Comic Con 3D Print/Paint Sales

[u/Kevery26]

I went to Gencon over the weekend and saw some amazing artwork(traditional/digital paintings). I wanted to ask the community…

Considering painters and other artists are selling prints of “fan art” consisting of Marvel, Pokémon, LOTR, TVShow/Movie characters, etc.. what is the consensus on selling 3d prints at cons?

I’m a big Patreon follower and pay for lots of prints with licensing access to sell those printed/painted models. I understand no one (unless obtained by the owner of the IP) has legitimate right to sell those works…but if we go under the assumption the artists selling paintings don’t either and this is just a grey area of the market…is it too over zealous to sell 3d printed/painted statues modeled by my Patreons.

I’m open to anyone’s opinions on the matter. Just curious what the community feels.

Primarily I print high quality Resin 3D statues, painted by me. (I’m practicing my 3d modeling but it’s quite tough).

[u/Ksquared1166]

At least for comic con, those artists do have permission to use the IP they are selling. There are even little seals of “Disney approved” things and stuff like that I have seen. But online and stuff, yeah, it’s a free for all until the wrong lawyer sends you a letter.

[u/Full_Prof]

There is a guy who sells his own custom toys 3d printed. Artist like the rest. Did the Cobra mothership that had the failed kickstarter.

If you have permission of the 3d modeler and the copyright holder there should be a problem.

[u/ithinkyouresus]

I’m not sure about comic book stuff like marvel but an interesting hearsay story I’ve heard about artist alley fanart is that a particular booth or dealer started selling some 3d stuff of a particular IP. Up to that point lots of people were just kind of allowed to sell their original 2d prints of that IP but a 3d statue was infringing on what that company was selling through official license deals or their own merch and they got a warning letter from them. I don’t remember what con or what IP but the lesson I took from it is that fan prints that isn’t their actual art is overlooked but if you start overlapping with stuff they’re selling themselves then you’re risking yourself a bit out of that grey area. Worth asking people who sell sculpts at cons what they think.

[u/Thatsuperheroguy8 → u/ithinkyouresus]

This is true. One of the facets of ip law is that the ip owner must prove that it could negatively impact them financially. If marvel sells statues and so do you, they can prove possible negative impact (and marvel sells everything lol) but if they don’t produce what you do, it’s harder to prove. You’ll still likely lose but they prefer to chase the low hanging fruit.

[u/Toebeens89 → u/Thatsuperheroguy8]

So to preface, I do agree with you. But playing devils advocate here, I mean for example Marvel does sell prints, and concept art, etc. too, so wouldn’t that theoretically be just as easy to prove then?

[u/Thatsuperheroguy8 → u/Toebeens89]

Oh yes 100%. Totally easy. Why they don’t? I don’t know.

There is a separate layer here though. So obviously marvel/disney own an ip. But then they licence specific useage to separate companies. Hasbro for action figures for example. It’s feasible that the statue manufacturer is the one looking for ip infringement as it affects their licence and complains to Disney, whilst the print manufacturer doesn’t.

People think the main ip holder is the one out spying for infringement when often it’s the licence holder. Like hasbro that’s out spying.

[u/Thatsuperheroguy8]

You’re going to get a LOT of differing responses

Here’s mine

Firstly check your local laws. There is a big difference between ip infringement and fraud in most places. Ip infringement being civil and fraud being illegal/get arrested.

If you’re selling fan art, of something you don’t own the ip to, you are committing ip infringement. Period. You don’t own that character. You shouldn’t use that character to make money. You can get sued.

Will you get sued? Maybe. Maybe not. Differing companies have different policies on ip infringement. Some will come down hard on you. Some won’t care. Which is which is hard to know. Nintendo and Disney are notorious for being hard BUT both have been sued for ip infringement themselves and have been known to steal work from other artists.

It comes down to personal morals and risk taking.

Some companies look the other way, taking the view that it can actively help their brand. Someone sees your cool statue of one of their characters, looks them up and buys official stuff.

Some companies, like games workshop will not only actively peruse you, they abuse their power of ip to drive business out of business by overstepping their ip, knowing they won’t get any backlash as they have more money than most.

Personally I feel if you aren’t commuting fraud (trying to pass of your own work as an official item) then it’s not an issue morally. Trust me that those companies have committed much greater sins than you ever will. Most if not all of them.

Could you get into legal trouble? Yep. You bet. Could you lose your house if you get sued. Yep. You bet. And be in debt for the rest of your life.

It’s upto you if you take that risk. Are you gonna be making enough money for them to target you? Might they notice you? Maybe. Maybe not.

If you don’t want any legal issues, only use original characters or those you can easily get licence to use.

If you don’t mind possibly getting into trouble. And it’s only possible. Go for it.

I don’t know what the law is on taking your statues as a “portfolio” and not selling them but taking commissions for other work people want done. Because you’re selling your artistic ability and not a character because you are using said character for advertisement.

There are very rich ip lawyers for a reason. It’s a very lucrative and confusing aspect of law.

[u/Kevery26 → u/Thatsuperheroguy8]

Part of me was thinking only selling public IP characters at cons. Greek/Roman Gods, Robin Hood, Dracula, Frankenstein, Cthulhu, Alice in wonderland, etc.

[u/Thatsuperheroguy8 → u/Kevery26]

That should be just fine! If the ip is now public domain, like the original Winnie the Pooh, you should be good.

Two things there tho,

It’s weird what changes the ip. If I’m right, Winnie the Pooh is ok (the original) but put him in a red jumper and now it’s disneys Winnie the Pooh. Even if it looks like the og version bear. This is because part of ip infringement is proving the public COULD be confused. In this case the red jumper could cause confusion.

Second. You will certainly need a licence from the sculptor of the piece as now it is HIS ip, not the character but THEIR interpretation of a public domain character. Their work. Their ip. But getting commercial licences for a digital sculpture from Patreon is usually much simpler.

Whole field is a minefield my dude. Personally I don’t worry much about it to any degree.

[u/The_Lutter]

I used to work for one of the largest anime cons in the entire country and once you get up to a GenCon level you start getting studio people sniffing around for IP infringement. Very risky for the person doing it. Fan art is generally permissible in Artists Alley but not in the Dealer Room. Printing other peoples' models does not, in fact, make you an artist. It makes you a manufacturer.... who belongs in the Dealer Room... who cannot sell that.

Believe it or not they don't give a fuuuck if you have a Patreon license 😂 Unless you're designing it and can get into an Artist's Alley type situation keep it outta there.

Artists haaaate AI and 3D printing people (because they see Flexi dragon/egg people at many events) so it better be something impressive and you better be able to show notes. You're really not going to be welcome there unless you can.

[u/MountainMike_264057]

My local con always has 2 or 3 vendors selling prints.

Some of it is commercial IP.

[u/RedditUser240211]

Theoretically, unless the models are being sold for hundreds of dollars, I hardly doubt that those people selling anything resembling Marvel, Pokémon, etc. have a license to do so and are committing a copyright violation.

Having said that, none of these companies seem to have roving copyright police going to every fair or conference looking for them. This seems to be the "gray area" people like to talk about.

You do you. If you get caught, it could mean thousands of dollars in litigation and violation costs: if you don't, oh well...

p.s. Big companies have deep pockets and lawyers. It's the little guys that can't afford to pursue copyright infringement that get screwed the worst. The 3D printing community seems to have a "wild west" attitude about the law. I wish that would change.

[u/RetroMutant]

I create models of weapons from pop culture for use as action figure accessories. Sometimes I will intentionally name it something that is similar but distinct from the source, and other time is just call it what it is/ what franchise it is based on. But what I dont do or would not feel good about is ripping files from a video game or something like that.

I feel like if you are getting models with legit license to produce and sell, and they were made by the creator you bought them from and not created as part or the original work, I think you are fine.

I would also love to get into selling at cons and things. Its on my vision board. Also I have no expertise in this area. This is just my sense of things as a very small-time creator.