When does a fan game fall under parody? Apparently there was a case in 2013 where the fan game My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic got taken down by Hasbro. This makes me wonder, why did it not fall under fair use in terms of Parody? This article by a legal information website says [...] a parody is a literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule. It is regarded as a criticism or comment on the original copyrighted work. In simple terms, it has to convey to the audience some type of message about the original work. This “message” fits can be understood to transform the original work (the work that’s being parodied) because that message is adding something new; it takes all or part of the original work and gives it a different purpose or character. [...] Making a game about characters from this TV show fighting each other, when in the series it's all about loving each other could be seen as criticism or comment on the peacefulness of the original characters. So why doesn't that count as parody? In a related fashion, I'm thinking about a game where giant dynamaxed Pokemon unleash death and destruction onto the world. If PETA's Pokemon clone is parody, wouldn't an overly brutal version of Pokemon be parody as well? I would be creating my own assets. What exactly is and isn't parody?
The details of this specific matter are not clear because it appears that Mane6 relented in response to a cease and desist letter, rather than be dragged through court. Since we are not privy to the letter from Hasbro, the best we can do is guess based on the degrees of freedom that exist under the law. The claim that this game was a "parody" is an affirmative defense that Mane6 would have to raise in response to a copyright infringement claim (we don't know if there were also trademark infringement claims in the letter). Then the jury would look at the arguments of the two sides to determine whether this was really "fair use", performing the "balancing act" to see how much of the original work was copied, how transformative the derived work is, what the effect on market would be. The lines drawn for making these judgments are not bright. A quick scan of a successor product Them's Fightin' Herds suggest that someone thought the artwork was too substantially similar to the Hasbro product, that is, the fighting pony version was judged to not be transformative enough. Since it didn't go to court, we'll never know.
Arguably not (or, the example terms are not restricted by copyright, but not for the reasons given, which means this protection may not extend past the examples given in all cases). The protection for &quot;stock characters&quot; comes from the &quot;Scènes à faire&quot; doctrine, which protects elements that are elementary and near-required to be part of a genre. For example, a fairy tale is &quot;obligated&quot; to start with &quot;Once upon a time&quot; and end with &quot;And they lived happily ever after&quot;. Character classes, by virtue of being character classes, do not qualify under this doctrine to me, simply by virtue of being &quot;character classes&quot;. What matters are: a) the terms used for the classes are generic b) there is prior art to any claimed copyright, with uses of such terms in fantasy fiction stretching back at least hundreds of years and predating, for example, modern English. Note that the above is not universal to all character classes. For example, if you had classes whose names that directly related to various other copyrighted works IP (e.g. &quot;Jedi Councilor&quot;, &quot;Yogo Wardmaster&quot;, &quot;Grey Warden&quot;, &quot;Aes Sedai&quot;, &quot;Asha'man&quot; &quot;Eversor Assassin&quot;), those could still be infringing copyright.
If I draw something, having been inspired by looking at some other thing, you are not copying that thing. If you carefully copy something even if you are also deliberately changing features of the original, then you are copying. Copyright law gives the copyright holder the exclusive right to make copies. There is a difference between copying music and visual art in this respect, since music can be reduced to a small set of specific symbols, so "being inspired by" a musical work is often found to be infringement. The difficult part is legally distinguishing "making a copy" versus "being inspired by". The courts use a subjective test of "substantial similarity" to decide if there has been copying. the case of Mannion v. Coors. "Pose" is an element that is considered in assessing similarity: the question the court would ask (itself) is whether such a pose could ever have come from elsewhere (such as, your own creative efforts).
Since the person who posted the game component under the CC-BY license has no right to do so, no one who used it in reliance on that license had any rights either, and all such uses were at least technically infringement (unless they came under a copyright exception, which seems unlikely). The holder of the copyright on the component could sue in any country where a game using it was published. The details of the law, including the rules on damages and other remidies, will vary from country to country. In the united-states those rules are contained in Chapter 5 of title 17 USC particularly sections 502-505. Section 504 provides for possible money damages. Section 502 provides for a possible injunction (court order to stop infringing). Section 503 provides for for infringing works to be seized. Section 505 provides for possible awards of costs and legal fees to a successful plaintiff (copyright holder). Section 502 allows injunctions to &quot;prevent or restrain infringement of a copyright&quot; on &quot;reasonable&quot; terms. But when the infringement has already been stopped, no such injunction is needed and a court is not likely to impose one. Section 503 allows the court to order the impoundment of infringing copies and &quot;plates, molds, matrices, masters, tapes, film negatives, or other articles by means of which such copies or phonorecords may be reproduced&quot;. This is largely obsolete for digital content. Section 504 is the key. It offers the plaintiff a choice between actual damages plus profits and statutory damages. The rule for the first is: The copyright owner is entitled to recover the actual damages suffered by him or her as a result of the infringement, and any profits of the infringer that are attributable to the infringement and are not taken into account in computing the actual damages. This means money made by use of the unauthorized content, plus any loss of sales or other losses suffered by the owner. Money mad by the infringing work but not made by use of the infringing content is not included, if this can be proven. Income obtained after the infringing content was removed would probably not be included in the infringer's profits. Statutory damages can be any amount between $750 and $30,000 that the count thinks is just, but id the infringement is proved to be &quot;innocent&quot; the lower limit is $200. The exact provision reads: In a case where the infringer sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds that such infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200. An award of costs and fees under section 505 is entirely up to the discretion of the court. If the maximum possible award of infringer's profits is $10,000, and a defense of innocent infringement is plausible, a plaintiff might well find such a suit unprofitable, given the legal expenses involved in preparing an carrying through such a suit. But that is entirely up to the copyright owner. An owner may choose to file even an unprofitable suit in an effort to deter others. A person who has discovered that s/he has innocently infringed a copyright and made some money in the process would be wise to document the prompt removal of the infringing content form any publication, and efforts to notify the copyright owner. Ther is no way to be sure what actions the owner will take, if any, within those that the law allows. Often a owner in such a case will not bring suit if the infringement was apparently innocent, resulting profits were small, the infringement has been halted, and future infringement by that infringer seems unlikely. But different owners have different policies on such matters. An owner can delay in deciding whether to file suit or not.
What you're describing is generally permissible in the United States. The photographer has copyright in the photograph itself, not in the items photographed. This means that they have copyright in the way that they composed the photograph -- what background they placed it against, lighting, camera placement, etc. -- but not in the ancient manuscript. If you are strictly transcribing the text of the script, you're not infringing on anything that's copyrighted. If you make a sketch, there's more potential for infringement, but I suspect that you would not be working to faithfully copy the angles of the shadows as much as you would working to faithfully copy the image and condition of the artifact. Even if you were, calling that a copyright infringement would require that the image truly be copyrighted, and I'm not 100 percent convinced that they would be. Copyright is only available to original works of authorship, and that means that the author has to make some meaningful efforts to create something new out of the copyrighted elements discussed above. But what has the photographer done in that picture of the Coronation Oath? It appears that they've photographed the book head-on, as it's displayed by the museum, with lighting as provided by the museum, in an effort to recreate the display one would see while visiting the museum. Is that really sufficiently "original" to merit copyright protection that could be invoked to prevent someone from drawing a duplicate? I doubt it. But that picture of the Ge'ez book may be different. Someone appears to have grabbed the book, opened it up under weird lighting, kept their hands in the photograph, and otherwise actually composed a photograph that may not be particularly artistic, but is nonetheless difficult enough to duplicate that it can be considered original. So let's be generous to the copyright trolls and assume that the sketch you're imagining is protected. Even then, that only raises the question of whether the copy is a fair use. You haven't said anything about how the hypothetical copier would be using these materials, but I have a hunch that the idea isn't to launch a multimillion dollar merchandising enterprise. If the idea is more academic or cultural, you'd have a better claim to fair use. Again, you can review this fair-use explainer to get a better idea.
Let’s work it through Is the work copyright? Yes. Are you making a copy or a derivative work? Yes. Do you have permission? No. At this point, it is prima facie copyright violation. However, various copyright laws have defences for breach. You don’t say where you are but as the USA is the most permissive in this regard we’ll use the USA. If it’s not legal there, it’s not legal anywhere. If it is legal there, it’s still likely to be not legal everywhere else. is it fair use? Almost certainly not. Wizards of the Coast (the copyright owner) already do this. While this service is free for creatures from the Monster Manual, it does drive traffic to their web site where they sell stuff. They also licence (presumably for money) others to do the same. Your usage would negatively affect the copyright owners market. This counts against fair use. Because it’s already being done, your work has virtually nil transformative value. This counts against fair use. You are copying a substantial part of the work. This counts against fair use. You are not using it commercially but neither is it for educational use. This is unlikely to matter. On balance: not fair use. TL;DR This is copyright violation.
Can I sell below parody T-Shirts? Sure, you can sell those shirts. But there is no guarantee that your own determination and claim of Fair Use for a parody would prevail in court. The determination that your use of those derivative designs - Fair Use as a Parody - is not yours to make; it is for a court to make, if and when the copyright holders of those two franchises choose to take you to court. Your determination of Fair Use could only be valid in the US; there may be no Fair Use law in your country, and any relevant international laws and agreements will impact what the legal steps the copyright holders can take against you. Read Fair Use again for exceptions to the law and about international laws such as as Berne Convention and World Intellectual Property Organization. Warner Brothers (Superman) and Paramount (Godfather) could decide at any time to confront you with a cease and desist letter or a lawsuit to challenge your claim of Fair Use. They may win; you may win your defense of their lawsuit. That's a risk you will take. The fact that other people currently produce shirts with similar designs doesn't mean anything. They may not have been confronted by the copyright holders; or the copyright holders may not care to confront small producers of possibly infringing designs and products.
Someone similar say While it is quite true that no one can have a copyright that excludes all others from preparing their own unique copy of the Bible or other public domain works for copyright protection, our Bibles and other materials are not exactly like any others and are fully protected by copyright laws in all countries So for example, I could theoretically take an ancient public-domain texts and republish it in some modified form. Copyright does not protect the original, but it does protect my modifications. To the extent that Mechon Mamre does include protected material (of their own creation), and Snunit redistributed that material with permission, Mechon Mamre might sue you for copyright infringement. Since they don't say what their creative contribution is, it's hard to evaluate the merits of their claim.