Fan Art Copyright Infringement
You can create fan art for your own personal use or to give as a gift but the moment you offer that work for sale it ceases to be fan art and becomes a commercial product.
Fan art copyright infringement. You can t sell fan art without a license. The key point to remember is this. Fan fiction and fan art are usually an infringement of the right of the copyright holder to prepare and license derivative works based on the original.
Some intellectual property owners may see a specific use as free advertising fan art or otherwise fair. Fan art is an expression of inspiration taken from another artist s work. Anyone who does it can be sued.
I know you are just trying to add to their company but they are fierce about protecting their copyright and they want to control the products that are put out for their business. While this can be a stretch for most fan art it might work for you if all else fails. What is not fine is selling your fan art.
Even if you don t use the character s names it s copyright infringement. The owner of a copyright controls where and how their work is copied displayed distributed performed and what derivative works are made. Using the names is trademark infringement so inspired by pieces are still illegal.
Argue that your fan art constitutes fair use. Fan art can be considered a derivative work therefore most fan art is an infringement of dc s copyright. Fan fiction and fan art falls squarely into the murky realm of copyright and fair use.
Disney fan art policy let s talk a wee bit about fan art. All intellectual property owners have the same ideas regarding fan art. However others may see a similar use as lost licensing profits branding issues and or copyright infringement.
This makes fan art doubly problematic because whilst rights holders might indulge communities by conditionally allowing the creation of themed artwork 8 the issue becomes exacerbated the moment such content appears alongside any form of monetisation websites that tout for subscriptions or memberships that sell other services or just display plain old banner advertising even though. Disney fan art is fine to do of course. But copyright law has a doctrine called fair use that in the name of free speech protects certain uses that would otherwise be an infringement.
The fair use doctrine promotes freedom of expression by allowing some use of a copyrighted work if it s considered fair the two biggest categories are commentary and criticism and parody.
