Moving up in the world

[Dreamstalker]

Did some one say Plush Alot?

*squee* OMGIwantone.

[Seraph]

I heard of Disney suing a day care for painting pictures of the characters on the wall. You just DON'T want to mess with them!

That was the exact same thing I thought of too.

I even went to check and see if my memory served me right, and bam: http://www.snopes.com/disney/wdco/daycare.asp

[spark]

Yup. They've also specifically sued costume makers in the past. (Though googling those cases is hard, since "Disney costume lawsuit" brings up mostly a recent incident involving Donald Duck groping somebody...) I admittedly wasn't able to find anything at all about plushes, and I do consider making plushes less copyright-risky than making costumes (my rules are MUCH more strict for costumes, as there are additional legal factors involved) but with Disney my rule is "not with a 50 foot pole, not any of their characters, not any kind of art, no way, no how."

[Fire_on_High]

Halfway theoretical question...would you take a commission for a one-off plushie of a semi obscure mob from Everquest?

[spark]

Yeah, that kind of thing is fine.

I'm actually working on an update to my site that will cover my opinions on copyright in more detail, but there are a lot of things that I'm willing to make. Even many that are completely legal for various reasons and not in any sort of gray area. Though most fan plush are in a strange "well theoretically this is probably illegal but there is nearly zero legal precedent so nobody is actually sure, and nobody wants to sue you for it anyhow" territory.

[earl colby pottinger]

Lawyer Fees

Even your statement of $10,000 was too low; make it $100,000 min. for lawyer fees and a written contract that automaticily makes a co-defendant in any lawsuit that may occur.

Disney will spend $1,000,000 if needed to protect it's copyright. Notice it does not even really cost them that much (that is just internal billing) they have lawyers on as full time employees or exclusive contracts. They are already paid for, they need to justify their costs, they go looking for cases to keep their jobs.

Touch Disney copyright and you are looking at the next five years of your life being wasted, even if you win the case.

[spark]

....dude. NOBODY is going to pay $10k for one single handmade plush, ever. The number isn't how much I'd actually need to fight a Disney lawsuit, the number is how much I need to scare off idiots like this.