A couple of weeks ago, coinciding with the D23 expo - which I did not go to :( - there was a special Disney Cruise - which I also did not go to :( - that had a presentation on Disney character voices featuring two Disney Legends - Kathryn Beaumont (Alice, Wendy) and Bill Farmer (Goofy). A friend of mine did go, and sent me the following photos he took at that presentation.
During this presentation they would project various fun images related to the two guest speakers. This one shows part of a promotional photo of Kathy dressed as Alice in front of lots of Mary Blair art.
This photo shows some stills of Kathy and Walt at the time she signed her contract. Hmmm.... something familiar about these....
Oh yeah, I had a post about the photo on the right about a year ago. Funny that they should choose that image... and look they even included the snipe on the back... funny that they had the same snipe... pretty amazing coincidence...
Or maybe not such a coincidence. Look at this. It isn't just another copy of the photo and snipe, it is the exact copy that resides safely in a binder in my collection. Look at the comparison below, you can see the identical hand written annotations in pen and red pencil, and the same foxing pattern and paper defects. Wow. Disney snagged this image from my blog for their presentation. I don't know if I'm amused or irritated. I think I'm leaning towards amused, since there's really nothing I can do, and it is sort of flattering that they used my images. Would've been nice to have been asked and/or credited tho'... I must say the funniest thing about this (to me at least) is the first line of the snipe - "WATCH YOUR CREDIT"
Looking closer at photo number one, I see another possible snag...the 40x60 movie poster in this post. Look to the left of the image of Kathy and you'll see the edge of the poster. This is a rare poster, I've never seen another one. While it is possible that Disney has one and they used its image here, it is such an unusual image and certainly not one in common use at Disney when promoting anything Alice related that I highly doubt it; they usually use the current DVD cover image. Go figure.
6 comments:
I'd be 95% flattered and 5% bemused. I've had some of my images "sniped" too, all I would ask is some credit like you wanted. Alice (like vintage DL tickets) is somewhat unique. I bet they goggled "Vintage Alice" and said "bingo" this is exactly what we need. Of course credit and an invite would have been nice...
Well, you have to figure that you've put a lot of wonderful material all in one place. So easy to "borrow" from for the least amount of effort! Once in a while I will get an email asking permission to use a photo from my blog, and I always say "yes". But I have also found photos from my blog on other blogs, uncredited (one of my photos of the Tower of the Four Winds was used on Boing Boing).
hiro - of course you may link to my blog...I was only complaining about people taking images off my blog and using them elsewhere.
Well at least we know the people putting together that "Alice" presentation drew from an excellent resource! :-)
The internet has surely made it much easier for lazy folks to do "research". The way I look at it, any Disney artifacts in our personal collections are still the intellectual property of Disney, whether or not Disney holds an exact duplicate of said artifact in their own archive. It's like when an original Disney cel or animation background is auctioned to the public, the image still belongs to Disney and the individual collector who purchased the artwork has no claim on the copyright and can't legally re-publish or duplicate the image.
In your case, since it's Disney borrowing something that belongs to Disney the only thing you can do is feel good that your preservation efforts are making the world a more enlightened place. I'd be flattered.
On the other side of the "berm", I've actually been in meetings at Disney where I've heard complaints regarding people uploading copyrighted Disney imagery onto the internet without first seeking Disney's approval or paying royalty. It's a two-way street.
As an artist who makes a living creating original imagery, I have experienced shock and dismay at seeing my own illustrations taken from my website and re-used without my permission. This past year a major clothing company in Southern California stole one of my illustrations and embroidered it onto a line of shirts and shorts. You can imagine how I felt about that... FAR from flattered!
@Kevin - wow, that is truly despicable, profiting off yor artwork without your permission...can't think how I'd react to that, not well I'm sure.
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