'Vanicorn' Lawsuit Filed over Pixar, Disney Film

San Francisco tattooist Sweet Cicely Daniher likes unicorns. She's authored a book about unicorn imagery. She's painted a unicorn mural on her '72 Chevy van that's been featured in San Francisco Magazine. "At the risk of belaboring the point," her attorneys wrote in a complaint that has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, "the plaintiff has had a real thing for unicorns, for a very long time, and they have been a central theme and subject matter of her artistic work, throughout the entirety of her career."

Now, Daniher alleges, Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group have tricked her into letting them use her "Vanicorn" in the upcoming film Onward. Her suit accuses the companies of copyright infringement, and violations of state and federal laws protecting artwork.

Daniher v. Rae, 3:2020cv00612, alleges that in September 2018, Pixar production office manager Jane Clausen contacted Daniher and told her that the company "just stumbled upon a badass photo of you and your amazing van in San Francisco Mag and shrieked with joy." Would Daniher be willing to rent the Vanicorn to Pixar for a "one day music festival/activity day for Pixar employees and families" later that month? "Your van would just be a show piece and not used in any way other than a visual prop," Clausen allegedly wrote.

Daniher agreed and signed a contract stating that all rights of every kind "arising out of the use of the vehicle in connection with the production shall be solely owned in perpetuity, throughout the universe, by any means, devices, or methods, now known and unknown and in any media, now known and unknown," by Pixar and anyone to whom it assigned the rights.

Daniher's lawyers, Jared Weinstock of Los Angeles and J. Conor Corcoran of Philadelphia, contend the phrase "in connection with the production" limits those rights to the Pixar employee event held Sept. 14, 2018.

Eight months later Daniher learned that Pixar was producing a 3D computer-animated motion picture titled Onward. The movie features a character named Guinevere, a dark blue 1972 Chevrolet G10 van with "a big mural of a unicorn on its side" that is "clearly a direct copy and/or visual duplication and/or doppelganger of the plaintiff's Vanicorn, down to the very same year, make and model," the complaint alleges.

According to a Pixar fan blog attached to the complaint, Pixar Creative Director Jay Ward took the lead on getting the van built. "This meant finding the right donor vehicle, overseeing the shop crew who was doing the work and granting creative approvals along the way," according to blogger Dan the Pixar Fan.

Daniher says she gave no such approval. She alleges that, after registering her disapproval on Instagram, Onward producer Kori Rae called her and apologized, allegedly explaining that Pixar had to rely on the employee event subterfuge "because at that time, the movie had no title, and the defendants believed they couldn't have the plaintiff sign a non-disclosure agreement without a title."

Daniher is seeking to enjoin Pixar and Disney from distributing Onward and any Guinevere merchandise that infringes Daniher's copyright.

"To be absolutely clear, the plaintiff is not claiming that she possesses a general copyright prohibiting, or in any way forbidding, the rightful ability of any person (or any company, for that matter) to paint a unicorn on the [side] of their van," Weinstock and Corcoran write. But, they say, "Defendants have unquestionably used the plaintiff's copyrighted Vanicorn to be the Guinevere character in Onward."

Intellectual property litigator Lawrence Townsend of Owen, Wickersham & Erickson, who's not involved in the case, said that if the allegations are true, Daniher would have a strong case that Pixar had access to her work.

But Townsend said he doubts the Vanicorn would meet even the copyright-infringement standard of substantial similarity, rather than precise copying. The animal on the Pixar van has wings and no horn, making it a Pegasus, not a unicorn, he noted, and they're depicted in different postures. While the similarity between the two vans could be evidence of Pixar's access to Daniher's work, the van itself is "a useful article" that would be irrelevant to the similarity analysis.

"You can't point to, 'We both used the same medium,'" Townsend said. He also said it would not be copyright infringement if Pixar had simply wanted to study her van up close to see how certain technical features were accomplished in scaling and fitting them properly.

Daniher's complaint also accuses Pixar and Disney of violating the federal Visual Artists Right Act and the California Artists Protection Act. The companies have taken distorted, modified or mutilated "a highly personal and public transubstantiation of [Daniher's] personality," her complaint alleges, by using it as "a commercial and corporate conduit for the aspirations of a pair of blue boy elves looking for their father in a mass marketed Disney film."

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Scott Graham covers intellectual property for ALM, which publishes Entertainment Law & Finance. He can be reached at [email protected].