Video Game Forums

You know, at the bottom of alot of comic websites, the legal rights and stuff. When people post like "these following characters are COPYRIGHT to me.. blah blah blah" Half the people on the internet don't even know what that is, what it means, or anything. First off, you have to pay for them under some copyright thing. you have to fill out a big ass form for them to be LEGALLY yours. So like, unless you go through this process (which would be hella pointless unless you plan to be some big coperate orginization and you are like outta college and stuff..) just say they are characters I made up, if you use them, please don't be cheap and really stupid (and other bad names), and give me some credit. Cuz that is all you can do. Plus, if someone steals your characters, there is nothing you can do about it, unless you LEGALLY copyrighted them. (plus, you still can't do nothing about, unless they took your work and sell it. see the next paragraph)

Also, it is very optional to put "Mario, Luigi, etc.. are copyright to Nintendo" They cannot sue the beans out of you no matter what, due to the Fair Use Rule of the United States Copyright Act of 1976, unless you make money off of their characters, which THEY designed. if you do your on art based on them, then that is ok.

the main idea is to give you guys some knowledge on legal info, and for anyone who puts false legal things liek this, change it. Because it makes me cringe when people put fake legal info and all that. I think putting false stuff like that can actually get you into legal trouble and stuff For misuse of Copyright or something like that. (I think, I am not sure though)

[ February 08, 2003, 07:04 PM: Message edited by: PhilTheExtraGuy ]

Yeah. But I think a lot of sites, like 8-bit I believe, make money from their site trying to claim they have a right to because of that Fair Rights law. Which is just wrong. I don't make any money at all from NC. But I do give credit to Nintendo, simply because it's the right thing to do. And this is why I don't sell NC T-shirts.-jay

[ February 08, 2003, 07:12 PM: Message edited by: Perrin Aybara - MJAASHCBYA ]

^I agree, it is always good to give credit to the people in the comics if they are not yours. But the main thing, because what really bugs me, is when people say you have absolutely no permission to use my characters because they are copyright and property to me and I will sue you if you use them and they totally aren't copyrighted, and there is no way they can sue you. I think it's be best just to say "You can use the characters I made, just please give me some credit for them". But legally, you don't have to. But I think it should be necessary to give credit to the characters you use in your comics. they should make that a law.

[ February 08, 2003, 07:32 PM: Message edited by: PhilTheExtraGuy ]

1. The minute you create an ORIGINAL piece of art it's protected by Copyright, you don't actually have to register for it (not anymore). (It should be noted though that Sprite Comics that are comprised of actual video game sprites are most likely not original enough to be protected by copyright.)

2. Memory serves the form is actually about 3-5 pages long and it only cost (last I checked) $25 dollars to register a Copyright. The advantage to registering is that it gives you a better chance at succeeding in a legal case.

3. "Fair Use" only applies if you're using someone else's work in an educational nature: i.e. for book reports, news stories, etc. Parody is also allowed under Fair Use (although I believe to an extant). You should always credit the original creator. Fair Use does not allow you to do whatever you want with someone else's work (that includes making money off of it or taking credit for it's creation).

4. You are not allowed to remove legal information from an image. Doing so can result in you getting sued for damages regardless of whether or not a Copyright is registered (per the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998"). Removing / changing / altering a Copyright notice in any way is illegal.

Feel free to read about it here...

http://www.rightsforartists.com/siteindex.html

http://www.whatiscopyright.org/

http://www.utexas.edu/courses/kincaid/dean/copyrt.html

http://chillingeffects.org/fanfic/

and of course here...

http://www.loc.gov/copyright/

[ February 10, 2003, 04:44 AM: Message edited by: Riptide ]