Fanart...

[Hakuro de Killer]

So apparently someone brought up the topic of Fanart during Con Feedback. They stated that "Fanart" was starting to get banned in certain conventions.

I personally don't mind so much about fanart as a WHOLE, but when it comes to art theft, I do agree that it needs to be dealt with in a similar manner to bootlegs. Though this much is obvious.

As for drawing your favorite characters, that should be fine. Would like to see more original art in the alley (referring to original characters, original settings, etc.), but typical, legitimate fanart doesn't bother me in general. Some artists' styles bug me, but that's merely my opinion and has no bearing on the issue at hand. Art theft annoys me. Plagiarism of ANY kind is terrible.

Anyway, since it was requested that it be talked about here, I thought I'd start the "legit" thread while we stick the "trollin'" thread over in Off-Topic.

[StarlitLullaby]

I am planning on doing a booth next year in AA, and a lot of my current art is focused more on Original works. I was concerned about selling that stuff, but I am glad to see that someone would not mind seeing original stuff. Hopefully there can be a nice mix of original work and fanart at next year's AA.

NOTE: I totally agree about the theft thing. >_>

[Archimer]

Fanarrhhhht....

We've been doing a lot of talking about the fanart issue in past years. It's an enormous can of worms, and I'm glad that we've started talking about it a bit here.

On one hand, dealers are not allowed to sell unlicensed depictions of copyrighted characters. On the other, fanart appears to be the bread-and-butter of most Artists' Alley participants.

This year, Art Staff decided to limit fan art pieces being sold, but such rules are difficult to enforce. I'm not the hippest Anime kid in the world, admittedly, and there are times when I do not recognize fanart.

Art theft is something that we never tolerate. If you notice art theft going on at any time in the Alley, please inform the art staff. Art Staff keeps an eye out for it, but it's tough to be keen on everything that's going on.

[Anidex]

Here's the thing though, unlicensed products are usually copying official merchandise. Or, are trying to look as official as it possibly can.   If it were art, it'd be like someone tracing or recolouring.

When someone draws fanart, so long as they're not tracing, redrawing, or recolouring, the artist is taking their time and effort to create something.  Great art is great art, regardless of the content.  If you want to argue fanart shouldn't be allowed, I would like to point out that several famous works of classical art can fall into that category.

I buy art that makes me happy, be it original or fanart.  Artists should be allowed to create whatever makes them happy.

And of course, with fanart the characters are more reconizeable, and the postive emotions people have attached to them help determine which fanarts people buy. With an original character, there's less of an attachment to people who are not familiar with the character.  I'm not going to buy something original, if it doesn't trigger an emotional (be it a happy or sad one) response.

I create my own original stuff, AND fanart.  People like what they like, and I'm not going to chew someone out or be offended if they like a fanart peice of mine over something original that I drew. That's just immature.

ALSO, to go off something Arch said, you only really know something is fanart if you know the characters are from something. I've seen plenty and purchased art before that was really fantastic, and found out later it was fanart. And you know? I didn't care -even if I ended up not liking the series - the art was WONDERFUL, and I wanted it. 

[Hakuro de Killer]

Here's the thing though, unlicensed products are usually copying official merchandise. Or, are trying to look as official as it possibly can.   If it were art, it'd be like someone tracing or recolouring.

When someone draws fanart, so long as they're not tracing, redrawing, or recolouring, the artist is taking their time and effort to create something.  Great art is great art, regardless of the content.  If you want to argue fanart shouldn't be allowed, I would like to point out that several famous works of classical art can fall into that category.

I buy art that makes me happy, be it original or fanart.  Artists should be allowed to create whatever makes them happy.

And of course, with fanart the characters are more reconizeable, and the postive emotions people have attached to them help determine which fanarts people buy. With an original character, there's less of an attachment to people who are not familiar with the character.  I'm not going to buy something original, if it doesn't trigger an emotional (be it a happy or sad one) response.

I create my own original stuff, AND fanart.  People like what they like, and I'm not going to chew someone out or be offended if they like a fanart peice of mine over something original that I drew. That's just immature.

ALSO, to go off something Arch said, you only really know something is fanart if you know the characters are from something. I've seen plenty and purchased art before that was really fantastic, and found out later it was fanart. And you know? I didn't care -even if I ended up not liking the series - the art was WONDERFUL, and I wanted it. 

I can definitely agree with this.

[StarlitLullaby]

Here's the thing though, unlicensed products are usually copying official merchandise. Or, are trying to look as official as it possibly can.   If it were art, it'd be like someone tracing or recolouring.

When someone draws fanart, so long as they're not tracing, redrawing, or recolouring, the artist is taking their time and effort to create something.  Great art is great art, regardless of the content.  If you want to argue fanart shouldn't be allowed, I would like to point out that several famous works of classical art can fall into that category.

I buy art that makes me happy, be it original or fanart.  Artists should be allowed to create whatever makes them happy.

And of course, with fanart the characters are more reconizeable, and the postive emotions people have attached to them help determine which fanarts people buy. With an original character, there's less of an attachment to people who are not familiar with the character.  I'm not going to buy something original, if it doesn't trigger an emotional (be it a happy or sad one) response.

I create my own original stuff, AND fanart.  People like what they like, and I'm not going to chew someone out or be offended if they like a fanart peice of mine over something original that I drew. That's just immature.

ALSO, to go off something Arch said, you only really know something is fanart if you know the characters are from something. I've seen plenty and purchased art before that was really fantastic, and found out later it was fanart. And you know? I didn't care -even if I ended up not liking the series - the art was WONDERFUL, and I wanted it. 

Couldn't have been stated any better.

[Archimer]

When someone draws fanart, so long as they're not tracing, redrawing, or recolouring, the artist is taking their time and effort to create something.  Great art is great art, regardless of the content.  

Yup, this too.

Money earned from fanart can be considered to be in exchange for a service rather than a product. It might be the act of drawing the picture instead of the picture itself.

[Junai_no_alex]

I think we need legit legal information.

[Tina]

On one hand, dealers are not allowed to sell unlicensed depictions of copyrighted characters. On the other, fanart appears to be the bread-and-butter of most Artists' Alley participants.

Was this rule enforced this year for dealers? Because there was most definitely fanart and unlicensed items being sold in the dealer's room.

It's hypocritical for me to point that out, however. I was also selling fanart in the AA and have been doing it forever, as well as original works of my own characters.

I think for things to be fair the rule has to apply for Dealers and AA.

[Hakuro de Killer]

Was this rule enforced this year for dealers? Because there was most definitely fanart and unlicensed items being sold in the dealer's room.

It's hypocritical for me to point that out, however. I was also selling fanart in the AA and have been doing it forever, as well as original works of my own characters.

I think for things to be fair the rule has to apply for Dealers and AA.

I think a point was made when it was brought up that folks in the AA are selling services rather than product whereas the dealers requisition these items and sell them in the dealer's room. So if the artist draws them, then they should be able to sell their works as the original artist of their works (by original, I mean of the works themselves, not of the characters or settings). That is the major difference between Dealer's Room and Artist's Alley. Because of this, the rules are different. It is against the rules for dealers to sell unlicensed works because the do not own ANY of the rights to it and (usually) it is not their legitimate creation that they are selling. Fanartists can sell unlicensed works because, while they also do not own any of the rights to it, they are legitimately creating their own works and using their skills to provide the service of creating these works of art.

But I can definitely see how there could be an issue. There's also the point of being unable to differentiate between original work and fanart if drawn in a certain style, because as has been said, there are some works which can be nigh unidentifiable as fanart merely because it looks so different in style or because it's from an obscure anime or because the characters are wearing different clothes that would otherwise distinguish them as the characters they are portraying.

[ragabash!]

I think we need legit legal information.

Absolutely before any official action we can take we really ought to consult some copyright lawyers.  Anyone know some that would like to donate their time? ^_^

Was this rule enforced this year for dealers? Because there was most definitely fanart and unlicensed items being sold in the dealer's room.

It was as best as our dealer's room staff can.  Remember we're all volunteers and most of us do not work in the industry or have intimate familiarity of all it's products.  So we can't know which things are bootlegs and which are not.  Oft times the dealers don't know themselves.  But this thread is for the discussion of fanart, not bootlegs.  We've already defined and developed a policy for bootlegs, and while the two may have similarities they are clearly different things.  Let's try to limit the discussion to fanart as the subject will be tough enough as it is.

I think for things to be fair the rule has to apply for Dealers and AA.

Again, two different things.  So I will respectfully disagree.  Dealers simply buy bootlegs from their distributors (whether they know it or not) and then sell them to us.  Artists recreate images of copyrighted characters and use their skills to create their wares.  Telling someone they can't sell something they created themselves, even if it is an image of someone else's Intellectual Property, would be tough for me to do.  And I'm good at telling people no.

Now that said, I think we probably can easily apply the No Bootlegs Policy to the AA.  Although it will be even tougher to enforce in the AA as we don't have access to all of the art books for every thing ever created.  But if we do see someone trying to sell scans of such art as their own, then that would fall under the No Bootlegs.  But that's not fanart!

So what is?  I mean how strictly do we enforce it?  When you get right down to it, Cosplay is Fanart!  People are creating their own versions of someone else's Intellectual Property.  Sure people who make their own costumes aren't making money off of the IP, but those who buy costumes are creating a transaction and the person who made the costume IS making money.  Think about it.  Ban Fanart, Ban Cosplay.  I don't think anyone wants that.  Okay maybe some people do, buncha prudes , but the majority won't.

So while I'm not a fan of fanart but I think it should be around.  It's one of major things that bring us in touch with our geekhood.  And until we can get some actual legal opinions, we should keep it.

[Tina]

But this thread is for the discussion of fanart, not bootlegs.  We've already defined and developed a policy for bootlegs, and while the two may have similarities they are clearly different things.  Let's try to limit the discussion to fanart as the subject will be tough enough as it is.

I was talking about fanart in the dealer's room. Fanart t-shirts, buttons, prints, etc.

That's why I said if you ban it in the dealer's room, you have to ban it in the AA too, to be fair. It's hard to know where to draw the line since fanart has been part of anime con AAs for so long and is a staple. Where do you draw the line on clever fanart t-shirts in the dealer's room and mass produced unlicensed items that these wares really are?

If the creator of some anime or cartoon gets mad that their intellectual property is being profited on without their knowledge or consent, it's going to be as bad as dealers selling bootlegs. It's still copyrighted material that's being mass produced, right? Either way it's not a licensed product.

I don't usually like to touch this subject since I like to sell fanart in the AA too, but it's an interesting topic. It really comes down to making a profit on copyrighted material you do not own is illegal. There's just always been this gray area at cons.

[ragabash!]

Ah!  Yes that is a fair point.  Anything that covers fanart in the AA would have to apply to the Dealer's Room as well.  Gotcha!  I'm certain that will happen when we put a policy in place.

[jekka]

I've always had an issue with the dichotomy between fanart and fanfiction, when it comes to proceeds made there-by.  You can draw a picture of the entire manga cast and sell it for moolas, but someone cannot write a story of that cast and sell it for moolas -- even if you spin it as a service, you can't pay me for writing a story about licensed materials.  So why should it work for artists?

[Tina]

I've always had an issue with the dichotomy between fanart and fanfiction, when it comes to proceeds made there-by.  You can draw a picture of the entire manga cast and sell it for moolas, but someone cannot write a story of that cast and sell it for moolas -- even if you spin it as a service, you can't pay me for writing a story about licensed materials.  So why should it work for artists?

It doesn't legally. I'm not sure why that "paying for a service" point is being made here. Might make people feel better about the situation, but it is still illegal.