler) question in there about where the line between "remixing" and "ripping someone off" gets drawn, but you didn't have to shit all over a subculture and genre of music to pose it.

EDIT: I'll add that there is a pretty direct parallel to be drawn here to the long-running controversy around hip-hop's heavy usage of sampling. Your article, then, read a bit like someone attempting to begin a thoughtful debate about this old "remix culture vs. copyright law" issue with a characterization like "hiphop is a primitive and culturally bankrupt musical 'genre' consisting of a sad excuse for poetry shouted on top of other people's music, and its creators are crooks who appropriate the hard work of others for a less sophisticated audience."

There are people out there that actually believe things like that (maybe even you?), but most of them have the good sense not to say so in public under their true identity. I'd like to think that has something to do with the common decency of not demeaning cultures that one is completely unfamiliar with, and not just fear of appearing to be a racist.

"Fairey settled his civil case with the AP out of court."

Looks like Fairey paid up, and I imagine AP gets a royalty (and past royalties) for every sale of the image, not just a lump sum for damages.

"...Fairey maintain his work fell under fair-use laws."

It would have been interesting had the civil case actually gone to verdict - I tend to think a Judge or Jury would have ruled in Fairey's favor, like you allude to in your post.

In ETW v. Jireh, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected a right of publicity claim brought by Tiger Woods against an artist who depicted Woods and other golf legends, holding that the transformative nature of the work exempted it from right of publicity liability under the First Amendment. Thus, this is not even a fair-use defense, but a first amendment defense, and the first amendment should be even more protective in the case of political speech where Fairey's work was of the leading candidate for POTUS at the time.

I could be wrong, but I strongly suspect the artist here would be thrilled to be getting a reasonable licensing fee from Disney for use of her work. Meanwhile, in Andy Baio's case, Jay Maisel was reportedly unwilling to license the photo for pixel art, period.

Presuming I'm correct, that's an important difference.

Your second link doesn't indicate any internet-derived excoriation, but instead shows an artist being taken through the legal system by AP, along with the artist obstructing the judicial process. I don't think it supports the point you're making.

I didn't know the conclusion of the Fairey case and I had never even heard about the Baio case, so thanks for these links.

I don't think you can generalize "the internet" in this way because the forums I read are fairly liberal and will tend to favor the underdog, 'David' or whatever allusion you want to depict the lowly, individual up against 'the man.' So, by that thinking, we should be expected to favor Fairey (vs AP), Baio (vs Maisel ) and the current article's artist (vs Disney). You may say that Maisel is not so black and white, but consider that he still represents the establishment.

Just to specifically address Lee Phillips' article. He clearly has a personal bias that doesn't help his argument with lines like this referring to 'chiptune':

"I don’t get it either, but if people want to create music where part of the aesthetic is that it’s supposed to sound bad, I believe they have every right to."

I have plenty of fond memories to music from Battletoads, Mega Man and Final Fantasy so I think he's fighting a losing battle if he's going to try and convince people that there is no merit to 8-bit music production.

I wonder how one prices out a worldwide license like this. Obviously if she put the prices at $1000/use, neither would Disney pay it nor would she recover that much from a court. But it's worth more than $0.01/use as well.

I'd contact a lawyer before communicating with them in any capacity. You wouldn't want to risk giving their attorneys an angle.

Actually, that line turned me off to the whole plight. She clearly has a case, why would her first though be complete hopelessness?

She probably said that because might not actually own the copyright to it.

Based on what I read on her site, this image was created for her final coursework.

Although I haven't been able to find out which University she attended to eliminate this possibility, it is quite possible that the University in question may actually owns this image.

Certainly in UK some Universities have IP clauses written stating who owns what.

> "How do you prove the inspiration came from the "stolen" art, and not Disney's own film or the original story?"

And even if you did prove it, is it illegal, and should it be illegal?

All art is a derivation of something that came before it. Can someone reasonably claim ownership to "girl painting roses with paint brush as viewed from behind"?

If the "painting" idea is stolen, then it would seem the "Alice" idea is stolen as well.

The bag though, that is straight up theft.

I don't think the second one is more complicated at all. It's straight up non-infringement.

But I agree, the bag is straightforward copyright infringement.

Cosmetic bag looks like someone re-sketched it and added characters.

It might actually fall under the "significantly modified" arena. Same with the tshirt - while it's the same pose, it's clearly a different drawing.

Besides which, she may have actually been the one infringing Disney's trademark.

These kinds of ambiguities outline how fucking important it is to reform our copyright system.

Alice in Wonderland the story is in the public domain. Specific renditions may be copyrighted.

Yes, the first one is without doubt a copyright violation, the second however I can't agree with.

If so then we'd have an insane amount of art that is stolen. The pose is the same, but this is totally different art in a totally different style with ha different dress etc. I personally don't think that should constitute as a copied/derived work, but that's just my opinion.

The first one however, clear cut copyright infringement, it IS the same artwork. Will be interesting to see how Disney spins this given how they forced daycare centers to paint over murals with Disney characters over trademark infringement.

Let's give Disney qua Disney (as opposed to one artist somewhere, which is all we know for sure at this point) some time to respond before we unleash the mob.

Past history certainly gives a non-zero probability that Disney will just try to throw their weight around, but let's give them the chance to do the right thing before we bury them. It makes the moral outrage that much more moral.

Yup, here is a more thorough comparison:

http://robwrite.hubpages.com/hub/THE-LION-KING-Controversy-D...

They already changed it: http://i.imgur.com/NzCo3ns.png

It's apparently "Sold Out" now, but the image is still the same.

I can vouch for their service. I once lost my rental car keys while at one of the Disneyworld hotels, and I got no help from the rental company aside from the key code. The Disney folks sent one of their locksmiths to help me and he tried about half a day to make a key that would start the car. His dedication and attitude were remarkable.

You don't know that. The right to create derivative works is one of the exclusive rights granted to the original creator by the copyright act. If the same designer that put his image on the bag is the one that designed the shirt, it would be very hard for him to claim the second image isn't a derivative work of the unlicensed original.

It's likely a lazy designer did a Google Image search, saw an illustration that looked like the original Alice in Wonderland illustrations by Tenniel, and assumed it was in the public domain.

Many times that I knew some sort of stuff like this happened, it was because one specific worker, KNEW that he was doing wrong, but did it wrong anyway to take the credit, and hope his bosses would not find out.

This also apply when the "worker" is a boss, but working for a client, he do it in a lazy manner hoping his client won't notice...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbaland_plagiarism_controvers...

I was under the impression that this would be covered under copyright and not a particular licence. As soon as the artwork was created by the artist it belongs to the artist, they don't even need to put a copyright symbol next to it. My advice would be get in touch with Disney, it seems the artist has support on tumblr already. I suspect a public spectacle of Disney's mistake (assuming it was a mistake) is probably the artist's best bet. DKNY were caught up in something similar and ended up paying and apologising for their mistake [1].

[1]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732388430457832...

Edit: Sorry, silly formatting

It's Alice in Wonderland, which was written in 1865, so it's in the public domain. The artist's illustration is inspired by the original Tenniel illustrations, so it's not a derivative of the 1951 Disney adaptation.

Intellectual property rights and freedoms are important issues to people here.

Many people here are concerned about copyright related issues. Especially when a large corporation that regularly asserts copyright claims is caught doing the infringement.

I'm glad this story ended up here, and I hope the press causes royalties to be paid to the original artist for the bag which is a direct copy.

There's quite a lot of discussion on copyright issues around here so its somewhat appropriate, even if this is about art vs digital content.

The 'flag' function exists for a reason.

Goodness me, there's someone like you in every thread.

As a follow-up since it's too late to edit the original: I had forgotten this was expressly prohibited by the guidelines; my apologies.

why the heck did you write this? It doesn't help anyone ...

"Disney have used it" is correct here, in British English.

"It’s one of my favourite images I created at University" could use a [while] to my ear, but it's not so bad.

The world is a big place.

As she mentions elsewhere, she is British. And "Disney have used it" is perfectly valid in the Queen's English, even if it sounds odd to us yanks.

She is British (it says so on her site). Using plural verbs with organizations ("the police are coming", etc.) is perfectly correct British English; same for "at university" [1].

[1] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Writing-at-University-Phyllis-Creme/...

You're just showing how bad your grasp of the English language is!

It's not correct American English, but she's not American.

The only thing I'm not sure is correct in non-American usage is the capitalized "University"; I thought they used lowercase for the generic (much in the same way we use "college" in the US). The rest, though, reflects common usage outside the US.