DISNEY HAVE STOLEN MY ARTWORK

I don’t know what to do. I am so upset. Can anyone help me?

My painting was created back in 2010, (see it HERE) and since then so many people have expressed their love for it, not just on tumblr, but in many places. At least 9 people had it tattooed on their bodies. It’s one of my favourite images I created at University and I was proud of it in many ways.

Disney have used it on a cosmetics bag HERE (look at the back) and they have produced a Tshirt HERE with a really similar design clearly modeled from my painting

I’m so mad because I have no chance at getting Disney to do anything about it. I had so much respect for the company and now I am just SO upset and disappointed.

Any help, advice or signal boosting would be amazing. And thank you so much to the kind person who messaged me about this.

This is really sad. 

Look at the bag. It is the EXACT drawing. This is terrible. For the company responsible for a lot of current copyright law to do this - wow.

Please signal boost. Literally the only thing someone can do against Disney’s stealing someone’s work. Without all the lawyers.

This is so sad. :(

Signal Boost…DISNEY! One of  your designers stole this and no one noticed. Please give Katie a fair (7%) royalty WITHOUT going through the unnecessary hassle of a law suit…THANK YOU! That would be the only way to prove to me that you don’t suck.

From an ethical standpoint, the one who stole the image and made money off of it is obviously in the wrong here, but from a legal standpoint, doesn’t this technically count as fanart of Alice in Wonderland and doesn’t Disney own the rights to that however far that extends? (*I know as much about copyright law as I do about rocket science… which is to say, not much at all)

Indeed that would be the case if Disney owned the copyright to Alice, but they don’t.

“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” was written in 1856 by Lewis Carroll. Illustrations in that book showed Alice as a blond girl wearing a blue dress and an apron, as shown in Katie’s artwork above. Disney’s adaptation was created about 100 years after that.

Those illustrations (as well as the original work by Carroll) are in the public domain. Which does not mean that works created based on them (like the Alice movie, or Katie’s art) are in the public domain.

I’m looking forward to the day when all legal battles are settled via reblogs on Tumblr…