Can an artist make an animation with a story that is heavily based/inspired/designed after popular games and their lore? Can he use actual items and characters that are in these games? I guess he is not allowed to earn money directly from selling an animation like this, but can he earn money indirectly though adds? what can be classified as fan art/fan fiction, what about fair use? Are responses to above questions different when involving different games?
An example; would a person be allowed to write and produce a story that mixes, say, Nintendo’s Mario story with something completely different like game aspects from Minecraft? Or maybe parts of The Last of Us with parts of the Assassin’s Creed universe and the Half Life universe?
You can earn money off advertisement on youtube if you do a parody of famous IP which you do not own.
If it is an original animation with the characters- you are in the clear. If it is a live action with the characters- ok.
If it is actual footage from the game- you might be in trouble- easpecially if in the footage there is music licensed to some license troll company.
It’s perhaps best to go and look for the answers at youtube or the website you will ultimately post this stuff on.
But it can been done, it’s been and still is done to death. A lot of online content creators make a living out of it.
alright, thanks for your reply, so I guess it is legal to use characters (their looks, personality, etc) as long as they are made by the artist himself? what about music? can he copy some track completely using his own software suite, use it with the his own fan-made game content in the animation and still have no legal problems?
will he be allowed to make an entire web-series (and eventually sell merchandise with the fan-made characters) using these copyrighted materials?
alright, thanks for your reply, so I guess it is legal to use characters (their looks, personality, etc) as long as they are made by the artist himself? what about music? can he copy some track completely using his own software suite, use it with the his own fan-made game content in the animation and still have no legal problems?
will he be allowed to make an entire web-series (and eventually sell merchandise with the fan-made characters) using these copyrighted materials?
Making your own assets from other people’s concepts is something of a grey area. You could make the argument the character/environment/vehicle concepts are the property of the original company, as are the actual tunes and arrangements used in the music. Thus, you are still profiting off their intellectual property and owe damages, etc, etc.
Personally, I wouldn’t try and make money off fan art. Aka, don’t sell prints of fan art stills, don’t enable monetization on fanart animations/videos, etc. Especially when you have to worry about things like YouTube copyright strikes. It would be difficult to get that taken off your channel if you are by your own admission using their concepts/music.
This is a very complicated and nebulous thing. It may be legal, it may not be. It may even depend on where you live (apparently Denmark), where the site(s) you’re hosting things on are located, where the IP holder is located…
Finally, consider a few other things. How would you feel if someone copied an idea from a render or concept you posted and started making money off it? You might be flattered, but you might also be a little annoyed that they’re making money off your ideas and not giving you any of it. And do you really want to make nothing but fan art? Playing in someone else’s sandbox is always restricting. You’re bound by their ideas and expressions, always. It can be easier not starting from scratch, but doing your own stuff is often more rewarding in the end. Mine other works for bits and ideas, but don’t copy them wholesale. It’s just better that way.
If your work is not “parody” or “critique”, fan art is probably in breach of copyright, even if it is not commercial or “for sale”. Having said that, some copyright owners tolerate fan art as long as it doesn’t impact on their sales. Google: “fan art copyright myths”.
it is legal to use characters (their looks, personality, etc) as long as they are made by the artist himself
no, strictly speaking, it isn’t legal. However, copyright is a civil, not a criminal issue, which means that it is enforced by the copyright owner bringing a lawsuit for infringement against the person using their character. This is how it becomes a grey area. Not all copyright owners know or care whether some fan somewhere has produced a copy of their work.
And if they do care, and they find out, there is still the cost/benefit calculation of a lawsuit. Their legal beagle may advise not to bother going after some starving fan artist. Unless, of course, the legal beagles work for Disney, who takes a very dim view of fan art. On the other hand, if they can stop an infringing work from being published by sending a ‘cease and desist’ letter to your ISP or to YouTube, they may go that route instead.
Fair Use is a concept that allows small snippets of someone else’s intellectual property to be used for criticism, explanation or education. If, for example, you wrote a tutorial on how to do some special Assassin’s Creed move, you could use a screenshot or two to illustrate your explanation and fair use would cover you. Or you may want to rant on how lame some character is: you could use an image of that character so people could see what you are talking about.
Yeah, I guess it is pretty much like entering a minefield… I guess it is safest to stay away from franchises made by companies like Disney (and I’ve heard that Nintendo is very strict as well), even though the project could be meant as non-profit. And if someone decides to use stuff from these franchises in a moderate-budget series, I guess the project is cursed to stay low profile forever
