Disney’s Stolen Art

Yikes.

Canadian artist Andrew Martin created a fan-art sculpture of one of the Tiki drummers from the Disneyland attraction called the Enchanted Tiki Room. Martin actually created the artwork during a seven-hour livestream in 2018, and made the design available online so people could 3D print the sculpture. It turns out that common people aren’t the only ones who took advantage of that opportunity. At least, that is what the artist is accusing Disney of.

A friend of Martin’s messaged him through Instagram, telling him that Disney was selling a sculpture that looks a lot like his 2018 artwork. "I'm like, 'that does look a lot like mine,' and then did a one-to-one comparison of mine just to make sure. And it's 100 percent the one I did," he said.

The art is now no longer available on the company’s online store, but it has been spotted to be sold at some park stores. Disney has not responded to the allegations after multiple requests for comment.

Image credit: Courtesy Andrew Martin

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Derivative works receive very little in the way of copyright protection. and if he copied it 1:1, that means there's no transformative artistic value that would give him much ground for damages. Still, according to the article he did the work himself, documented in a seven hour livestream. That would prove the 3D model is his own work, not Disney's.

What it really boils down to is the license under which he released the 3D model he made. If he made it available under a license that does not forbid commercial use, he has little to complain about. If it was released under a license that required attribution, that would be the most he could expect out of it.

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You are implying that he stood in an attraction, slopped plaster on one the objects in there, waited for it to dry, and cracked it open? There is literally no way. They wouldn't even have allowed a 3-d scan. He took inspiration from the drummers in the tiki room, and made his own. From scratch. It is not the same thing. The piece was his own, inspired by the theme.

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It's not fan art. It's a literal 3-D casting of one of the Tiki drummers in the Tiki Room. In other words, the guy looked at it, made a 3-D copy of it, and then when Disney started doing it, he said, hey, you stole the thing which I stole from you. It is possibly the most ridiculous claim I have ever heard in my life.
https://societyofexplorersandadventurers.fandom.com/wiki/Tiki_Room_Drummers?file=TradeSams-0050.webp

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If an artist draws some fan art, that does not entitle Disney to free use of that work.
Disney can sue to stop him from distributing it, but they don't own it either.