Disney Allegedly Steals Sculptor's Work And Sells It In Parks

thegamer.com:

A sculptor took to TikTok yesterday to share their work, alleging that Disney stole their fan-made sculpture to sell at its parks for a profit.

Their sculpture was made in 2018 while Disney's have been cropping up only this year. The resemblance is uncanny. Even the tiniest of imperfections are the exact same such as "lazy" circles leaking into each other and various scratch marks.

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"Disney stole my artwork and is selling it in their parks," Andrew Martin opened. "A bit of backstory - in 2018, I made this fan art sculpture of one of the Tiki drummers from Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room. I wanted to re-create a small piece of it for myself. When I posted images of this little guy on social media, I received hundreds of messages from people asking to buy it. Not wanting to deal with that, I released the 3D model on Thingiverse under creative commons license, so people could just make one for themselves."

Disney is now selling that same sculpture as a 50th Anniversary commemorative music box, retailing at $125. That's a steep price compared to the free creative commons blueprint that Martin originally shared, but no credit was given and he was never reached out to for permission. Martin isn't making a dime from the product.

"Disney is taking credit for my work and selling it in their parks without my permission, consent, or even artist credit," Martin continued. "Now I'm going to give Disney the benefit of the doubt and say that they did not intend to directly steal my work."

Martin goes on to explain that Disney subcontracts to freelance artists for projects such as these, knowing as much because he himself has worked for Disney