Selling the face
The plaint of the fanfic writer: "Why can fanartists get away with selling this shit and we can't?!"
Interestingly, in the abstract rather than the immediately-frustrated sense, only some fanartists are, in fact, on the right side of the law when they sell their work at the local con. The ones drawing live-action characters of any sort are generally in the clear, because human beings don't get to copyright or trademark their physical appearances no matter how famous they are. So all those paintings of "Aragorn" and "Snape" and "Mal" are quite legal to sell.
The costumer who designed what Mortensen-as-Aragorn is wearing may be able to raise a fuss, depending on how precisely the fanartist has reproduced her work. But Mortensen himself, and the studio too, are on the wrong side of all the precedents to object.
On the other hand, those pastels of Sailor Moon are quite illegal to sell. Sailor Moon is a work of visual art from the get-go. Copying that creative work recognizably and then selling it is an inarguable breach of copyright.
And the reason why the second fanartist is still getting away with it? Probably because the concom are just as confused as the rest of us about exactly what is and isn't copyrightable or trademarkable.
.
Interestingly, in the abstract rather than the immediately-frustrated sense, only some fanartists are, in fact, on the right side of the law when they sell their work at the local con. The ones drawing live-action characters of any sort are generally in the clear, because human beings don't get to copyright or trademark their physical appearances no matter how famous they are. So all those paintings of "Aragorn" and "Snape" and "Mal" are quite legal to sell.
The costumer who designed what Mortensen-as-Aragorn is wearing may be able to raise a fuss, depending on how precisely the fanartist has reproduced her work. But Mortensen himself, and the studio too, are on the wrong side of all the precedents to object.
On the other hand, those pastels of Sailor Moon are quite illegal to sell. Sailor Moon is a work of visual art from the get-go. Copying that creative work recognizably and then selling it is an inarguable breach of copyright.
And the reason why the second fanartist is still getting away with it? Probably because the concom are just as confused as the rest of us about exactly what is and isn't copyrightable or trademarkable.
.