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Comment by cjbprime | Hacker News Reader

> I’m so mad because I have no chance at getting Disney to do anything about it.

For such a straightforward violation, I don't see why there's any call for pessimism. Send them an invoice for a worldwide license, follow it up with a lawyer letter (find someone willing to do no-win-no-fee if you want) once the invoice is overdue.

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

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.

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.

It's not my field, but by "worldwide license" I meant a single lump sum that covers everything they might want to do or already have done -- i.e. "this is the amount that you can pay to make this go away and avoid bringing in your expensive legal team".

My naive guess would be that somewhere USD $5k-$10k is that amount: small enough to be within budgetary authority, large enough to make it worth the artist's time to chase up.

In reality, I'd suspect and hope that the artist already has an e-mail from Disney's brand protection team, or whatever they call it, with an apology and an offer to pay immediately. Disney's surely one of the most brand-conscious companies in the world.

IMHO this looks like a substantial infringement, and $5-10K is peanuts. The signing authority of a middle manager would not factor into a settlement demand whatsoever, if it were me.

If there was any kind of ballpark figure on how many bags they have sold, that would be a good starting point.

I would guess the fair price would be: 1) typical licence for image on a global website, and 2) some percentage of sales of that particular bag.

I concur with others that have suggested just contacting Disney's Consumer Products division directly. I am sure they would want to fairly compensate the artist for her work.

They will also want to reprimand the company from which they sourced the bag.

https://www.disneyconsumerproducts.com/Home/display.jsp?cont...

Why would a fair price be relevant? I assume that statutory damages for copyright infringement would be far, far more than a fair price for the work if negotiated up-front. In other words, a retrospective license to cure infringement should probably be a bit "unfair".

The artist could go that route, and the lawyers and insurance companies will win.

According to the MPAA, $1000/use would sound well within the range of real damages for any license misuse.

$25k per copy, by my reckoning. I mean, seriously, if it flies in court for them, why not for her? She should/could push for ten figures of punitive damages.

I don't think the MPAA gets punitive damages except for willful infringement. It's going to be hard to prove that this case with Disney -- it may be that nobody in Disney's employ even knows that this image is someone else's, if the work was done on contract. And it's going to be hard to make the case of economic harm, since the artist was not selling her work in the market otherwise.

Pretty sure punitive damages is only applicable if they don't do anything about it after discovering they used her artwork.

Wouldn't the same logic follow though if someone agreed to turn off their file sharing and/or delete the files they downloaded? The MPAA/RIAA doesn't seem to be ok with that.

Some subscribe to the view that infringement is stealing, and that when you're caught stealing you shouldn't be afforded an opportunity to simply pay the fair market price.

Normally a price is decided upon before the use of the image. In this case, they have used the image without the permission of the owner. Kind of tough for them really - they should have gotten permission first.

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

Because Disney is enormous and extremely well-lawyered

Hopelessness is a common feeling when someone from the working class is faces a fight against a multi-national company who can invest millions in legal fees.

Because Disney essentially IS copyright.

The MPAA is just a publicity shunt so that people don't associate the bad press of the MPAA with the 8 brands that are behind it. [0]

The modern BS of copyright lasting 100yrs [2] is caused because of the Disney corporation and the Mickey Mouse brand. Copyright will always be at least ($current_year - 1928) because of the Mickey Mouse brand.

She feels hopeless because the company that wrote modern copyright law is infringing on her copyright.

0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_of_A...

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act

2: Graph of US copyright terms from 1790 (30 yrs of copyright) to modern times

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copyright_term.svg

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I always find the hypocrisy of Disney amazing given that the majority of their IP is a remix of something someone else wrote.

Should you be excited about being money- and time-whipped?

Maybe the thought of investing a bunch of time and money on a possibly fruitless lawsuit is less appealing to her than spending time doing art. Yet, she may feel a moral obligation to her peers not to let Disney's behavior pass; placing her in a position where she feels powerless. Or maybe she just engaged in a bit of hyperbole.

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