# How Do you Get Away With FanArt Commissions????



## Charrio (Dec 6, 2007)

Ok i have seen many go by in the past, and the recent uploads make me have to ask.

HOW THE HELL DO YOU GET AWAY WITH COMMISSIONS DOING FANART??

I mean your selling art involving Copyrighted Characters, how do you not get SUED?

How does FA allow Copyrighted commissions to go up in the gallery?

Is this just a i will draw anything and have no legality issues and don't care about being sued?

Please i really would like to know, can you tell me?


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## Infinity (Dec 6, 2007)

Technically you can get away with it falling under parody. Plus the person who sues you will have to prove in court that they were losing money for you taking a commission. The legal fees involved would not be worth the hassle or trouble. Plus it wouldn't look good on the company's rep. Unless you're doing a large scale animation/comics/manga/whatever I don't think you're going to have to worry about something like a $10 commission.


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## Charrio (Dec 6, 2007)

Infinity said:
			
		

> Technically you can get away with it falling under parody. Plus the person who sues you will have to prove in court that they were losing money for you taking a commission. The legal fees involved would not be worth the hassle or trouble. Plus it wouldn't look good on the company's rep. Unless you're doing a large scale animation/comics/manga/whatever I don't think you're going to have to worry about something like a $10 commission.



Ohhhh, i see ok now it is making more sense


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## Eevee (Dec 6, 2007)

Because big companies don't care about people who sell art with their characters for $20.  Hiring a lawyer would cost more than they could possibly squeeze out of such a person, _and_ they would piss off their fanbase.



			
				Infinity said:
			
		

> Technically you can get away with it falling under parody.


Technically, no.


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## LimeyKat (Dec 6, 2007)

Parody isn't always applicable, but as said before - some companies don't bother troubling themselves.


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## Tucuxi (Dec 6, 2007)

My ex got away with doing this. He would get requests for the Hulk or Superman or something. He'd sell the sketches for like $5. Not gonna hurt Marvel or DC's bottom line much, eh?


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## Stratelier (Dec 7, 2007)

Ah, the old logic of "what they don't know can't hurt them", right?

But the real bottom line is that your husband probably isn't the only one who does this.  If there are even 1,000 people (in a country of near 300 mil) that do this, and they sell only 10 sketches a year (less than one a month), that's $50,000 of money made off of DC's intellectual property each year.  *That* ain't so little.



> Technically you can get away with it falling under parody.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody

As has been pointed out, it's not a blanket term for using someone else's creations for your own purposes.


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## Poetigress (Dec 7, 2007)

I just consider it unprofessional (or at the very least, bad karma) for an artist to make money off someone else's characters without their permission.  (Fanart, gift art, requests, trades -- all that seems fine to me as long as it's not paid work.)

I mean, for me what it comes down to is, I wouldn't want someone doing that with _my_ creations, so I wouldn't want to do it myself, even if the victim is a big company with a ton of money who probably wouldn't take action against me.  

For me it's about ethics more than legality, I guess.


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## ArrowTibbs (Dec 7, 2007)

Well, while commissions of a specific character are a major no no in my opinion I do make a few exceptions:

Fan characters: Okay because it's not so much a character as a style or species.
Gift art: Someone commissioning a picture of someone else's character as a gift to them.


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## TehSean (Dec 7, 2007)

I don't care in any capacity as long as it forwards any sentiment toward creativity.


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## Infinity (Dec 8, 2007)

The purchaser/artist can merely say they did it for parody and there's really nothing anyone can do about that. That's why I said you can get away with it being parody, I apologize for not going into specifics.


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## Eevee (Dec 8, 2007)

Parody is not a magical shield against intellectual property owners.  Drawing your Digimon character humping a fox is not parody.


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## Bokracroc (Dec 8, 2007)

Dictionary.com says:


> 1.	a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious piece of literature or writing: his hilarious parody of Hamlet's soliloquy.
> 2.	the genre of literary composition represented by such imitations.
> 3.	a burlesque imitation of a musical composition.
> 4.	any humorous, satirical, or burlesque imitation, as of a person, event, etc.
> ...



I doubt Porn comes under any of those.
_DEFENCE BREAK!_


At base: The reason you can get away with it is because they choose to let them. You're not worth suing.


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## Infinity (Dec 8, 2007)

Eevee said:
			
		

> Parody is not a magical shield against intellectual property owners.  Drawing your Digimon character humping a fox is not parody.


You can say you did it for parody for various reasons, if no one can prove that it isn't parody then no one can really do anything to you.


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## Dragoneer (Dec 8, 2007)

Eevee said:
			
		

> Parody is not a magical shield against intellectual property owners.


No, but the Chewbacca defense holds water.


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## Xenofur (Dec 8, 2007)

2 simple reasons.

1: you can't copyright characters. the only thing you can copyright is an actual physical (includes digital) creation, of which characters can be a part of; but as soon as you take the characters out of the context of that work all bets are off.

2: characters can be trademarked and trademarks defended, however...


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## Eevee (Dec 9, 2007)

Infinity said:
			
		

> You can say you did it for parody for various reasons, if no one can prove that it isn't parody then no one can really do anything to you.


Please stop internet lawyering.  You do not have gaping loopholes via which you can do anything you wish with a corporation's property.  Porn is miles away from any conceivable definition of "parody", as it does not in any way serve to make fun of the original work or, indeed, anything at all.  Besides that it hurts the public's impression of the property, which nullifies even the most obvious claims to fair use.

You don't get to dick around with "lalala you can't prove me wrong therefore I'm right" in court.  If you can't prove _you_ are correct, then by default the copyright holder wins; fair use is an exception, not the rule.  Please look into burden of proof; this sad excuse for logic is rampant and irritating.


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## TehSean (Dec 9, 2007)

I always thought that because SO MANY PEOPLE do it on SO MANY LEVELS, not just visually, but writing slash/fanfiction, too that the companies would basically not be able to go after everyone at once and that it was expected that people would take their creations and run wild with them.

Look at Japanese porn at a glance. An entire industry of manga......... and stuff. So uh. They get away with it because.  Everyone else can and the laws are, for the most part. Unenforcible.


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## Ceceil Felias (Dec 9, 2007)

TehSean said:
			
		

> Look at Japanese porn at a glance. An entire industry of manga......... and stuff. So uh. They get away with it because.  Everyone else can and the laws are, for the most part. Unenforcible.


There are so many things which I could pick apart about this post, but as I've dipped into the rum a little I'll stick with the basics.

Japan != America, where a majority of the infractions being told of in this thread are taking place as well as where a majority of the involved corporations are located in.

Especially important is that Japan's creative media practices != America's.

Do not try to use one (already faulty) explanation to cover for the cause of another, because it just doesn't work.


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## Infinity (Dec 10, 2007)

Eevee said:
			
		

> Please stop internet lawyering.  You do not have gaping loopholes via which you can do anything you wish with a corporation's property.  Porn is miles away from any conceivable definition of "parody", as it does not in any way serve to make fun of the original work or, indeed, anything at all.  Besides that it hurts the public's impression of the property, which nullifies even the most obvious claims to fair use.
> 
> You don't get to dick around with "lalala you can't prove me wrong therefore I'm right" in court.  If you can't prove _you_ are correct, then by default the copyright holder wins; fair use is an exception, not the rule.  Please look into burden of proof; this sad excuse for logic is rampant and irritating.


Well, specifically show me where I'm wrong then. Nothing is really clearly defined for these specific situations. If an artist who drew a "fan art commission" did not say anything that would contradict them saying it was for parody, there is really nothing from preventing them to say that they did it for parody. It is something that you can't really prove or disprove, okay?

Perhaps there's something I've missed, so here's the link...

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html


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## TehSean (Dec 10, 2007)

I don't see everyone doing Portal porn getting sued left and right. 

I stand by the idea that it's unenforcible.


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## Ceceil Felias (Dec 10, 2007)

Bokracroc said:
			
		

> At base: The reason you can get away with it is because they choose to let them. You're not worth suing.


Bokracroc won this thread a while ago. He explained it quite clearly and quite truthfully.

To clarify, chances are the only way you would be worth suing is if the sold art is drawing enough revenue away from the sales of the company's merchandise, or if the art is of a questionable nature and becomes widely-known enough that it could hurt said company's reputation.

Or if the company in question is Disney. :x OHBURN.

Edit: DIE EMOTES


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## Charrio (Dec 10, 2007)

TehSean said:
			
		

> I don't see everyone doing Portal porn getting sued left and right.
> 
> I stand by the idea that it's unenforcible.



Yeah when i see those *MOUNTAINS of fanart comics On PAY SITES* advertised and some posted here, at FA i am starting to be inclined to agree. Most of which are blatantly Using the original toons name and rep.


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## Ceceil Felias (Dec 10, 2007)

Hellooo? Thread over? Bokracroc won?

I don't see why this is so hard to get, unless you guys can't accept that you aren't significant enough for a company to bother going through the effort to file a lawsuit.


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## TehSean (Dec 10, 2007)

So what did they win?


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## Ceceil Felias (Dec 10, 2007)

TehSean said:
			
		

> So what did they win?


A fresh shiny new internet.


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## TehSean (Dec 10, 2007)

How many internets does this fellow contain?


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## Ceceil Felias (Dec 10, 2007)

I dunno, but considering his recent exploits, I'd say he's been rewarded quite a lot of them in the past.


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## TehSean (Dec 10, 2007)

I wanna play video games with him now.


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## davemobile (Dec 19, 2007)

I met a guy at a convention that runs a small business dealing in mostly handmade merchandise. He mentioned that he'd get in legal wrangles with big companies like Lucasarts. He said it all boiled down to if they got pissed off over it, he'd remove any official pictures or photographs of star wars characters from the merchandise, anything that they'd done that they owned the copyright over. But... he'd keep selling his own work, his own pictures of their characters (which was the real meat and gravy of the business, he'd occasionally slap a few shooped official images on some items, but nothing he was trying to make any real money off of); because the artist is the copyright holder of the image he's created. That image becomes the artist's interpretation of the character. 

But... well, the whole thing is a bit of a grey area, theres no firm yes or no answer. As it's already been stated, if it's for parody it's fine (and that is a VERY broad definition, and yes it includes porn), and if they did decide to take it to court they'd have to prove that the artist was causing them to lose revenue. If (and it's a big if) some company did get pissed off at an individual artist, they'd probably just start off with issuing a cease and desist notice and flexing some legal muscle, just to scare the guy senseless; it probably wouldn't go to court.


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## SFox (Dec 19, 2007)

Bokracroc said:
			
		

> Dictionary.com says:
> 
> 
> > 1.	a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious piece of literature or writing: his hilarious parody of Hamlet's soliloquy.
> ...



I don't know, a great majority of the Sonic fanart out there I would say falls under number 8.


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## Bokracroc (Dec 20, 2007)

Is it intentional (at the time of creation) though?


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## Taralack (Dec 23, 2007)

somberfox said:
			
		

> Bokracroc said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



LOL! So true.


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## GoldenSlumbers (Dec 23, 2007)

I don't know how anyone ever gets away with being paid for drawing neopets fanart for either NP or real money because if neopets catches wind of it you get instant banned. It really sucks because a good anthro artist can make something look like a gelert without actually ripping into the original design.

Are most other pet websites like this?


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## Bokracroc (Dec 23, 2007)

Or you could use a different name on each site.


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