No, nothing felt here. ("Here" is 2 miles from the castle)
Especially so, given that this was not just a random van somewhere in the country, but one that was present specifically at a Pixar event. I don't know enough about intellectual property law to know whether seeing her van there and deciding to make the van in the movie look like it is a violation of any laws or a breach of any contracts, etc. Had they asked her to provide a van design for them, then do nothing about it or "buy" it, only for it to show up later in the movie, that would be a problem, I would think. Someone seeing her van at an event and thinking, that is cool, that would be great for those kids to drive around in something like that, I don't know what the law is. If that is a copyrighted piece of art, essentially, then yeah, it's probably an issue. By the same token, if animators used the Guggenheim as the basis to design a villain's headquarters, let's say, would that really be an issue? It may be a weird story in that the van itself is weird to begin with (the fact that it existed prior to the movie), but I certainly will not pass judgment on whether she has a valid claim.
In the US you have natural copyright, so the second you create something it is copyrighted. She'll have to prove it was created first and probably that Disney knowingly used it as inspiration. The fairytales are in the public domain now, so Disney can use them at will. But Disney wants everyone to respect their copyrights, they sold respect other's. Especially when they are the ones that fought for the extremely strong and never ending copyrights.
I know there are fair use standards and exceptions for satire. But I wouldn't think those applied in the case, with the van being a central part of the film. Then it also wasn't a passing thing one of the animators saw on the road and thought it was cool then made a derivative from it, they (allegedly) rented the van from her for the specific purpose of copying it. I know in a lot of copyright cases it is really hard to show infringement vs similar vs inspired, but in the case the proof of intent to infringe will be very obvious (if the facts are as stated).
Is this another Mater's Junkyard / Alien Saucers style whip ride?
Yeah. When I originally posted the article I wasn't thinking one way or the other about right or wrong. Just kind of amusing that they are getting sued over a unicorn painted van. Two sides to every story though, and so far we've only heard one. But it does look... not so good... for Disney on this one if she has her story right.
Not to mention that a Carmax commercial had a similar van in it. In fact, I believe it was a lot closer looking than the Pixar van.
Carmax van was the deluxe version. It had rainbows shooting out of the unicorn's nostrils:
