The artwork in the Tower of Terror episode from 'Behind the Attraction' on Disney+ was stolen from YouTube creator Art of Engineering

Kirby86

Well-Known Member
I have a feeling whoever was in charge of the Tower of Terror episode just looked up Tower of Terror blueprints online and saw this image and said looks legitimate so took it. Something similar happened with The Last of Us game with a subway map.
 

Coaster Lover

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
I am by no means an expert in copyright law, but it seems like 17 U.S. Code § 102(8) might apply here. If I understand the law correctly, just the image of ToT may be protected since it was built after 1990. Since the design and look of the building is protected, I don't believe any image of the building (and I believe that would apply to artistic representation of the building) cannot be copyright protected. If true, this would mean that Disney could take any image of the Tower to use how they wanted without fear of repercussion from the originator of the image because the person who generated the image has no copyright protection because Disney has protection on the Tower itself. Is it morally right if Disney? No... but are they protected legally? Seems they may be...

Again, this is just my interpretation of the law (hopefully someone better versed on copyright law can weigh in).
 

Ayla

Well-Known Member
I am by no means an expert in copyright law, but it seems like 17 U.S. Code § 102(8) might apply here. If I understand the law correctly, just the image of ToT may be protected since it was built after 1990. Since the design and look of the building is protected, I don't believe any image of the building (and I believe that would apply to artistic representation of the building) cannot be copyright protected. If true, this would mean that Disney could take any image of the Tower to use how they wanted without fear of repercussion from the originator of the image because the person who generated the image has no copyright protection because Disney has protection on the Tower itself. Is it morally right if Disney? No... but are they protected legally? Seems they may be...

Again, this is just my interpretation of the law (hopefully someone better versed on copyright law can weigh in).
Someone better versed already covered it in the twitter thread.
 

mikejs78

Well-Known Member
The thing people don’t realize is that Disney has a track record of doing this. A lot of their merchandise comes from ideas originally put on Etsy & Redbubble.

I’m just glad there’s a creator (other than Martin) who’s actually taking Disney head on with this
In the case of Etsy ideas, the creators there have absolutely no right to sell and profit off of Disney IP. Disney kind of turns a blind eye to it, but then appropriates some of the ideas. I think that's reasonable and far preferable to Disney going after Etsy sellers for copyright infringement (which would be Disney's absolute legal right). Same applies here. Disney could have gone after the YouTube creator for violating copyright. They didn't, but then used his idea.

Similar to how if you use copyrighted material in a YouTube video, it can be copyright claimed and a portion of the ad revenue then goes to the original copyright holder.
 

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