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Comment by GuiA | Hacker News Reader

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.

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The similarities are much more than "blue dress, white belt, and blonde hair with a black bow in it".

In any case, Disney did not "very much create" that image. Here's Tenniels from 1866.

http://www.goldmarkart.com/it-can-t-go-straight-you-know-if-...

Blonde hair, white belt, black bow? Looks that way to me. Blue apron? Not very derivative.

Ha, good point (and same to the other post making the same remark below). I wasn't fully aware of Tenniels' drawings.

One could argue it makes the situation a little more clear cut then.

> 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.

How do you figure? Have you seen the original illustrations? Because they depict Alice in essentially the same getup that Disney stylized with their own art style. However the character design (which is what we'd call it now) is essentially John Tenniel's original design:

http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/alice2a.html

Her depiction of Alice seems like more of a potential trademark issue, while Disney lifting the design seems like a clear-cut copyright issue.

Tenniel illustrations are in the public domain. The original work is about 150 years old. As you say, very a clear-cut copyright issue with Disney lifting the design. I'll be interested to hear the outcome of this.

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