Fanart itself is not illegal. You can draw whatever you want in whatever way you want. Don´t worry, if you draw a character from your favorite Anime you won´t be making yourself punishable by law. You are going to make yourself punishable, however, if you are trying to make money with a copyrighted character!
Full Answer
So are Anime characters Copyrighted? Yes, they are copyrighted! In the United States, a character is automatically copyrighted as long as it is “original”, meaning it has to involve an element of creativity, that is unique and distinguishable. Using that character to make money for your own without the rights to use that character, is illegal!
Then that is illegal even though it is your own art, you are selling as soon as it has copyrighted characters in it, it is illegal to sell or make money with! So all the people you are seeing at cons, that are selling fanart of popular characters from their favorite anime, are actually breaking the law.
Drawing characters from your favorite animes is a lot of fun and will help you improve, as long as you don´t just copy an existing drawing of them. Try and invent your very own compositions and situations to draw these characters in. And have fun with it! But whatever you do, please don´t try to sell these artworks online.
Featured artist info must match. If you have a featured artist listed in the text on your cover art, that featured artist must be included in the metadata for the release. Avoid copyright or trademark infringement.
It is perfectly fine to use anime images, manga images, and video clips for noncommercial, informative, satirical, or critical works. The images you use will not belong to you (again, unless you create them yourself), but the text you write does as long as it is original.
No, you cannot legally do this.
Book covers, album covers, and movie covers are copyrightable. However, fair use, a provision of U.S. copyright law, gives users the right to use copyrighted material without permission under certain circumstances. If a use is fair, the user need not notify or seek permission from the copyright holder.
Album art is legally protected under copyright laws of the country in which the business who registered it does business. When you desire to use copies of album art in any way, whether for profit or non-profit, permission. Without securing written permission, you could open yourself up to a lawsuit.
A lot of the fanart is art , depicts characters in situations, that these companies will never make a print or picture of, even though there is a demand for it. So the customer can get these specific pictures from these fanart sellers at cons and everyone is happy. Be careful though!
And any proof, that you may find will not be enough, because their character hit the public eye faster than yours and no one will believe you. Even if you tell the truth. And that is the problem with any idea or design based copyright. Proving that is was your idea or design is very hard for a single person.
The other Answer is: Japanese anime companies, and therefore the copyright owners of most of these characters, are known to not enforce such copyright infringements. The exact reason why they don´t do it is not known but people speculated, that it either has to do with their culture.
In my opinion, yes. Definitely draw your fanart. Drawing characters from your favorite animes is a lot of fun and will help you improve, as long as you don´t just copy an existing drawing of them. Try and invent your very own compositions and situations to draw these characters in. And have fun with it!
Yes, they are copyrighted! In the United States, a character is automatically copyrighted as long as it is “original”, meaning it has to involve an element of creativity, that is unique and distinguishable. Using that character to make money for your own without the rights to use that character, is illegal! IMPORTANT!
Fanart itself is not illegal. You can draw whatever you want in whatever way you want. Don´t worry, if you draw a character from your favorite Anime you won´t be making yourself punishable by law. You are going to make yourself punishable, however, if you are trying to make money with a copyrighted character!
Avoid copyright or trademark infringement. Don’t use characters, logos, or products that belong to other people, companies, or institutions .
Don’t use the phrase “The Original” if you’re referring to a cover song (because duh). Do NOT use the image of an artist you are covering, or an artist you are influenced by. Avoid watermarks. If you use a stock image, PAY to download the image without the watermark.
If you entered “Blueprints” as the album name, it can’t say “The Blueprint” on the cover art. Careful with artist name abbreviations. Full abbreviations are OK, but not partial abbreviations (for instance, “ATM” is fine, but not “AT Machine”). No record label information on the cover artwork.
Parental advisory warnings are not required, since there is an “explicit content” tag, but if you include one in your cover art, there must be at least one track with explicit lyrics. Featured artist info must match. If you have a featured artist listed in the text on your cover art, that featured artist must be included in the metadata for ...