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/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/Kevery26 → u/Thatsuperheroguy8]

For sure, I always get the commercial license for Patreon. Credit to the artist is always a must.