The Legality of 'character' Minimees

Well said!

 

I've heard that the copyright laws that cover fanart in Japan are different than they are in the US. I don't know about Korea, where DIM is based, though, but I'm guessing it's similar.

In Japan, fan works are treated as their own entity so long as it's not a direct copy. Just look at the Doujinshi market. Doujinshi frequently (though not all doujinshi are fan comics, some are original) use established characters and are produced and sold for personal profit.

Minimee is definitely a fan work, it was produced by hand, it wasn't cast from an existing product or someone's head and shrunk down or anything like that, it was made to resemble an existing character, and very likely falls under fanart laws in Korea.

 

Yup, much like doujinshi, it's likely not all that legal, but the companies probably don't mind because
1. It's not harming them.
2. It's great advertising for their product!
If they had a problem with these dolls, would they suddenly attack cosplayers? People who sell character cosplay costumes? If people LOVE these characters enough to spend that much money and time to have dolls of them, it definitely says something good about what they have produced!

Seeing these artistic, beautiful dolls draws attention to their product - be it a game, manga, anime, whatever.

Now, if it were Disney on the other hand... they won't even let people paint their characters in a Children's Hospital without paying them.

 

As someone who's had my ideas and my girlfriend's art stolen all in the same stroke, I can understand why some people would be irritated that their idea had been stolen. The person who did it took the image and put it on their yahoo, and when we found out, we asked them to remove it and they blatently said that they'd created the image and it was their work of art, and even had their "friend" (could or could not have been the same person with another account...) begin to insult us and yell at us because we were angry that they weren't even just giving us a little line in their profile that said "Hey, this image was found here, don't you like it? 8D"

That being said, Minimee has never said that their dolls were their original ideas. They've always said that they were based on things that were sent to them, so they didn't take credit for the intellectual ideas behind the heads, just on the creation of the heads. They created a work of art based around something, they didn't take something and put it through a xerox machine. True, I've sometimes wondered if they'd get in trouble if someone wanted to call them on it, but the fact that the copyright law states that the real legal basis for suing someone is off of whether or not they're hurting you financially and making it impossible for you to sell your own work and the fact that they limit themselves to 80% accuracy and only 10 of each head created when it's not an artist's original work isn't really something that can hurt the original company or the original celebrity. Sure, I'm sure it'd be kind of creepy to have a doll head made of you by some fan if you were a celebrity (LMAO, poor Gary Oldman, I wonder what he'd think if he knew there was a GO for a Gary doll head right now. >_>) and having someone steal your character idea and say it was their own is infuriating, but there are lots of artists out there who are just as willing to let it go if you just give them the credit where credit is due. I think what would really be the problem would be if DiM was saying that they'd come up with the head themselves and that it was their own idea and not based around anything at all. Then you'd have people up in arms and ready to take them down, as we have seen people in the BJD community do over ANY stealing in doll form.

So yeah, I can see where it could potentially be a problem, but at the same time I see where it's not really that big of a deal because of the way DiM goes about doing it. Unfortunately, there will be some companies who, like a few authors I could name but won't because my views on them are not so nice and some people are their fans, will try and take down any person who makes a work based on their creations and ideas, even if it's innocent fanart. I think if it's done right, fanart and things like the DiM heads could be seen as compliments to the artist/author/original creator, someone loves your work so much that they're willing to try their hand at paying homage to your creation. Let the simple fanartists alone to do their sketches and doodles and full-scale photoshop paintings. They're not hurting you in the least, and in many cases, can even draw in more fans through word of mouth. If one person finds some gorgeous imagery of a character from a series that a fan made, they could get interested and want to see more, and see what the original was all about, if that makes sense.

I think I'm beating a dead horse, though, so I'll go ahead and zip it. >_> Just thought I'd add in my own two cents. *...can't stop staring at the ladybug crawling on the window in the Art School library...it's so meeesmerizing...!!! O_O.......@_@*)

 

Actually, the CoH suit had much more to do with the fact that Cryptic was able to put out a ground-breaking superhero MMORPG before either of the big companies - effectively rendering the games they had in development obsolete - there's a good reason CoH launched without capes, you know. You don't get 'booted' for suspect characters, but 'generic-ed' - your hero or villian's costume gets scrambled and name reassigned to 'Generic Hero <random number>'. From the forum posts I have read, you are given the option of renaming your character before getting stuck with a 'generic' handle.
((sorry for the OT tangent, but I hates innaccurate informations))

Anyway, the rendering of a comic character depends on the artist(s) working on the book at the time. Which Batman are you in the market for? Frank Miller, Neal Adams...Carmine Infantino?

Johnny Depp seems to have a pretty good sense of humour about his celebrity...I bet he'd buy up his own Minimee's and arrange them in ridiculous positions around his home.

If had the money, and time, I think it would be a hoot to get a bunch of Hollywood 'legend' Minimees and photograph them in old-skewl large-format black & white, stock stills for films that never were.

 

LMFAO...so...in essence...they were butthurt that someone came up with the idea before they could...??? Or that someone released a game - meaning they'd obviously been working on it for a long time and working very hard - before they had a chance to finish their own?

I love Marvel comics and Batman, but...I mean...seriously, guys...you snooze, you loose...>_>;;;

Maybe that's not a popular thing to say about this subject, buut-...sorry. I'll stop the OTness now.

 

My girlfriend (weirdsparkle) has a doll she has as the character by Linsner called 'Dawn'. She actually went so far as to ask about the legality of making a doll into Dawn before she did it, which I really admire her for doing. It was her project.
They said it was fine and sent them pictures of her when she was finished, she got a commissioned face up and bought the outfits special etc. They officially told her its OK for her to have a doll as their character as long as it is for personal use and not to sell something or sell on as a doll AS Dawn.
I think for personal enjoyment its fine to have made something into a character you like, but when mass production or sales come into it, plus without consulting the right people I find it disrespectful and in bad taste. My opinion.

 

Ughh I just typed a long response and my computer ate it. Grrrrr...

Anyway, Minimees exist in that fan art gray area. They are using a likeness without permission, but the run on celeb heads is so tiny and it's unlikely that someone's celeb head is making DIM the bulk of their money (just like fan arists at cons probably aren't quitting their day jobs). If they were offering unlimited celeb heads available for sale, it would be a very different story. As it stands now, they are basically running a commission service and some people are wanting to commission specific people or characters.

It is possible that someone could get upset and try and pull the plug, but this is such a tiny virtually unheard of hobby in the grand scheme of things, that I don't think there is a great danger in it. If worse came to worse, they would just have to stop taking commissions for celeb heads.

I consider my minimee an elaborate piece of fan art, and I have him for my own enjoyment and not something to make a profit off of. I'm really not bothered by the whole thing--possibly because fan art has always played a big part in the anime/manga world and I'm very accustomed to the idea.

Also wanted to add--as other people have stated, DIM is not claiming minimees as being their own original ideas--they've made it obvious that they were created from images sent to them. This makes minimees very different from copied dolls who are direct recasts being sold as originals. With minimees you know what you are getting and a lot of artistry does go into them. So I don't see DoA's acceptance of minimees as being in anyway hypocritical. Not to mention that their are plenty of fan dolls that aren't minimee's but have been customized and done up into some pretty neat likenesses, and you don't hear a lot of complaints about them...

 

Well they aren't actually making anything that competes with existing companies, can you buy BJD's of anything you have requested? No, thats why you are paing DIM to make them. Which may contribute to why no one has done anything legal, that and a long legal caser is expensive and not always worth the time.
I am going out on a limb and thinking they aren't as "sue happy" as US comapnies and people are, heck Todd McFarlane was sued for using a hockey players name as one of his characters which was a mobster..not a hockey player. And the hockey player won... so you can sue about anything if you want.

 

I own several "little mes" and this issue doesn't keep me up at night. I think it comes close to what Mad Magazine does with their parodies, it doesn't look a little like you it looks a lot like you. Especially if they say the likeness is only 80%.

On one hand it can take money away from the copywrite holder on the other there are thriving fan made things, such as comics on the web or via a Xerox machine, that get around. If I found someone who can sculpt better than I can and wanted a head I'd pay them to make it, and to a degree have. For example I faithfully shell over money to Warner Bros for Smallville stuff and squealed ith delight when I got a Tom Welling head from a sculptor. He looks enough like Tom and like Frodo. If there was an official Tom/Clark the right scale I'd buy it.

 

I don't think DIM is doing anything wrong. They are creating something completely new. It's not like they are selling bootlegs.

It would be wrong if they made a bunch of a certain character heads. They sell them on their site advertising them as that character, without limit.

DIM uses the 10 head limit for a reason. The max money they could possibly make off the heads would be under $2500 USD. It's unlikely that any company like Squaresoft, etc. would take them to court over such a measly sum of money. The legal fees would probably be more expensive. It would hardly be worth it.

Also the heads are basically a private commission. DIM never flashes the minimee photos around going "Look, here's our Cloud doll!" So unless some higher-up in the company saw one of the dolls being described as a certain character, they'd probably never even find out.

The company probably couldn't even make a case if the doll was never named as being that character. If they don't claim it's that character, it's pretty much left up to opinion on how much the doll resembles the character. It's hard to build a case on something like that.

Also, it's plublicity that the company doesn't have to pay for! A character doll is essentially a walking advertisment and the company didn't have to pay a cent.

So basically, I don't think the companies have any knowledge that the dolls exist and if they did, they probably wouldn't bother with taking legal action.

 

The issue of copyright infringement has long been debated and ultimately has led to uncertainity as to what constitutes a copyright violation and what does not. In the case of DIM and their creation of Minimee's it can be argued that DIM is in not strictly in violation of any copyright laws. For example if an actor was to discover that there were dolls in existence that were meant to resemble him or her and as result decided to take up legal action against DIM for copyright violation. DIM would possibly be able to win the case on a few legal technicalities. One being that all minimee's created by DIM have only a likeness of 80% to the original actor. To be in violation of any copyright laws the doll would need to have exact 100 % likeness to a particular actor, something which would not occur as DIM would be creating the mold based on pictures given them to by a particular person(s) and artistic creativity which means that if anything the actor would be more of inspiration for the creation of the doll. Also due to the limited number of Minimee's being produced at any one time, DIM could argue that Minimee's are not being sold wholesale but rather on a commission basis only and as Denny Kim has himself mentioned, the DIM Minimee's are a service and not a normal doll product.

It's important to note that i am not a lawyer with a degree, I am just someone who is well versed when it comes to many different laws and legal issues. I have spent a lot of time researching and taking interest in legal issues and laws in general.

 

Another thing to consider are that international copyright laws are totally different than our own, and so this pretty much may be a nonissue where these dolls are being produced. ....for that matter, if you've ever checked out streaming TV sites, they're frequently based out of China, for that same reason.

And there's nothing wrong with that! I'm not trying to come off as ethnocentric, here. I'm just saying - laws are different and this argument has been hashed out and rehashed about 8 times.

As an additional note, the people commissioning these dolls are commissioning them for personal use, which probably plays greatly into why it's NOT illegal. While DIM may make a small sum of money, they're selling 10 versions of the image -- as stated above, not a whole lot of profit -- and they're selling to private owners, not to people making any money off the image.

 

Agreed. They aren't selling to a mass market-if they were, BJDs would probably be more popular and fanbrats would take over DoA! They're selling to a few people who have to hunt them down for what they want, not just anyone who happens to wander in.

And even if no one produced character-model fan dolls, people would make them up themselves anyway, custom sculpts or no. I don't think the Minimees are making a profit on this fact so much as they are making it easier for the people who want these kinds of dolls to find them, if that's how they choose to go about it.

And as many others have pointed out, they make such a small profit that most of the companies won't even care. Let us fans have our fun. Even if someone does get sued over a fan doll, it's not like all BJDs everywhere are going to suddenly become illegal.

 

That's an interesting thought but if we went on the idea that you cannot sell something that's a likeness to a character from an anime/manga/game then shouldn't cosplay sellers be stopped from making cosplay costumes too?

 

The truth is, yes, it is copy-right infringement.
The law clearly states that characters not authorised to be sold by that company are breaking the law, and can be fined for each one the have sold.
IF, however, they have permission to do so, then there isn't an issue. But somehow, I doubt they have permission.

Legally, yes they should stop.
But can the companies be bothered to pursue it?

 

it maybe copy right infringement by u.s. standards, but it might not be in korea.

 

Well, it's worldwide really.
If companies knew/cared enough about it, they could pursue it, regardless of the location.

 

actually it's not. laws are differnt country by country. including copy right laws

 

Ok then... Most westernised countries.