And if the photos above are the actual pieces in question, all they really have to do is change the illustration a tiny bit from the object to make it different....which it appears they already have...
That's not how copyright law works.
Check out Tony Stone Pictures v. Corel, Rogers v. Koons, Mannion v. Coors Brewing Co. and their outcomes for a small sampling of examples.
Especially look at Mannion vs. Coors for just how different the original is from the copy.
There are tons and tons of other famous cases like these where the guilty party had thoughts similar to yours and lost.
A lot of it comes down to fair use as well as what can be proven with intent.
There is a case I can't recall the name of involving a horse where I believe it was a statue used as a reference for artwork where the final artwork (a painting or illustration - memory is fuzzy) was in a style that looked incredibly different. The defendant ended up losing not because their artwork looked like the original but because the plaintiff was able to find documented evidence that their copyrighted artwork was the sole reference used by the defendant in creating their own art. (intent)
Clear likeness aside (especially the oars), would you say there is any serious doubt that Disney
likely used
that mask and
that oar, apparently both in their possession and on display in the restaurant as the reference for the artwork they put on a t-shirt advertising
that restaurant?
In the case of fair use, a major component is commercial vs. non-commercial use. Had Disney been making a one-off item without intent to sell or use in marketing, even if it were to be used within one of their parks or resorts as a decorative item, they could probably still say it is a noncommercial work of art on display in a fair use argument.
Slapping it on a $30 t-shirt with intent to sell for no reason other than financial gain, clearly falls outside of the non-commercial aspect of fair use, though.
There is a fairy recent thing (recent as far as copyright law goes) where they look at if the piece in question is "transformative" but the legal use of this term is more specific to actual artistic merit and not simply design choices - the degree to which the intent is commercial vs. non-commercial would still play a role here but it becomes a sliding scale depending on the degree to which a judge considers the new art to be transformative.
Disney's artwork appears in no way to parody or provide comentary on the original artwork or provide new artistic or social meaning. Simply moving a slightly styleized version of the original artwork into a new medium is not transformative in the legal sense.
Jeff Koons has been sued a whole bunch of times all over the world for ripping off other people's stuff in pretty much this same way for what was clearly commercial purposes: selling it at really high prices for great profit. He's lost about as much as he's won but he can afford the payouts and for some reason, his reputation has not been ruined** so he doesn't appear to be losing much sleep over it.
You can argue that it
shouldn't be that way or that you don't agree with it but if Oceanic Arts was pressing the issue*, Disney's lawyers would already have a good enough idea of how this would turn out to settle if it even went that far.
If this was the issue at play, unless Oceanic Arts was asking for some
crazy payout, this would have ended quietly and without drama because business that do business together dealing in media run into these issues frequently and most are not looking to burn bridges with business partners but
do want to protect their own interests.
*and it is reasonable that they would because despite having a website that looks like it was designed in the 90's, they appear to do a good amount of commercial work so I can't imagine Disney is the first client they've had this kind of issue with, assuming they and Disney had an issue to begin with.
**some would argue in response to Koons that you have to have a good name to begin with before it can be sullied.
