Since there has been a bit drama regarding fanart, thought I'd do this.

HOW FANART WORKS
— a thread —

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer or a law student by any means, I am saying all of these facts based from a bit of research I did. And thoughts on this issue are mine.

If there are any lawyer armys that pass by this thread please do tell me if I have said that isn't factual, thanks.

Now let me start off by defining some terms.

What is copyright?
"The exclusive legal right, guven to aj originator or an assignnee to print, publush, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material, and to authorize others to do the same." -oxford dictionaries

What is copyright infringement?
"The use of copyright protected material without the permission of the copyright holder." -investopedia.com

What is fair use?
-a legal concept that allows the reproduction of copyrighted material for certain purposes without obtaining permission and without paying a fee or royalty. Usually used when creating commentaries using the material or creating a parody of it, and etc.

What is fanart?
- a piece of art that is derived from an existing figure and fans create their creates own twist on it.

Okay so, fanart can go in different ways. For BTS' case, they are considered PUBLIC FUGURES. their "likeness" can be used when creating art as long as it is not defamatory or libelous. and real life faces cannot be copyrighted.

Copyright infringement can apply to something if an intellectual property was DIRECTLY COPIED (like reuploading/claiming those parts as their own) without creditting or mentioning where the inspiration came from.

Now let's talk about Taehyung's the Simpsons inspired painting. Yes it is fanart, yes it uses the STYLE of the simpsons. Is it copyright infringement? No, because the fanartist did not claim nor mention the style to be theirs.

I am not pointing hands at tae because he might have reasons why he didn't mention the artist. But my point still stands that people should still give credit to whoever made a piece of artwork.

Now that we're past that, let's talk about fan art in general. IF fanart is derived from a copyrighted intellectual property like comics, movies, book characters, and etc. And then being used in commercial use w/o permission then it might be subject to copyright infringement.

Like I said earlier, fanart of celebrities are fine, especially if their likeness is being used.
However, if we use trademarked icons, then it would be illegal to re/distribute goods without permission from the trademark holder.

Hence bh making this statement late 2019 about publications and counterfeit merch:

Going back to bts, are they (their likeness/faces) copyrighted? No. But they have their rights. Are their music, music videos, official logos, etc. Copyrighted? Yes. However, there is something called Fair Use.

Just like the meaning I mentioned before, the copyrighted material (or some parts) can be used as long as it is not directly copying or reproducing it.

For example, in daechwita, fanartists are recreating the scenes from the music video, can they be innsidered copyright infringement? No. Is it still under Fair Use? Yes. Since they are recreating those scenarios in their style.

Moving in to selling fanart, if they came from copyrighted figures, then yes they would be illegal. However for using celebrities' likeness, as far as I know, it is not totally illegal since their likeness is used.

It would be illegal if actual merchandise were being sold that didn't come from BH, it's considered counterfeit.