Furry Megathread - Furry Things Here

[Headcrab Zombie]

Nitpicking... Pikachu are a species.

It's both
In the Pokemon world, yes, it's a species.
But legally, it's represented as a characterized representation of a mouse.

Think of it like this: show someone a picture of Pikachu, and ask "who is this?" They're just as likely to answer "it's Pikachu!" as they are "It's a Pikachu!"
Perhaps more likely, if they're not very familiar with Pokemon

[Ad Bot]

[portify]

It's both
In the Pokemon world, yes, it's a species.
But legally, it's represented as a characterized representation of a mouse.

Think of it like this: show someone a picture of Pikachu, and ask "who is this?" They're just as likely to answer "it's Pikachu!" as they are "It's a Pikachu!"
Perhaps more likely, if they're not very familiar with Pokemon

I have never played a Pok`emon game or watched any of it so maybe I'm not the most qualified person to picknit anyway

[IkeTheGeneric]

You can definitely copyright fictional species as intellectual property, the idiot who came up with Sergals subsequently did not. Whoever she is, she just demands royalties even though it's not legally her protected intellectual property.

I've seen DA posts all the time about people's 'characters' or 'species' ideas that you apparently are required to pay them to use or copy even though there's nothing legal there. I even made my own satire of somebody's ~~original character~~ once


I'm also going to claim that the above image is a representation of the species Sergals because I can

[Headcrab Zombie]

You can definitely copyright fictional species as intellectual property

You definitely can not

a species is just an idea of "it stands on two legs and has fur and a tail and a shark-like head."

You can't copyright an idea.
If you make a physical representation of that idea, such as a drawing of a sergal, then the drawing is copyrighted. But the idea itself is not

Saying "I copyrighted this species!" doesn't make it true

[foulprairiedog]

If one of your productions (such as a printed/digital book, a pay-site, a video game or avatar making in "SecondLife") that is based on, or includes content from Vilous generates over $500 per/in a month, it is required that you must pay copyright fees to Mick39 by all means. It is possible to contact them here for that.

The fees have the following rates:
2% of the total amount of anything that makes over $500 per/in a month, up to $1000.
5% of the total amount of anything over $1000 per/in a month.

If any company use Sergals and other Vilous' things, please get prior permission to a rightful copyright holders by all means.

you only have to pay copyright to Mick39 if you make more than 500 dollars a month from sergals. most people who draw sergals do not make that much off of sergals alone. so it really doesn't matter unless you are the person making that money. also talyxians are better than sergals haha hoho

[IkeTheGeneric]

You can't copyright an idea.

Yes you can, that's literally the gist of "Intellectual property". Just because the property isn't connected to any sort of product or franchise doesn't mean it cannot be copyrighted and after doing a bit more looking into the topic sergals are most definitely protected intellectual property.

I'm by no means a lawyer, I'm only interpreting the law as I know it, but I don't see why intellectual property laws should stop short of a fictional species based on semantics alone. If Sergals truly were the result of somebody's creativity and were an original idea, it is most definitely copyright-able intellectual property.

[Headcrab Zombie]

Yes you can, that's literally the gist of "Intellectual property". Just because the property isn't connected to any sort of product or franchise doesn't mean it cannot be copyrighted and after doing a bit more looking into the topic sergals are most definitely protected intellectual property.

http://copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf

This document literally says ideas are not copyrightable, listed in bullet point 3 under the "What Is Not Protected by Copyright?" section, on the left hand column of page 3. You should also check the "What Works Are Protected" section above it to see that "fictional species" does not fit in one of the given copyrightable categories

[Arekan]

you only have to pay copyright to Mick39 if you make more than 500 dollars a month from sergals. most people who draw sergals do not make that much off of sergals alone. so it really doesn't matter unless you are the person making that money. also talyxians are better than sergals haha hoho

Tbh, if I decided I wanted to make a game, and place a sergal or a character like a sergal as a single boss in the game, Mick can forget off with 5% or 10% royalties. I created an entire game and because I make x amount of money, and because my game features a singular character that's similar or based off of a concept of yours, you're requiring me to pay you a portion of my profits? I would understand being paid commision, or something one-timed, but being paid ROYALTIES? Say my game gets popular for whatever reason, now Mick's supposed to get rich for making a single character?

That's like Lego requiring Badspot to pay royalties because the concept of the game is similar to real-life Lego sets and the concept based around Legos. No.

[IkeTheGeneric]

http://copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf

This document literally says ideas are not copyrightable, listed in bullet point 3 under the "What Is Not Protected by Copyright?" section, on the left hand column of page 3. You should also check the "What Works Are Protected" section above it.

You cannot think up an idea and then say you own the concept of something without it being a property. Sergals are intellectual property because they are tangible property conceptualized and produced by an artist.

So no, I guess if you wanna cut corners around semantics you can't literally copyright an idea. Sergals are more than just an idea. Sergals being a species is irrelevant to whether or not it can be protected intellectual property.

Tbh, if I decided I wanted to make a game, and place a sergal or a character like a sergal as a single boss in the game, Mick can forget off with 5% or 10% royalties. I created an entire game and because I make x amount of money, and because my game features a singular character that's similar or based off of a concept of yours, you're requiring me to pay you a portion of my profits? I would understand being paid commision, or something one-timed, but being paid ROYALTIES? Say my game gets popular for whatever reason, now Mick's supposed to get rich for making a single character?

That's like Lego requiring Badspot to pay royalties because the concept of the game is similar to real-life Lego sets and the concept based around Legos. No.

If there truly is a copyright on the species then to make a character who's species is named as "Sergal" and bears uncanny resemblance to said copyrighted species would be infringement.

There are definitely ways around this or ways to prevent it from being infringement, but for the most part sergals are indeed intellectual property.

[Arekan]

It reminds me how difficult it would be to make a game which has anthropomorphic characters, and avoid people attempting lawsuit or some random bullstuff because you "copied their character."

[IkeTheGeneric]

It reminds me how difficult it would be to make a game which has anthropomorphic characters, and avoid people attempting lawsuit or some random bullstuff because you "copied their character."

Some publishers and developers of games have gotten in trouble before because they made human characters who accidentally resembled some real life people. It's an actual issue, even outside of anthro characters

The best thing to do is to have documentation that you did not indeed base your characters off their characters or if their characters aren't copyrighted, just tell them to shove a cactus where the sun don't shine

[Foxscotch]

You can definitely copyright fictional species as intellectual property, the idiot who came up with Sergals subsequently did not. Whoever she is, she just demands royalties even though it's not legally her protected intellectual property.

two things:
you don't have to do anything extra to "copyright" something. when you make it, and it's something that copyright law covers, it's protected under copyright law. you don't have to register it with some governing body or anything like that
ideas can not be copyrighted. that includes things like a fictional species. I mean you can try to enforce it, if you want, but you are unlikely to be successful. it's too abstract

you can reasonably copyright an individual character, but it's pretty easy to get around that too

[IkeTheGeneric]

that includes things like a fictional species. I mean you can try to enforce it, if you want, but you are unlikely to be successful. it's too abstract

Too abstract? A fictional species implies a set standard of appearance, distinctive racial qualities and traits and oftentimes requires visuals in order to demonstrate what the artist is trying to conceptualize. I doubt that is too abstract to be considered intellectual property.

[g4merm4ster1234]

coming home and seeing the massive walls of text

[kanew2000]

im gonna draw a serval and nobodies gonna do a damn thing to stop me