Can You Sell Fan Art Of Celebrities
The fair use doctrine takes into consideration whether the work was created for a nonprofit purpose and some courts place the most weight on the fourth factor the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Can you sell fan art of celebrities. The basic law is that whoever holds the copyright to a certain thing has the sole right to make and sell derivative works including sequels based on the original concept even characters in a book or plot elements can have copyright protection. This there is a reason that on places such as deviantart drawings of celebrities which constitutes fan art can t be sold as prints etc it literally removes that option when you put it into that category. If you make a single painting of a celebrity and sell the painting chances are the celebrity will not come after you.
The chances of this being granted to a small operator is very small. Fair use does not protect those who sell the fan art or otherwise make money by using copyrighted work. Only 30 of your prints can feature copyrighted characters or they ve limited the amount of an item featuring fan art that you can sell i e.
I m not a lawyer but i don t think you ll run afoul of any copyright laws by painting celebrities. You need to understand that selling fan art whether you can get away with it at a trade show on your website or without getting a cease and desist is not a good idea. You can apply to the copyright owner for written permission or consent.
How to sell fan art legally. Random fan art guy is going to make a few dozen prints and sell them for a couple bucks. If you want to create and or sell fan art legally it s good idea to start by watching the video and reading the articles referenced in this post which contain additional references and resources you can use to help stay on the legal side of fan art.
It is done often both for personal sale by artists and artists also sell their work to magazines and newspapers for illustration purposes. It would cost them more money to answer that phone call than they could possibly recoup so there s no incentive for them to do it. You can only bring 10 copies of any print featuring copyrighted characters.
There are a few things you can do to sell fan art legally and not fall foul of the law. Sale of a single painting probably does not harm the celebrity s ability to exploit his image and name commercially and the damages that the celebrity would be able to prove from your use of his image in this single painting would probably be minor. Some anime shows have begun limiting the amount of fan art you can bring.
I m saying all of this because i know a lot of people are naive about copyright infringement and the legalities of selling fan art.
