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According to the copyright laws that most first world nations subscribe to it is illegal to copy a part of whole of any original work without the author's (or other rights holder's) express permission.
So it is illegal to, for example, take an artist's print, copy it, and sell the copies.
Or to publicly distribute fanfiction or fanart.
Technically, the operation of the internet is illegal, too. After all, the loading of a page requires all text and images to be copied by the user's computer.
The issue in all three cases is the same one: copy and display of original work without the rights holder's permission. The range of these examples should give some indication of how confused the issue can get. I would hope that everyone recognizes the first example as a criminal activity, but I equally trust that no one will seriously propose prosecuting every internet user who visits a website containing copyrighted materials.
Technology in general has vastly complicated copyright issues, and the internet, perhaps, more than any other single example of current technology. The entire system depends on copying, yet posting an original work on any website is generally legally counted as publication with the automatic copyright protection that publication in any fixed medium entails. The question of just how fixed a medium the internet can be considered has, as yet, gone entirely unanswered in legal circles.
Of course, material print technology complicated the issue, too, and required some fine distinctions to be legally made. Say you buy a book or artbook. You own it, right? Right. So you can do anything you want with it, right? Well, not really. You can do anything you want except copy it. You can destroy it. You can have it bronzed. You can even cut it up and use it to make a collage, and display that collage as your own original work. All these things are legal. What you can not do is copy it in any way, except those specifically provided for under fair use (for purposes of reporting, commenting, researching, teaching, scholarship or parody). Your ownership of the material item does not transfer any copyrights to you, they all still belong to the author--you paid for a single copy, not the rights to make more. Rights are far more expensive. So if you scan an image from that artbook you own and use it as a background for your public website, that is illegal. If you alter the image, that just means you're guilty of two violations: copying and creating a derivative work, both without permission.
How, you may well ask, does altering the digital image differ from chopping the physical print up for a collage? The difference is that chopping up the physical print does not involve copying. Personally, I think that, as art production adopts more and more digital methods, a better answer will have to be found. But to date, none has.
Another area in which many questions are currently being steadfastly ignored, rather than answered, is fanwork. Fanfiction and fanart, particularly those examples that pride themselves on being faithful or canonically accurate representations of a given world or set of characters, are dancing with violation of copyright. They copy recognizable, distinctly delineated settings and characters from original works and deploy those copies in derivative works without permission of the original artists/rightsholders.
Scanlations and fansubs also copy and display without permission, and they are illegal regardless of whether or not the original works have been licensed for distribution by a local company. A local company is merely more likely to notice and object.
All these activities generally escape prosecution. Most examples are 1) very small in scope of distribution and 2) not being offered as commercial products and therefore are not in competition with the original work and its duly licensed derivatives. The injury done to the rights holders generally lies in the area of 'trademark dilution'--that is, the fanwork may disseminate a version or impression of the world/characters that the original artist considers damaging to the work's integrity. This is a harder legal case to make than simple economic damage, and the rights holder has to be pretty dedicated to pursue it. It is worth remembering, however, that lack of prosecution does not make fanfiction, fanart or fansubs legal.
It may also be worth noting that even statutory damages (the damages awarded the rights holder when there has been no economic infringement) run $10,000 for each count of knowing copyright infringement. And a disclaimer statement, such as is popular to offer with fanfiction, makes it clear that the copyright infringement was knowing. I leave my readers to contemplate the irony.
----
Corollary: illegal productions such as fanwork cannot, legally, be copyrighted themselves.
So it is illegal to, for example, take an artist's print, copy it, and sell the copies.
Or to publicly distribute fanfiction or fanart.
Technically, the operation of the internet is illegal, too. After all, the loading of a page requires all text and images to be copied by the user's computer.
The issue in all three cases is the same one: copy and display of original work without the rights holder's permission. The range of these examples should give some indication of how confused the issue can get. I would hope that everyone recognizes the first example as a criminal activity, but I equally trust that no one will seriously propose prosecuting every internet user who visits a website containing copyrighted materials.
Technology in general has vastly complicated copyright issues, and the internet, perhaps, more than any other single example of current technology. The entire system depends on copying, yet posting an original work on any website is generally legally counted as publication with the automatic copyright protection that publication in any fixed medium entails. The question of just how fixed a medium the internet can be considered has, as yet, gone entirely unanswered in legal circles.
Of course, material print technology complicated the issue, too, and required some fine distinctions to be legally made. Say you buy a book or artbook. You own it, right? Right. So you can do anything you want with it, right? Well, not really. You can do anything you want except copy it. You can destroy it. You can have it bronzed. You can even cut it up and use it to make a collage, and display that collage as your own original work. All these things are legal. What you can not do is copy it in any way, except those specifically provided for under fair use (for purposes of reporting, commenting, researching, teaching, scholarship or parody). Your ownership of the material item does not transfer any copyrights to you, they all still belong to the author--you paid for a single copy, not the rights to make more. Rights are far more expensive. So if you scan an image from that artbook you own and use it as a background for your public website, that is illegal. If you alter the image, that just means you're guilty of two violations: copying and creating a derivative work, both without permission.
How, you may well ask, does altering the digital image differ from chopping the physical print up for a collage? The difference is that chopping up the physical print does not involve copying. Personally, I think that, as art production adopts more and more digital methods, a better answer will have to be found. But to date, none has.
Another area in which many questions are currently being steadfastly ignored, rather than answered, is fanwork. Fanfiction and fanart, particularly those examples that pride themselves on being faithful or canonically accurate representations of a given world or set of characters, are dancing with violation of copyright. They copy recognizable, distinctly delineated settings and characters from original works and deploy those copies in derivative works without permission of the original artists/rightsholders.
Scanlations and fansubs also copy and display without permission, and they are illegal regardless of whether or not the original works have been licensed for distribution by a local company. A local company is merely more likely to notice and object.
All these activities generally escape prosecution. Most examples are 1) very small in scope of distribution and 2) not being offered as commercial products and therefore are not in competition with the original work and its duly licensed derivatives. The injury done to the rights holders generally lies in the area of 'trademark dilution'--that is, the fanwork may disseminate a version or impression of the world/characters that the original artist considers damaging to the work's integrity. This is a harder legal case to make than simple economic damage, and the rights holder has to be pretty dedicated to pursue it. It is worth remembering, however, that lack of prosecution does not make fanfiction, fanart or fansubs legal.
It may also be worth noting that even statutory damages (the damages awarded the rights holder when there has been no economic infringement) run $10,000 for each count of knowing copyright infringement. And a disclaimer statement, such as is popular to offer with fanfiction, makes it clear that the copyright infringement was knowing. I leave my readers to contemplate the irony.
----
Corollary: illegal productions such as fanwork cannot, legally, be copyrighted themselves.
