@WM-R
A drawing of a Zaku is copyrighted by the artist (or the artist’s employer if it’s made under contract); the design of the Zaku mobile suit is a Bandai trademark. If someone else made a comic with an obvious Zaku-based design– and it wasn’t an obvious parody/satire/shoutout/commentary– they would be subject to trademark infringement C&D if Bandai cared enough to do so.
Out of curiosity, though, what would be an example of copyright? Official artwork of, say, Char Aznable would be copyright, but what about things like the design of the mecha? The Zaku, for example, has a rather distinctive silhouette.
To clarify the difference since so many people seem to be unclear on it: copyright refers to a specific work of art– a picture, a song, a script, etc.– while trademark refers to the concept which the work of art is about. This image of Pinkie Pie, for example, is copyrighted, while Pinkie Pie (the character and her name/likeness) is trademarked.
Ah, alright then. Hard to tell without body language or tone to help.
But upon checking my earlier post, I did indeed use copyright when trademark was more accurate, so my apology for the mistake was still warranted. Heh.
I’m going to assume that was directed to me, so just in case, allow me to apologise.
But I stand by my example. Bandai didn’t defend their copyri- their trademark, so they effectively lost it. I’m sure they’ve since reclaimed it, but it’s still a pretty dramatic lesson.
@Background Pony #502E
From what I understand, the big issue is the fact that Jan’s stuff is generally of a rather high quality and could be confused with the actual show. You’ll recall that a lot of the praise he gets includes things like, “I’d swear I was watching the actual cartoon!” That’s the sort of thing the lawyers get antsy about.
To give an example, for a long time in South Korea, Bandai wasn’t able to copyright the word Gundam. This was because by the time Bandai thought to copyright and defend Gundam, it’d been used by pretty much everyone to refer to any giant robot (even completely unrelated ones like, say, the Transformers). And for Hasbro, the fact they lost the trademarks to some of their most famous characters (e.g. Shockwave and Bumblebee) would likely make their lawyers even more cautious.
There’s probably some legal mumbo-jumbo that prevents them from doing that, I guess. I imagine at least one person in Hasbro’s departments brought it up, only to have it shot down.
@FanOfMostEverything
To me simply look like they refuse free ads. Are they aware that if not cause people like Jan and the others there would be probably not a single adult wanting to buy official MLP merchandise? That fananimators/artists/whatever just make MLP more popular even between those the show would not targeted?
They are so obsessed by “mah copyright! dontouch it! MINEMINEMINE!!!1!” that are unable to see the big picture. Those cease and desist are very likely going to make them loose more money than any fanartist/animator could do.
@Archonix
There’s rather quite a huge difference, legally speaking. Hasbro doesn’t give two sniffs about Fanart Which Is Obviously Fanart, because unless it’s somehow making millions of dollars and/or managing to compete directly with their licensed products, it’s not cutting into their profit enough to make a lawsuit sufficiently slamdunk to be worth undertaking; a pro-level animated short– or a pro-level fighting game, as the case may be– which could easily be mistaken for a licensed product even though Hasbro had no control over its making, that is a clear enough example of dilution that their IP lawyers could send an intern to argue it in court and still win.
@Background Pony #502E
There’s just a wee bit of difference between a static image on DA and a professional quality animated short that uses exact likenesses and could easily be mistaken for an actual Hasbro product.
@WM-R
And how the hell shutting down no-profit fan animators and fan amateur game developers that share their works for free help them to prevent that?
And most importantly why everyone always shit their pants so much when they receive those cease and desist? What is the worst that can happen to you if you are “guilty” to freely share fanworks? Why Jan is different from any deviant art artist or fanfiction writer?
I don’t see it so much as killing the fun as it is doing their jobs. The sad fact of the matter is that if Hasbro doesn’t defend their copyrights, someone else might try to make money off of them. Imagine, for example, someone selling an Optimus Gundam or something.
I frankly feel just as sorry for Hasbro’s PR guys as I do for Jan and company. They’re the ones who have to explain to the fans why they had to shut down such a popular animator.
@WM-R
Yeah, silly lawyers… they always kill the fun.
But I agree and I’m happy to see that they protect their intellectual property and stuff… although with this way they are fighting against fan content, it eventually helps to prevent or at least reduce piracy or avoid other toys companies to copy their products.
I would also like to point out Hasbro itself wasn’t the one behind the C&D, it was their legal department. Hasbro has been either supportive or at least indifferent to fanworks in general. I’m willing to bet that a lot of the employees actually enjoyed the JanAnimations stuff.
But then the lawyers will step in and go, “You can’t let this continue. Too many things can go wrong.”
@HamburgerTime
Yes, it’s true… but in other hand, he can’t risk his career as an animator; so he must follows Hasbro’s orders on this.
Besides this is the internet… there will always be mirrors of his work out there; and people will continue to support him for that, even those who didn’t know him before.
