Is Fan art Copyright Infringement?
Under Siege is incorrect. Fan art and fan fiction have no protection against copyright infringement allegations. The only exceptions to copyright protections are those granted by Fair Use. Fan art does not fall under the Fair Use umbrella. Some authors/creators/artists support and allow fan art based upon their creation, but unless they have explicitly granted such permission, it's not allowed. The author of the Harry Potter stories successfully sued someone for creating a Harry Potter fan fiction. Whether your work is for profit or not doesn't make a distinction about whether or not it's permitted. That you made a profit off of it only comes into play in determining the amount of damages the copyright holder is able to claim (and whether or not criminal sanctions would be involved).
Copyright law allows parody under the “fair use” doctrine. Impersonators can imitate away! See What Is Fair Use?.When imitating Public Figures, meaning famous persons, or those who are trying to become famous, anything goes, including false statements and even character assassination that might otherwise qualify for libel or slander claims!
Question about My Little Pony Copyright Infringement?
Unfortunately, that's a risk you'd have to take if you want to make fan animations that way. Current copyright laws dictate that Hasbro HAS TO challenge ANY AND ALL infringements they become "aware" of. Of course in reality they know a ton about us and could easily shut down virtually every major brony site and remove all the content from places like YouTube, DeviantArt, etc. if they wanted, but they look the other way since we buy their stuff and are essentially free advertising for them. The problem is that current copyright laws were written before the times of fan works, or at least before the time they could be so easily accessed and shared e.g. the Internet. Because of this, they get thrown under the bus even if it doesn't negatively effect them or even if it's beneficial to the IP holder. All that said, a lot of people blow out of proportion how apparently evil Hasbro is and think they just like to torture us. It could be way worse. Back when Disney bought Star Wars, there were rumors they'd next buy Hasbro and the fandom minorly freaked out because Disney is notorious for being real hardasses about copyright. It'd have essentially meant the end of the fandom. So, if I were you, I'd still pursue your series. Even though they'd be OCs the style is still under protection, so there'd always be a risk, but until you became JanAnimations big, you'd be a non-issue, hiding in plain site in the masses upon masses of fan artists. Even if you do one day get C&D'd, you'd still have the memories, not to mention the extra experience working on a project would give you in ability too. Plus, even though your copy of the animation might be taken down, there'll still be copies. This is the Internet, nothing goes away forever, so the fandom could still enjoy your contribution. TL;DR: Do it anyways! What's life without a little risk? Besides, you'll be better off for the experience. Better to have animated and lost then never to have animated at all. Plus it could always be worse, MLP could be owned by Disney! *shudder* I hope I helped and have a nice day!
Would a fan animation likely be sued for copyright infringement?
If you want to use something for your own private educational purposes, you'll likely be okay. It's when you start putting things on the web and impacting the market for the original work that you're going to have problems, and difficulty claiming you're just learning and practicing. Yes, most fanworks don't get hunted down because creators don't want to disrupt their fans. What occurs is pretty clearly not the original work. And the impact tends to be minor enough that it's not worth suing over. It's not totally clear what you're planning to do, but if you even have to ask, I'd say it's too much. If you're going to invest any significant amount of time in anything that touches upon another's work, you need to be ready for what you do to be 100% private and educational only. Before you invest a lot in animating things, you should probably invest some basic time in making your own original character(s). ...And then see what you think when you put them on the web and others start making "fanworks" with what you've done.
Is it copyright infringement to produce fan works for a franchise?
Uploading is a form of "copying, distribution and public performance", each of which violates the copyright owners' exclusive rights unless you have a license. All images and sounds of any cartoon is copyrighted, so you would certainly be sued for copyright infringement if they catch you and believe you have enough money to make it worth taking you to federal court. Also, creating any "derivative work", i.e., dubbing, drawings of characters, etc, violate the copyright owners' exclusive right to prepare derivative works, so you can add that on top of the "distribution and public performance" for things that are not actually copied, but are derivative works. Violators can be sued for actual damages or up to $30,000 in statutory damages for each sound or image copied or modified without permission. If the court finds evidence that infringement was "willful", they can multiply the jury's verdict by a factor of five and add the plaintiff's court costs and attorneys' fees to what you would now owe. Whether the works are "removed" or not is irrelevant to whether you get sued. They have up to 3 years of statute of limitations to decide to sue you, and they don't have to ask YouTube to do anything other than provide your IP address and username as support for the subpoena to your internet service provider to get your true name and address, where you will be served with federal summons and complaint if not arrested under a federal indictment.
Your question details skipped a few steps you are likely to be considering which are relevant here.Writing the fan fiction, that is, sitting down on your PC and creating it, is essentially zero risk. But presumably you want to distribute the work for others to read.There are so many ways of doing this, so many delivery mechanisms, so many mediums. Your details skip this entirely, including whether you would be selling the works or posting it for free. Whether it would be on the Amazon store for self-publishing or if it would be uploaded to fanfic forums.That is where you generate risk. We can’t evaluate this without those details. (And, Catch 22, once you provide those details this becomes a request for specific legal advice, which non-lawyers cannot legally provide. Thus, I can’t answer your question now because it is vague, and won’t be able to answer it when you make it specific.)You also ask about a disclaiming. You definitely should add one. Recognition of your sources and attribution to the original creators is a very important standard. Obviously a plagiarism claim is meaningless on fanfic, but you should still hold to that standard.But it means absolutely nothing for the copyright infringement.
Oh yes! yes indeed. The Disclaimer (usually some variation on "No copyright infringement intended") is actually legally worthless, and usually inaccurate in any case.You *have* infringed copyright by using those characters, intentionally or not. You can't get around that fact that unless you get permission from the IP owner to use them, you are using their property in a way they may not like. Of course, they may love it and be totally willing to help, but it's just good manners to ask first. Fan fiction is tolerated by some creators, but not all, and there are limits.What you mean is that you don't intend to make money from using the characters, but that's not the same as copyright, that's a rights or licensing issue. And you can still get into trouble over that too.This may help you : https://debmcalister.com/2013/04...
U.S. perspectiveThe following first appeared in Dana H. Shultz's answer to How is fanfiction considered under copyright law? Although it discusses only fan fiction, it is likely to apply similarly to fan art. Furthermore, whether fan fiction or fan art is made available at no charge is irrelevant.As far as copyright law is concerned, fanfiction is nothing special - it’s just another literary work.This means that fanfiction may, but will not necessarily, infringe upon the copyright of the original work on which the fanfiction is based. The most likely defense to infringement, if it is available in a given case, would be fair use.A fair use analysis requires considering four statutory factors (see Chapter 1 - Circular 92). In each case, such an analysis is highly fact-specific.Of the four factors, the most important is the first, the purpose and character of the defendant’s use of the plaintiff���s copyrighted work.The analysis of this factor frequently is expressed in term of whether the defendant’s work is transformative, i.e., whether it adds something new with a further purpose or different character.Here are two cases concerning fanfiction-like works based on well-known antecedents that came to opposite conclusions concerning whether the fair use defense was available:Suntrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin[1] - An injunction prohibiting the publication of The Wind Done Gone, based on Gone With the Wind, was vacated (fair use defense applies - work is transformative because it is critical of the original work).Salinger v. Colting[2] - Preliminary injunction prohibiting publishing, advertising, or otherwise distributing 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, a derivative work of The Catcher in the Rye (no fair use because not transformative - just made the main character 60 years older).In summary, the treatment of fanfiction under copyright law, including whether the fair use defense to copyright infringement is available, is like the treatment of any other literary work.Footnotes[1] https://scholar.google.com/schol...[2] https://scholar.google.com/schol...
First of all, fair use is a U.S. exception to copyright law. Only Brazil and Israel have exactly copied that law. So if you are not in one of these three countries, it clearly is not fair use.Fair use has four rules, all of which have to be considered. The most relevant one here is: Purpose.Fair use is only available for the following purposes: Commentary (including parody), news reporting, academic use, review. If your fan comic fits one of those (which I really only see “commentary” being a possible fit”), then you have to look at the other rules.Are you forming a replacement product, something that competes with original? Are you copying the art? Is your new work sufficiently original to have its own copyright?So sure, you might fit into fair use. But here is the last bit of bad news: fair use is not a shield to getting sued. You have to prove fair use in court if the original owner elects to sue you, because fair use is a defense after-the-fact.