[ SECRET POST #2868 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2868 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 075 secrets from Secret Submission Post #410.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Fanartists are paid for commissions all the time. Don't see why this would be different.

[(Anonymous)]

I know it's not a popular opinion, but I think it's shitty for fanartists to take commissions for fanart, too. Especially if it's ultimately mass/majorly produced like prints or slapping the fanart on bags, bookmarks, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed, but I gotta appreciate that fanartists managed where fanfic writers never could.

[(Anonymous)]

Its because the art model of economics comes from different routes than literary does. The way literary economics works is that it is mostly evolved from stage plays and playrights (and their, often Royal, backers) were redhot on who gets compensated for coming up with a story. Within the art world (meaning paintings/drawings etc.), it was seen as contributing to the pool of common culture from which others were as free to draw. The case law for the two, and the cultural consensus, has travelled along different paths. For things like comics and mangas, this created some problems.

[(Anonymous)]

Not too much into the comic scene, would you mind elaborating some on those issues?

[(Anonymous)]

Well it being a partly visual partly literary just means that it has a fanbase which has massively opposing views on whether it is acceptable to do things like fancomics and the japanese name for fancomics.

[(Anonymous)]

I think they're both... legal gray areas at best. Okay, more like blatantly illegal.

But I do see it as more excusable to to sell a physical copy of fanart, at say, a convention. The justification being, it's the cost of print and supplies, not the cost of the actual art. Whereas a digital copy would have no print cost, whether fanfiction or fanart, so seriously is illegal.

The only thing I could think that would make it legally permissible is if it were a private transaction between friends for private use. Setting up a pseudo business to get commissions from around the Internet definitely wouldn't qualify.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't buy the cost of supplies argument. Maybe if the artist was actually selling their work literally "at cost"... but they rarely are, are they?

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Nor do I. Especially since most artists I've seen who offer commissions draw the art on tablets, already have their tablets that they use to draw with.

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly. If I'm making cookies for a bake sale, I don't add up the total cost of all the ingredients. I try to figure out the cost of the actual amount of ingredients used in the batch. For example, a 5 lb. bag of flour might cost $2.50, but I didn't use the whole bag in the cookies. Ditto a bottle of vanilla extract vs the 2 tsp. used. Or the cost of a dozen eggs vs. the cost of 1 egg. And I don't include the cost of the Kitchenaid mixer I used.

[(Anonymous)]

But if you were a professional cookie manufacturer you'd have to add in the cost of that mixer, as well as rent and electricity and the cost of training, plus interest on the loans you bought everything with.

Not everything goes by bake sale economics. Rather poor example.

[(Anonymous)]

I would, but that cost would be divided up over time and over all the product I'd be selling, roughly calculated so that the cost of the usage to create that product would be included. In other words, I wouldn't expect one batch of cookies to cover the cost for one whole Kitchenaid mixer, which is what I said.

So it's actually a pretty good example, except that you missed the point.

[(Anonymous)]

Actually if you were a professional cookie manufacturer you would most likely offset most of those expenses against tax, so you wouldn't be charging your customers for them anyway.

I'm self empployed and even things like using part of my house's heating bill to heat my office can be claimed as a work expense so I don't pass that bill onto my clients.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, no. Though they are also standing around manning a booth all weekend, to be fair. Some labor cost there, surely.

Even though I don't think it necessarily justifies selling a fanwork, there's at least some basis there that doesn't exist with selling digital art or fanfiction (unless you hypothetically printed and bound a fanfic to sell at a con, I suppose)

[(Anonymous)]

Tell you what

Let's just disregard all talent, time, and effort put into fanworks and focus entirely on physical materials, because that's how you price crafts in the real world.

...oh, wait, you don't.

[(Anonymous)]

Course not. But you're talking about fanworks. Not crafts. Fanworks use, by definition, things that don't belong to you, things you shouldn't have the right to profit on. Cost of print is the only somewhat vaguely legitimate argument for selling a fanwork I've ever heard.

[solticisekf]

well, the tablet pen's end needs changing if it's used a lot. So there's that.

[(Anonymous)]

The law sees artwork and written word very differently. There is a treatment of visual arts under copyright law in case law that treats being 'inspired' by the real world--including pop culture--and other art as inherent to art, combined with the assumption that the way one artist draws a character is distinctly different from other forms of it in a way that makes it distinct for copyright.
Which doesn't mean that fanart is totally legal, especially when you are dealing with *trademarked* characters, which is a totally different set of laws. Campbell's has admitted in recent years that they did speak Warhol and consider legal action but thought better of it--he was popular and it wasn't harming their brand. Artists who did do works closely related to existing art--pixel versions, or a sculpture based on a photo, have lost legal battles over them.
Creating an image that does not have a visual basis, however, has generally been allowed, as has been distinctly original images that don't directly relate to an existing image--though again, trademark is different. For one thing, a non-narrative media and a narrative media are seen as less able to claim competition between them.
And some of it is because the content owners have a tradition of looking the other way--the comic companies in particular have for a long time quietly allowed sold fanart so long as you didn't go mass producing it, as a way of new artists getting their start (after all, you have to have a portfolio of comic art to get a job with them).
As for doujinshi, Japan's copyright laws are different, and in particular treat commercial production and small press by different rules; it is also treated like US comics as a 'you learn by copying the masters' place to start.
Fanfic, however, is directly in the same medium, or a related but also narrative medium. Thus the most clearly illegal of all fanworks is the post canon story of a book--that's a sequel, and the law very clearly states it is the author's right to make sequels.